Nest thermostats can now control the rest of your house, including your garage door

CES 2015: the thermostat can now link up with Philips Hue lights, smart locks and driving assistants

Nest’s smart thermostat and smoke detector can now hook up to other parts of the internet of things — allowing them to talk to washing machines, cars and lights.

The company has extended its “Works with Nest” programme, which allows third-party kit to connect to the smart devices.

The new platform will mean that Philips Hue lights, which can change their colour and other settings over wifi, could glow red when the thermostat or smoke detectors sense a problem. And because the thermostat can detect when you are out of the house, appliances such as those made by Whirlpool can switch onto a refresh mode so that your washing is fresh when you get back.

The thermostat can also link to the Automatic driving assistant, so that it can warm up your house when the GPS system suggests that you’re on your way home. It can also link to your garage door in the same way — and can turn the heating off when it senses that you've left.

And it also links in with air conditioning firm Big Ass Fan’s products, meaning that the fans can redirect warm air to heat the house rather than turning the central heating on.

Other new members of the programme includes garage doors, cars, Kevo smart locks, webcams, sprinklers, phones, clocks, watches, music players and more. The full list and the ways they can be used are included on the “Works with Nest” programme’s page.