New Nest Thermostat hits FCC with 60GHz radar, hinting at Pixel 4-style Project Soli gestures

Google appears to have a new Nest Thermostat in the works, according to new FCC documentation. It could be equipped with Google’s Project Soli radar motion controls, in what would be a first for the company’s home products, as spotted by Droid Life.

There’s very little to go by in the current crop of documents, but the new Nest Thermostat (model G4CVZ) does have an interesting addition: not only will it offer 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0, it’ll be equipped with a 60GHz radar transmitter, similar to the one already used by the Pixel 4 for its Motion Sense gesture controls.

That’s particularly interesting, given that those Motion Sense features would actually make a lot of sense on a wall-mounted home thermostat. The ability for the thermostat to detect when you’re actually nearby and looking at it before turning on the display could help save power, and the gestures could be used to adjust the thermostat or swipe between menus from farther away.

Google is also long overdue for an updated Nest Thermostat. The most recent model, the cheaper Nest Thermostat E, was released in 2017 and the current third-gen flagship in 2015. While it’s not clear when Google will announce the new product, the company does typically hold a hardware event in the fall, meaning that it could appear alongside the already announced Pixel 4A 5G and Pixel 5.