Nest Google Accounts Are Now Available But Users Should Hold Off

Google's acquisition of Nest in 2014 set off some red flags but, for a few years, the tech giant let the nascent smart home company be its own man. It eventually "reabsorbed" Nest after a turbulent market period and then "rebranded" Nest into Google Nest to become a home for all of Google's smart home products. Now Google has kicked off the process to transition Nest owners to become Google users but said owners should probably wait a while before making such a big step.

Google's announcement at Google I/O last May that Nest would be its umbrella brand for smart home products was met with no small amount of worry and disappointment. For some Nest owners, Google is still antithetical to the privacy that Nest once promised. They barely tolerated Google's acquisition but now Google is pushing their buttons even further.

Google wants Nest owners to move their Nest accounts over to Google accounts. Google dangles the promise of a convenient single sign-on for both Google and Nest products and a better integration between the two. Nest owners, however, might not be so keen to hand over their personal data, not to mention their activities and presence, to Google despite its promise of better privacy protection from hackers and unauthorized logins.

Google has now given the green light for those who do want to migrate over to Google Accounts but does have one word of warning. Not all Works with Nest partners might be on board just yet and those might stop working if users jump immediately. It recommends waiting for the email invitation to make the process as painless as possible.

Google does assure that Amazon Alexa integration has already been prepared so those should work without problems. That was one of the concerns Nest users had because of the rivalry between the two companies. Fortunately, that wasn't the case, at least for Alexa skill.