Several years ago, Google acquired Nest, a company that specialized in smart and connected home devices like thermostats, smoke detectors, and so on. For the most part Nest and Google existed separate of each other, where they each did their own thing. However late last year, there were reports that Google could be looking to merge Nest with its hardware team.

It turns out the rumors were right because Google has officially announced that they will be folding Nest into its hardware team. However this seems to be mostly done for formality purposes because according to Google, since both teams already work so closely with each other, there will be little disruption, if at all.

According to Rick Osterloh, Google’s Senior Vice President of Hardware, “By working together, we’ll continue to combine hardware, software and services to create a home that’s safer, friendlier to the environment, smarter and even helps you save money—built with Google’s artificial intelligence and the Assistant at the core.”

He was also quoted in an interview with CNET where he said, “All of Google’s investments in machine learning and AI, they can very clearly benefit Nest products. It just makes sense to be developing them together. It’s the natural thing to evolve to.”

Nest To Merge With Google’s Hardware Team , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.