This week on Watt It Takes: how a former Apple engineer applied design principles from the iPod and the iPad to smart thermostats — jolting an industry badly in need of change.

Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch sits down with Matt Rogers, the co-founder and former chief product officer of Nest.

Nest is best known for its elegant learning thermostat, the first major breakout hit in the smart home space. Google later acquired the company for $3.2 billion. 

In this interview, Rogers talks about his Apple influence, how he and co-founder Tony Fadell initially became obsessed with the connected home, and how Nest fit into the Google structure.

Before Nest launched, “the connected home wasn’t really a thing. It was a bunch of hackers stringing things together; there were no products to speak of, really,” says Rogers. “And I was like, ‘This is a huge opportunity; we can go and make great products like we did at Apple.’”

This conversation was recorded live at Powerhouse’s headquarters in Oakland, California. Buy tickets for upcoming events.

Support for this podcast is brought to you by Sungrow. With the world’s most powerful 250-kilowatt, 1,500-volt string inverter, Sungrow is providing disruptive technology for utility-scale projects.

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