In an announcement made late this evening, Nest announced the project that seems all but inevitable: The Nest Developer Program, a project that will open up Nest's platform to developers—and connect existing Nest products to a broad array of other smart devices, from smart watches to washing machines.
The program is launching today in conjunction with Google I/O, which begins on Wednesday. It'll open up Nest to more than 5,000 developers who "who've expressed interest in the program to work together to create meaningful interactions among Nest products and others," according to the company.
But to kick things off, Nest also announced a handful of ready-made interactions that will be available for users immediately, connecting a number of other consumer devices with Nest's own platform. For example, your Jawbone device will let your thermostat know when you wake up or asleep, and adjust the temperate accordingly. Or, you can set up a IFTTT recipe yourself—want your Protect to text your neighbor if it smells smoke? Now, it can.
Whirlpool washers and dryers will now communicate with your thermostat and freshen up a cycle if you're away when it ends. There's even connectivity with the lightbulb startup LIFX (flash my lights red when there's smoke!), Chamberlain (let Nest know when I open or close my garage door!), and Mercedes-Benz's digital platform (tell Nest when I'm getting close!). You'll also be able to control Nest using Logitech's universal remote—and Google Now integration, starting this fall, will let you control everything from your Google account.
Those are just the launch partners, though. The idea behind the Developer Program is to open up Nest's platform to all manner of interested parties, from major corporations developing products to independent developers looking to create connections between two existing products. "The Nest Learning Thermostat and Nest Protect alarm are already helping people save energy, stay comfortable, and improve home safety – but that's only the beginning," said VP of Engineering, Matt Rogers, in a release. "Our goal has always been to bring this kind of thoughtfulness to the rest of your home and life – and that's what the Nest Developer Program is all about." And to fund it all, there's Things That Think: A fund backed by Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers that will focus on developers working on related projects.
Finally, Nest is also opening up its API. Developers will also have access to a huge amount of data through Nest's API, including information about "Home" and "Away" states, smoke and CO alerts, and peak energy rush hour events. This is particularly cool, since as we saw last week, Nest is just beginning to draw conclusions from the deep pool of data at its fingertips. Now, anyone in the world will be able to draw from that data pool, too. [Nest]