Google is moving into the internet-of-things space. Last year the company acquired smart thermostat maker Nest, and opened a developer program to let Nest products interact with third-party apps and devices. The company also acquired connected camera maker Dropcam.
More recently, Google introduced an Android-based operating system for connected devices called Brillo, which the company hopes will power Internet-of-Things hardware.
Now Google is getting ready to roll out a new Nest Cam that’s basically a next-gen Dropcam, as well as an app that will let you control all of your Nest products.
A few days ago documents showed up at the FCC that outlined plans for a new Nest Wireless camera with support for WiFi and Bluetooth. Then Droid Life published the first pictures of the camera, its companion mobile app, and a few more details about how the product will work.
All this comes about a week ahead of a Nest press event scheduled for June 17th.
It seems pretty clear that a next-gen camera is on the way, and that it’ll have a slimmer design, an improved setup process, support for 1080p video streaming, and a new Android app which lets  you check the status of and control your Nest thermostats, smoke detectors, and cameras.
So while Google is hoping third-party device makers will adopt its Brillo platform, the company is hard at work developing its own ecosystem of connected products for security, climate control, and safety.
Like Dropcam, the Nest Cam will make it easy to set up cameras to keep an eye on your pets while you’re at work or guard the house while you’re on vacation.
But at a time when many people are concerned about the privacy implications of giving huge corporations such as Google, Facebook, or Apple access to personal data… I have to wonder whether the idea of placing Google’s Nest cameras around your house is all that appealing?
Or if you’re already using Google Maps, Gmail, Search, and other tools… have you resigned yourself to the idea of trusting Google with your personal data?
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What Would Richard Stallman Do?
This whole idea of trusting Google with data is so blown out of proportion it’s unreal. Your ISP has just as much chance to know everything about you and is probably a lot less scrupulous. There are a ton of companies with a lot of technology tracking you around the web. And guess what – companies were doing the same thing before the web ever came around.
Both political parties in the US were using micro-targeting heavily by the early 2000s. Google was just six years old then. Micro-targeting relies on complex marketing knowledge tied to personal identification knowledge. The idea being they could target their resources on driving voting of people they had a good chance of moving out the door to the polls rather than squandering time/money/resources on mass callings.
It worked. It worked damned well. It worked because those marketing companies had that data – even then.
If you think you are anonymous with regard to marketers knowing personal information about you and you don’t live in a tree deep in the woods – then you’re wrong.
If you think Google not having data about you means all information about you is private – then you’re wrong.
This is just utter naivety. And I’m sorry if anyone reading this takes that as an insulting term but that’s exactly what it is. If you could remove every single bit of data about yourself from Google’s reach you would have achieved exactly nothing in your move toward total privacy. They simply aren’t the only player on the board. They are just the one you always hear about. I suppose that stems largely from the millions in whisper money Microsoft spent over the years to do exactly that.
Would I use a Google home camera – in a heartbeat if I like the service/pricing model. Dropcam was always neat but I wasn’t willing to pay their monthly fee. If Google has a better offer I’m all ears.
Let’s keep the number of voyeurs watching to an absolute minimum eh?
“Your ISP has just as much chance to know everything about you and is
probably a lot less scrupulous. There are a ton of companies with a lot
of technology tracking you around the web.”
True and worse enough – and therefore, I will not put any cameras on top of that…
For me, it will depend on how they work outside in the elements. That’s where I want Camera’s.
The future is the cloud… the *private* cloud. All those privacy violations mean just one thing. Waiting for a company that ‘gets’ it and offers a home server (probably NAS based) where all your IoT stuff connects to, and offers you that same nice interface as current cloud offerings. But your data stays yours, no snooping at your audio/video/presence.
I do not want my home data in the cloud – if a criminal gang finds a way to tap that cloud data, they can sell presence data to thieves. Now THERE is a huge market. No thanks!
I might be willing to use it for security, as in when I’m not around. Maybe use camera cozies the rest of the time… And they’d have to me mic-less… Then maybe…