Next Google Nest thermostat might support motion control, like Pixel 4

Folks who like to use Google technology to regulate the temperature in their homes might have a strange new way to do that soon.

Droid-Life spotted an FCC filing that appears to be for a new Nest Thermostat. There isn’t a ton to glean from this, as the filing only tells us that it supports WiFi, Bluetooth, and a 60Hz radar. That last bit is important, though, because it means the new Nest Thermostat might support the same motion gesture controls that 2019’s Pixel 4 smartphone supported.

In case you didn’t see this at the time, the Pixel 4 had a small sensor near the top of the phone that would read your hand movements without you actually touching the phone. You could swipe to skip songs in Spotify or snooze your alarm in the morning. As I noted in the review last year, the only problem is that it didn’t consistently work and didn’t always feel especially useful.

It also might have contributed to the Pixel 4’s below-average battery life. The more recent Pixel 4a phone nixed the motion gestures entirely and, in conjunction with a bigger battery, lasted a whole lot longer on a single charge.

Google could potentially improve on that and make it feel more natural and necessary for a Nest Thermostat. Maybe you could swipe left and right to increase or decrease the temperature as you idly walk by the thermostat on the wall. 

We don’t know when we’ll get official confirmation of the new Nest Thermostat, but expect at least one weird new feature when that happens.