If you use Nest’s home automation products, you can have them automatically detect when you’re home or away. If you are out, your Nest Thermostat can automatically turn down your heat to save you money while you’re out, your Nest Cam can start monitoring your house for movement when you’re not there, and your Nest Protect smoke detector can test its alarm when nobody’s home to be disturbed by it.
But that means users need to trust the Alphabet company’s cloud platform with what almost anyone would agree is some very sensitive data: There’s a reason a 2010 website that collected public social media check-ins away from home was called Please Rob Me.
That’s part of the reason why, Nest officials say, the company takes security and privacy into account from the instant new features begin to be designed.
“We start by defining the security requirements in that product at the same time that we’re defining the value proposition for the customer in that product,” says Jim Alkove, Nest’s vice president for security and privacy.
At the same time the company’s product teams are considering the use cases for a feature, and what customer problems it will be able to solve with that feature, they’re also considering how to make that feature secure and how to make sure customers know they can trust it, affirms Greg Hu, a group product manager for the Nest Platform and Works With Nest third-party product integration program. Nest surveys and talks with customers to make sure they understand and feel they can rely on the safeguards the company is building.
“When we design the feature, we want to make sure there’s a level of transparency to the customer, so they understand there’s control and their data is secured in the right way,” he says.
For instance, the company recently rolled out a new Family Accounts feature, which lets people who share a home with others allow different control levels of their Nest devices across each of their household’s smartphones. Nest makes sure to notify family members when someone is added to or removed from the group.
