'Nest Audio' Job Listing Suggests Voice Control Could Be The Future

Nest wants to be the central hub of your home, which was made evident by their 'Works with Nest' platform, introduced last year. By allowing other IoT gadgets to link to Nest's new platform, your home is tied together via the thermostat, of all things. Though third-party support will remain intact, it seems Nest is also extending their own reach into your home. A new job listing for 'Nest Audio' wants someone who can head the new team, though it's not exactly clear why just yet.

Logically, it seems as though Nest is working on supporting voice control throughout your home, or perhaps even a home assistant like Alexa from Amazon. The job listing was light on details, but is a start-from-scratch position, where applicants will have to "develop an audio roadmap for Nest products".

The job listing also asks that whoever may head-up 'Nest Audio' has "deep technical knowledge into complex audio systems and audio development in both hardware and software". That suggests Nest will alter their API a bit for those partners who want to integrate sound into their devices, and have Nest do all the heavy lifting.

Walking through your home, you might say "turn the heat up in here" to your space heater or thermostat. Nest's platform could then register your voice command, and by virtue of where it picked up the prompt, know you were in the office and heat the room or space accordingly.

Given the reach Nest has — and could have — a whole-home concierge sounds pretty exciting. Then again, Nest still hasn't brought a reliable smoke alarm to market, so the potential is also scary. Luckily, this new Nest Audio lead isn't expected to have a quick turnaround, as the job listing notes it's a very forward-looking job at this time. For now, there are no Nest Audio/2001: Space Odyssey jokes to make.

Source: Nest Audio

Via: TechCrunch