It was fun while it lasted, but with HomeKit devices appearing on store shelves, the Google-owned Nest Learning Thermostat is disappearing from the Apple Store.
If you check out the Apple Store online or in-person, you won’t find the famous smart thermostat co-created by former Apple exec Tony Fadell. In its place, the Apple Store is now selling the HomeKit-enabled Ecobee3.
That’s not to say that you can’t find non-HomeKit devices in Apple’s connected home section, but the Nest Thermostat isn’t most smart home devices, as Mashable points out. It’s probably the most well-known thermostat ever—save perhaps the near-ubiquitous Honeywell brand of not-so-smart home temperature regulators—and the most talked-about smart home device.
Nest is also now under the control of Apple-rival Google, which wasn’t the case when Nest first landed in the Apple Store. Corporate rivalries aside, this appears to be more about giving favored status to HomeKit devices. Dumping Nest makes sense for Apple and for users who’ll expect to buy devices from the company that work with HomeKit.
Nest was apparently removed from the Apple Store earlier in July, but is only getting attention now with the first wave of HomeKit-compatible devices rolling out.
The story behind the story: This isn’t the first time Apple has removed items from its stores in favor of its own products. Leading up to the Apple Watch release with its fitness tracking features, activity bands including Fitbit, Jawbone, and Nike Fuelband were removed from the Apple Store between November and March. Jawbone returned to the Apple Store a few months later.
No HomeKit nesting
While you can’t order the Nest thermostat from Apple anymore, the product is available from Google’s online store—though iOS users holding out hope for Nest HomeKit integration are probably going to be disappointed. The removal from the Apple Store in favor of a HomeKit-enabled product makes it pretty clear Nest is not interested in joining Apple’s platform right now.
There’s always hope, however. In January, Nest told the International Business Times it was looking at the “possibility” of working with Apple’s HomeKit.
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