Nest CEO Sets the Record Straight: It "Wasn"t a Real Recall" - Webmaster News

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Nest

RANCHOS PALOS VERDES, Calif. — Product recalls are embarrassing and can be potentially damaging for hardware manufacturers. Perhaps that’s why Nest founder and CEO Tony Fadell sought to set the record straight on the recent recall of some 440,000 Nest Protect smoke detectors.

But Fadell said it “was not a recall” during an interview with Walt Mossberg at Re/code’s Code Conference on Wednesday. He noted that Nest is constantly testing the product and discovered a situation in which an alarm could be delayed. The anomaly was related to a core Nest feature: the ability to wave at the detector and silence it while, say, cooking bacon.

Within days of discovering the issue (even though, as Fadell noted, there were no reported incidents), Nest turned off the feature. Six weeks later, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which certifies Nest and other smoke detectors, publicly reported the incident as a recall.

“We did all the right stuff within first few days and then six weeks later, they post ‘Nest recalls,’” Fadell said. “It’s not a recall, you’re gonna confuse people.” Regardless, Nest has offered a full refund to any Nest Protect owner who requests it.

Several months after Google acquired Nest for $3.2 billion in cash, the two companies are still getting to know each other. Fadell said he meets regularly with Google cofounder Sergey Brin and other teams at Google to see discuss possible tech synergies. That said, Nest still runs very much as a separate company. Fadell emphasized the point said on Wednesday that “there is no co-mingling of data” with Google.

While Fadell had little to say about the just-announced $3 billion Beats acquisition, he spoke up about the Internet of Things. Although Nest thermostats are Wi-Fi enabled and Internet aware, he hates the term.

“Internet of Things is a term for this audience, not for consumers,” Fadell said. “People don’t buy things, they buy applications or a product for a certain specific purpose.”

Nest isn’t particularly interested in building wearable technology, either. “We’re not building products that are mobile or wearable,” the cofounder said. This may be a sensible move, considering Nest’s parent company is interested in building both.

Finally, Fadell shared a bit of startup wisdom for entrepreneurs seeking to build their first product. He warned them against focusing on the hardware. His typical question for entrepreneurs is, “What problem are you trying to solve for the user?” If the person can articulate an answer, Fadell tells them to make a software version it.

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Source: http://mashable.com/2014/05/29/tony-fadell-nest-recall-comments/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=rss