Google says its Nest Renew service will merge with the OhmConnect energy management platform to form the company Renew Home, with $100M from Alphabet-backed SIP
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
Renew Home extends Google’s long-running effort to consolidate Nest inside its broader product organization: Nest was returned to Google’s hardware group and its platform team had earlier been folded into a unified Google IoT effort.
The move also follows Google’s replacement of Works with Nest with a Google Assistant-centered partner program, making a combined home-energy business another step away from Nest operating as a separate platform.
First-order effects
- Nest Renew and OhmConnect are being combined under the Renew Home name, concentrating their energy-management efforts in one company.
- The $100M investment from Alphabet-backed SIP gives Renew Home dedicated capital as it combines the two services.
Second-order effects
- The combined business becomes a more substantial rival for home-energy management providers, pairing Google’s Nest relationship with OhmConnect’s platform rather than competing as separate offerings.
- Partners and users of the two services will have to assess how Renew Home’s product, data, and program relationships are unified as the merger proceeds.
Third-order effects
- If the combination proves durable, smart-home platforms may increasingly treat energy management as a standalone operating business rather than a feature attached to connected devices.
- The deal points toward more consolidation between consumer smart-home ecosystems and services designed to coordinate household energy use, though Renew Home’s eventual operating model is not yet specified.
The trend: Consumer smart-home companies are moving beyond device control toward consolidated energy-management services with dedicated financing.