A profile of ADT, which helps Google sell and install Nest smart home products, ahead of unveiling its ADT+ smart home security software and hardware in 2023
Kneeling beneath a framed print of Thomas Kinkade's painting A Peaceful Retreat, Roli Chiu, alarm system installer … Tweets: @austincarr Tweets: Austin Carr / @austincarr : ADT got started in home security ~150 years ago as the American District Telegraph Co. It's now trying to help Google take over the smart home and defeat Amazon. New @BW profile of the dominant player in blue yard signs, with @mhbergen: https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This profile lands mid-arc for ADT. After its 2017 NYSE IPO at a reported $15B+ valuation with Apollo Global Management keeping control, the company repositioned itself as Google's field force: the $450M investment for a 6.6% stake made ADT the seller and installer of Nest smart home products, pairing its century-plus installation network with Google's hardware ambitions against Amazon.
The Bloomberg piece frames what that bet buys: a dominant brand in blue yard signs now carrying Nest into homes, ahead of the planned 2023 unveiling of ADT+ software and hardware — the strategy that later surfaced as ADT Self Setup, a SimpliSafe-style system tied into nearly all Nest products.
First-order effects
- ADT's installers become Google's de facto sales channel for Nest, giving Google something Amazon's Ring lacks at scale: professional installation inside homes where the yard sign already carries trust.
- For ADT, the Google tie-in shifts its pitch from alarm monitoring alone to a bundled smart-home offering, with ADT+ as the software layer tying its sensors to Nest devices.
Second-order effects
- DIY security players like SimpliSafe face a hybrid rival that offers both self-setup hardware and a professional-installation option backed by Google's ecosystem, pressuring their price-led positioning.
- Amazon must answer on installation and monitoring integration for Ring, since Google+ADT attacks the weakest link in its otherwise device-led smart home stack.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, home security consolidates around big-tech ecosystems where legacy firms supply the trucks, installers, and monitoring contracts while platform owners supply the software — turning installation networks, not devices, into the durable asset.
- The Google–ADT structure also sets up a two-bloc smart home market (Google/Nest versus Amazon/Ring), with independent security vendors squeezed toward one ecosystem or the other.
The trend: Smart home competition is shifting from who makes the devices to who controls installation and monitoring, with legacy security firms becoming the distribution arms of platform giants.