[4] After college, Fadell worked for Apple spinoff General Magic for three years, working with Sony, Philips, Matsushita, Toshiba and other consumer electronics firms in the "General Magic Alliance" to develop a line of personal handheld communicators.

[5] In 1995, he was hired by Philips where he co-founded their Mobile Computing Group and served as the chief technology officer, and director of engineering.

He developed a number of Windows CE-based hand-held devices, notably the Philips Velo and Nino PDA.

[7] In July 1999, Fadell started his own company called Fuse to develop the "Dell of the Consumer Electronics".

Fuse failed, however, to find a second round of funding, and Fadell started exploring developing the product at other companies.

[9][10] Fadell found support for his business idea of an MP3 player complemented by an online music store in Apple.

[7] His idea for a small hard disk-based music player and an online-store-for-music had caught Steve Jobs's attention.

[15] While building his energy-efficient home near Lake Tahoe in California, Fadell searched for a thermostat and was frustrated by the limited features, high cost and lack of energy efficiency gains provided by available devices.

After he left Apple, he spent time around the world and realized people everywhere were having similar energy saving dilemmas as he was in his Tahoe house.