The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Google

Google’s Nest to resume sale of smoke detectors

Author

By John Glenday, Reporter

May 22, 2014 | 2 min read

Google subsidiary Nest Labs, specialists in internet-enabled household gadgets, has announced that it is to resume the sale of Nest Protect smoke detectors within weeks following the recall of 400,000 devices last year.

The safety devices were found to be unreliable when a motion detection system was turned on that allowed people to switch the alarm off simply by waving their arms. A study by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission found this could prevent the device from working correctly during a real fire.

No reports of any damage or injury have resulted from this flaw but Nest was nevertheless compelled to switch the functionality off to eliminate the risk by remotely updating its software.

Spokeswoman Kate Brinks said: “Nothing has changed since our initial announcement last month,” she said. “Current customers can continue to use their Nest Protects once the Nest Wave feature has been disabled via software update. Even with the Wave feature disabled, the Nest Protect Alarm will continue to perform its essential safety functions, monitoring for increased levels of smoke and CO.”

Nest, founded by former Apple designers Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, made headlines earlier this year when it was snapped up by search giant Google for the princely sum of $3.2bn.

Google

More from Google

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +