This device helps monitor and regulate your home temperature so you don’t have to

Photo credit: Lee Haywood

There’s the simple pleasures in life and then there are air conditioners. Nothing is more satisfying than escaping the searing heat outside by finding refuge in a cool room chilled to near-polar temperatures by a reliable air con. That is, of course, until you get the electricity bill.

Because air conditioners are programmed on achieving a specific temperature and dependent on the user setting that temperature manually, it’s impossible for them to regulate cooling in line with external conditions. Hence the mammoth electricity bills. How many times have you woken up in the middle of the night to increase the temperature because it’s freezing cold? That’s a sign your cooling unit is spewing out more cold air than it should, and utilizing some expensive electricity in the process.

That’s the problem Ambi Climate aims to solve. The Hong Kong-based hardware startup builds a rectangular gizmo that interacts with your AC for personalized comfort. It claims up to 30 percent energy savings.

The idea behind Ambi Climate came after founder Julian Lee wanted to provide a comfortable environment for his beloved husky, who would otherwise not be able to handle the summer heat. Julian understood that it was far too expensive to run his AC 24/7 but couldn’t find any suitable solutions to remotely monitor and control the environment. So he took it upon himself to engineer one.

Ambi Climate presumes that comfort is based on more than just temperature. The device uses proprietary software algorithms and gathers environmental data to determine the optimum temperature. These could be factors like the season, time of day, and activity levels. It then communicates with air conditioners via infrared to set optimum temperatures.

There’s also a smartphone app which allows users to remotely switch their devices on and off.

The device is pretty easy to set up and relies completely on wireless signals with no cumbersome cords needed. There’s a wealth of analytics built in as well as the ability to manually set operating conditions such as a minimum temperature and humidity levels.

It’s getting hot in here

The Ambi Climate team claims approximately 450 million households across the world run ACs, with two-thirds of them based in Asia. They’ve narrowed their focus down to about 50 million “high value” households, spread across eight key markets. The gizmo currently retails for about US$179.

“ACs are the single largest driver of electricity demand – accounting for as much as 30 percent of residential energy consumption […] we have conducted over 50 interviews and surveyed over 4,000 AC users across the region. 75 percent of respondents report challenges with staying comfortable with their AC,” says Liz Choi, communications manager of Ambi Climate.