If the quality of business is related to the quality of human comfort then JULIAN LEE, Founder and CEO of AMBI LABS has reason to celebrate.
The brain child of Julian Lee, Ambi Climate, the flagship product of Ambi Labs, is the smart add-on for air conditioners that puts your comfort first. Whether it’s turning on your AC before you get home, or setting rules and timers for when you’re out of the house, Ambi Climate smart-enables your AC to give you seamless control.
Teach Ambi Climate how warm or cool you feel, and its AI-driven algorithms will adjust your AC for tailored comfort with energy savings. It’s perfect for the eco-conscious, pet owners and parents alike.
Finding the Path
Julian Lee, Founder and CEO of AMBI LABS.
“Initially we started with a relatively simple concept. I have a 13-year old husky at home who suffers from the hot temperatures in the summer. At the same time, it is expensive and non-environmentally friendly to run an AC 24/7, so I was hoping for a smartphone-controlled interface to my home AC so that I could monitor and control the environment. As I looked around online for ways to build this, I saw many other electronics hobbyists building similar DIY solutions – so I pulled in co-founders Tim and Paul, and Ambi Labs was born,” says Lee.
“After building the initial prototype, we put our concept before our friends and users from other countries, and requested feedback. Our friends were unimpressed in general – with some even mentioning SMS controlled air conditioners from the late 1990s. However, as we conducted this user research in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan, a common complaint surfaced – difficulty in controlling the AC to maintain constant comfort.
Personalised Comfort
There are so-called “smart ACs”, which offer schedules or location-based rules, but ultimately aren’t much more than glorified remotes. Then there’s Ambi Climate. Ambi Climate knows that comfort is more than temperature and measures all the key factors that affect your comfort including humidity, weather, sunlight and more. It uses this understanding to build a personalised profile then auto-adjusts your AC for optimal comfort and energy savings.
“We wanted to specifically address the needs of lifestyle patterns in Asia. We know that air-con usage habits in Asia are very different from those in the US. While many households in the US leave their air-con on all day, users in Asia only turn on the air-con when needed. So while a feature like geo-location can help you save a lot if you normally leave the air-con on all the time, most people in Asia don’t.
In contrast, the biggest conservation challenge in Asia is to do with overcooling. Many Asian AC users typically use just one favourite temperature setting, and do not alter their settings much during the course of the day. However, thermal comfort is not dependent on temperature alone. Many other factors also impact your comfort, e.g. humidity, metabolism levels, and even changes in outdoor weather conditions. From our user data, we know that on average, temperature accounts for only 50% of thermal comfort and even this figure can range drastically from one person to another. For example, when you wake up in the morning, your metabolism is low so you may feel a bit chilly. Or perhaps you have a room that gets a lot of sunlight during the day. Furthermore, humidity affects people to differing extents.”
Built to Serve
“Ambi Climate learns your preferences to automatically adjust the air conditioner taking into account all of these factors, holistically.
It gathers sensor data from your environment, including seasonal influences, time of day, activity levels, and other factors to balance comfort with energy consumption, thereby eliminating energy waste caused by overcooling. The result? Better comfort and greater energy savings, Lee explains.
“Similar to competing products such as Sensibo and Tado, Ambi Climate connects any remote-controlled air conditioner to the Internet, giving you seamless control over your AC via smartphone. It’s easy to setup and provides useful features such as timers and rules for scheduling your AC to turn on while you’re away or remotely accessing your AC when you’re on your way home.
Our primary differentiator is our comfort-focused approach. While we provide the same functionality as most smart AC products, we take intelligent climate control one step further. Ambi Climate’s smart algorithms auto-adjust the AC for better comfort and energy savings.”
“We have found success lies in providing an excellent end-to-end user experience. From the simple setup process to seeing savings on your monthly energy bill, with Ambi Climate we strive to deliver technology that “just works”. Our users appreciate that using Ambi Climate on a daily basis is easy. It seamlessly blends into their lifestyle but provides significant convenience, improved comfort and increased energy savings,” concludes Lee.
For additional information please visit www.ambiclimate.com
Exclusive video interview with Julian Lee at the “Mediazone’s Most Valuable Services Awards in Hong Kong 2016”
