Google’s next Internet-connected home device will test whether consumers trust the company to pay attention to their sleep.
New sleep-sensing technology The latest version of Google’s Nest Hub, the 7-inch smart screen, will be unveiled on Tuesday. Like the previous generation, the $ 100 Nest Hub can handle fielding questions and household chores and also show pictures and videos through Google’s voice-activated assistant. It does not even have a camera.
But the latest Nest Hub’s new moves may help differentiate it from similar devices, such as Amazon’s Echo Show, while providing a springboard for Google also helps people become more involved in managing their help.
If you allow this, the device will also monitor your sleeping pattern from your bedside, negating the need to wear a fitness device or any other potentially annoying gadget in the bed. The feature, which Google intends to offer for free through at least this year, relies on a new chip called Google Soli, which uses radar to detect motion, including a Depth of breathing of the person is also included.
Nest Hub is about to generate weekly sleep reports with an easy-to-understand breakdown on the length and quality of sleep, how often a user wakes up at night and the frequency of snoring and coughing, as well as tips developed in consultation with the American Academy. with. Sleeping medicine.
Google says it honored the technology by studying 15,000 sleepers over a combined 110,000 nights.
This kind of help can make millions of people who have trouble sleeping. But the feature can also raise privacy concerns – especially Google’s long history of online history in which it helps sell personal ads to collect personal details to show interests, habits and whereabouts that generate most of its revenue .
Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a consumer and privacy rights group, said it also underscored Google’s clear intention to expand its net into new areas of people’s lives in its tireless quest to make more money. Does.
“Google’s goal is to monetize every cell in your body,” Chester said.
The Sleep Sensing feature will remain free through the rest of this year, but Google may eventually sell it as a subscription service, acknowledged Ashton Udall, Google Nest’s senior product manager.
The company may eventually change the feature to work with its Fitbit line of fitness equipment, which Google Took office in January. The $ 2.1 billion purchase has raised concerns that Google may use those gadgets more deeply in people’s personal health.
Google is emphasizing privacy protection built into the sleep sensing feature. For starters, users have to turn it on themselves. Nest Hub will also control what Google says will make it clear when sleep tracking is on and it will be easier to remove data from the device.
All audio will be placed on the device, meaning it will not be sent to Google’s data centers, although other sleep information will be given to analyze and generate reports. Udal said that any information collected through the sleep sensing feature will not be used to sell advertisements.
But Chester is skeptical about that pledge. For example, knowing a person’s ways to sleep can help Google know when a person is feeling anxious or ill, Chester said, and those insights can affect ads that Advertise to show.
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