Nest CEO and co-founder Tony Fadell resigns

Tony Fadell, co-founder and CEO of US home automation company Nest, is stepping down. According to him, this is of its own accord and the transition has been in progress since the end of last year. His place is taken by Marwan Fawaz, who was CEO of Motorola Home, among other things.

Fadell states that the transition is so well prepared that a roadmap is ready for Fawaz that covers the next two years. The former CEO and co-founder of Nest will still remain involved with the company as an advisor to Alphabet and its CEO Larry Page. Fadell told The New York Times that he has no concrete plans for the near future, but that he will “look at technology startups.”

Marwan Fawaz was head of Motorola Home, the company’s division responsible for set-top boxes. In addition, he was CTO for two different American telecom companies.

Fadell founded Nest in 2011 and then introduced the well-known Nest Learning Thermostat, a smart thermostat that learns the owner’s usage pattern and helps reduce energy consumption. In 2014, Google acquired the company for an amount of 2.3 billion euros. Nest is also known for the Protect smoke detector and the Cam security camera.

Nest has been in troubled waters for some time now. After the success of the Nest Learning Thermostat, the company was unable to expand its offering with other successful home automation products. This while the market for such applications is improving. Nest’s Revolv smarthome hub was blacked out last month, rendering owners of the $300 device useless. The company’s thermostat also suffered from modulation issues. In addition, there also seem to be problems behind the scenes at the company; Nest would struggle to keep its staff and make enough profit.