Alphabet folds Nest into Google to better take on Amazon Alexa

Your favorite Nest products may soon get a lot better.

In a blog post published Wednesday, Nest CEO Marlan Farwaz and its senior vice president of hardware, Rick Osterloh, announced that smart home appliance maker Nest Labs is joining Google, Alphabet's biggest subsidiary.

Google acquired Nest in 2014, but spun it off as a separate division following its restructuring into Alphabet Inc. the following year. After operating as a division of Alphabet Inc. for three years, Nest is a part of Google once again.

As Google continues its hardware war with Amazon's Echo and Alexa, Nest's hardware team will be an an asset.

Nest has shipped more than 11 million products since its first thermostat went on sale in 2011, Nest executives told CNET. With Nest under its wing, Google will have an easier time incorporating Google Assistant into Nest's products, cornering an untapped portion of the market for voice-assisted smart devices.

It's currently possible to control Nest thermostats and cameras with Google Assistant through a Google Home or smartphone, but no Nest devices are currently enabled with a voice assistant.

The move will also allow Google to modify and streamline its hardware efforts. Nest's engineers could work closely with the teams behind products such as the Google Home, Google Pixel, and the Pixelbook, to bring such devices into its smart home ecosystem.

A Nest spokesperson told Mashable that in the next few years, we can expect "better integrations with the Google Assistant within Nest products, easier interoperability between Google Home, Chromecast, and Nest, and deeper investment in AI across the products." We could also see retail bundles incorporating products from both brands.

One thing's for sure: There's a lot more Google Assistant to come.

We've contacted Google for this story and will update this article when we hear from them.