Just in time for the upcoming summer heat, European home climate control company tado° today announces the official launch of its Smart AC Control in the U.S. and Europe. The new cooling solution turns any remote controlled air conditioner into a smart device by automatically saving energy when you’re away while ensuring a cool home when you return.
With 2014 officially the hottest year on record, air conditioner use is at an all-time high and is growing rapidly. The U.S. uses more air conditioning than any other country, with almost 90% of American households running ACs. This costs Americans over $11 billion a year in energy and emits over 100 million tons of carbon dioxide.
With its Smart AC Control, tado° makes any air conditioner smart. Speaking at the official launch in New York City, Christian Deilmann, CEO & founder of tado°, announced: “Our #smartNYC mission starts today as we aim to smarten up 100,000 of the city’s AC units by June 2016”. With its high density of air conditioners, New York City is the perfect starting point for tado° to usher in a new era of cooling, both in the U.S. and globally.”
tado° works by using your smartphone’s location to automatically adapt your air conditioner to your behavior. The geo-aware app on your phone senses when you leave the house and turns off the air conditioner. As soon as you start approaching home, tado° starts pre-cooling so you always come back to a comfortable house, without having to lift a finger. With its fully automatic climate control, tado° not only makes your home more comfortable, but also helps you save up to 40% on energy costs.
“No more compromises,” says Christian Deilmann. “Until now, you had to decide whether to enjoy the full comfort of a cool home by leaving your air conditioner running all day or to switch it off when you leave to save money and energy. At tado° we believe in state-of-the-art smart technology that automatically ensures that no energy is wasted. With the new tado° Smart AC Control we’ve created a completely new way to cool our homes.”
No matter where you are – on the commute, on holiday or at work – with the tado° app on your phone you always know what the temperature is at home and you can easily change the settings. The sleek and elegant tado° device blends into the ambience of your home, while offering a matrix LED display and capacitive touch interface for quick and easy manual adjustments.
The tado° hardware is already packed with sensors, such as: temperature, humidity, light, noise, motion and BLE. “Not all of them are being used right now,” explains Christian. “The beauty of connected devices is that they will get better with every update and all existing users will benefit in the same way as new customers.”
tado° can connect to any remote-controlled in-room AC (85% worldwide). Compatible with split (wall-mounted), in-window, or portable AC units, tado° is easy to set up. It connects to the air conditioner via infrared (IR) and links to the internet using your home’s WiFi – no additional cabling needed. It can be mounted on a wall or placed on a surface.
From today, the tado° Smart AC Control is available worldwide for $199 directly from www.tado.com. Online and offline retail partners will follow in the coming months. The tado° app can be downloaded for free for iOS and Android, with a Windows Phone app coming soon.