with Internet of Things being all the rage, we can’t help but to notice that older home appliances, such as the good’ol AC units, are being left in the cold. we can’t say everything that is non-connected in the home can be inducted into your home automation network, but one thing for sure is, with the tado Cooling, you can turn virtually any types of AC system (as long as it has a remote) into a smart one. in addition to being able to remotely turn on and off the AC wherever you may be using your smartphone, tado Cooling also supports indoor presence detection to turn on when you are in the room, or turn off when you step out. tado communicates with your AC unit via infrared, just like remote does, and connects to your smartphone through your local WiFi network.
thanks to the companion app’s geolocation services, tado will know when you leave your home or if you are on your way back. with this information at hand, the device will then turn off or on the AC accordingly. for those live in countries with extreme heat, we bet you will appreciate the aforementioned feature, cos’ you will be entering into a pre-cooled room instead of a sauna or oven. tado uses Bluetooth LE to detect your smartphone as you move around the house and adjust the temperature to adapt accordingly. it also has a built-in humidity sensor, allowing you to set your desired humidity level and tado will ‘tweak’ the AC to maintain the set humidity level.
taking a minimalistic design approach, the hardware features a LED matrix provides an elegant and discreet way of displaying information when you need it, while a capacitive surface lets you manually control the AC unit. the tado Cooling can be yours if you back the project on its Kickstarter campaign page. the early backer special has run out, but you can still pre-order one for 99 bucks there is also a limited color edition, if the standard hospital white is not your cuppa, but that will set you back at $179. of course, all these will only materialize if it reaches its target funding goal of $150K.
