Coming Soon: Google Ads on thermostats, refrigerators and car dashboards!

Targeted ads have popped up in Facebook, Instagram and Twitter feeds as well as inside mobile apps and more. That said, it shouldn’t really be a surprise that Google has seemingly explored the possibilities of beaming those advertising bits to some rather unique places. The company has told the Securities and Exchange Commission, in a letter concerning mobile revenue disclosure, that it may choose to serve ads on “refrigerators, car dashboards, thermostats, glasses, and watches, to name just a few possibilities.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google made the statement in support of its contention that it shouldn’t have to break out ad revenue from mobile devices.

Google argued that it doesn’t make sense to break out mobile revenue since the definition of mobile will “continue to evolve” as more “smart” devices roll out.

“Our expectation is that users will be using our services and viewing our ads on an increasingly wide diversity of devices in the future,” the company said in the filing.

While the statement is purely a defensive one – the company not wanting to share more data than it has to with competitors – the specific thermostat example seems unlikely to have been chosen completely randomly.

Google added the Nest smart thermostat to Google Play three months after purchasing the company. Nest remains on sale in Apple stores, both retail and online.

Nest was created by former Apple engineer, also known as the ‘father of the iPod’ Tony Fadell. Fadell sought to allay concerns about Google’s acquisition of the company soon after it was announced, promising that all data collected by Nest was used only to improve the product, and that any changes to that policy would be opt-in. Nothing was said about serving non-personalized ads, however.

Audi, Honda and other auto makers have ported the mobile OS into vehicles, Android Wear is set to sort smartwatches and we’ve also seen smart fridges and ovens at CES for years now.