General Electric and idea accelerator company Quirky have launched Aros, an app-enabled air-conditioning unit that gathers information based on users' habits, cost of energy, and budget to automatically maintain the ideal temperature and maximize savings for the home. Much like Nest's Learning Thermostat, the unit gets “smarter” over time, ensuring that the environment is never too hot or cold.
Aros was the idea of Garthen Leslie of Columbia, Maryland, who spent years helping to cut costs and conserve resources at the Department of Energy. Leslie said that it was his own dysfunctional air-conditioner that sparked the idea for Aros.
“I was tired of choosing between wasting energy or suffering through the stuffy summer heat,” he said.
Dreaming of a smarter air-conditioner designed for the modern day, Leslie submitted his idea to Quirky. Months later, with the help of more than 2,000 community members and over 80 years of GE’s experience with AC units, Aros was created. The unit is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com and will be available at major US retailers in May.
Aros product features Include:
- Smart Schedule — Learns your usage patterns to automatically build a schedule for you.
- Smart Away — Aros will power itself down when you have left your home, and will prepare your desired temperature before you return.
- Smart Budget — The smart budget will predict your future costs using your schedule, weather data, and past usage information. Enter a budget for the month, and users will get notifications when they are approaching their limit.
- Control From Anywhere — Can be powered and controlled from anywhere in the world through the WINK app.
- Power — 8,000 BTU in-window air-conditioning can cool up to 350 sq. ft.
- Easy Installation — Easy to install and fits into almost any window, with sliding fabric extensions that keep cold air in and hot air out.
- Multi-Speed and Cooling — Multi-speed fan with three fan speeds and three cooling modes.
- Washable Filter — Includes a washable filter that is easy to remove and clean.
- MSRP — $300.00
“After receiving the submission for this invention, it was clear that this was a product that absolutely needed to exist, but a challenge that most companies would shy away from," said Quirky founder and CEO Ben Kaufman. “With the support of GE’s technology expertise, scale, and supply chain, we were able to focus our efforts on leveraging our community's ideas into a beautifully designed product where every aspect of the product's interaction was attended to.”
In other GE news, the company recently renewed its ecomagination commitment, a sustainability initiative that seeks to find technology solutions that save money and reduce environmental impact for its customers and operations. Since its 2005 launch, GE says ecomagination has generated more than $160 billion in revenue. The company’s own operations have seen a 34 percent reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions since 2004 and a 47 percent reduction in freshwater use since 2006, realizing $300 million in savings.
And in November, GE Power & Water announced it is developing a technology with South African chemical and energy company Sasol that cleans wastewater while producing biogas as a by-product. The technology, known as Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor Technology (AnMBR), is being further developed at a new demonstration plant at Sasol's R&D Campus at its Sasol One Site in Sasolburg, the companies say.
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Founder & Principal Consultant, Hower Impact
Mike Hower is the founder of Hower Impact — a boutique consultancy delivering best-in-class strategic communication advisory and support for corporate sustainability, ESG and climate tech.
Published Apr 15, 2014 10am EDT / 7am PDT / 3pm BST / 4pm CEST