Aros Is an Innovative, Energy-Saving Air Conditioner You Can Control with Your Smartphone
If this summer is as schizophrenic as this winter, you’ll likely be spending some up close and personal time with your air conditioner. But that relationship comes with a price (in the form of a very high electric bill).
A new air conditioner by the name of Aros will evaluate your budget, schedule, and usage to help monitor your energy consumption, so you don’t have to sweat over saving cash.
A collaboration between General Electric and the inventors community website Quirky, Aros is designed to blow air up, not forward, to increase circulation in a room. Its control panel is buttonless, instead relying on touch-capacitive sensors to switch among three different fan speeds. It also packs an 8,000 BTU cooling capacity (which is 3,000 more than your average Frigidaire model).
Yes, the air conditioner’s hardware is sleek and modern, but it’s also equipped with some very helpful capabilities. Aros is designed to connect to your smartphone via its Android and iOS app Wink. I haven’t been able to try the device out yet, as it’s currently pre-shipping on Amazon to arrive this May. But once you’ve linked the two devices (which takes just a few minutes), Wink will presumably ask you some questions. It’ll get to know your energy costs and goals and will eventually track and graph your spending so you’re aware of your habits.
Another perk of being connected to your A/C via your smartphone is that it tracks your location via GPS. If you’re nearby, it’ll know to switch on so you won’t have to arrive home to a disgustingly stuffy apartment. You’ll always know what temperature it’s set at, and you can manually adjust it (in case you have a pet at home who also needs cooling off). If you’d prefer to remain a bit more hands-off, you can always schedule your temperatures in the morning, based on the day’s weather forecast, which is conveniently displayed within the app.
Aros joins a pile of other gadgets that have recently shouldered their way onto the smartphone-enabled energy-monitoring scene. Just like the failed Kickstarter project that peddled a smartphone-controlled radiator cozy or Quirky’s energy-monitoring clip, Reter, this A/C is meant to appease both your environmental side and your budget.
It’s not the first smartphone-controlled air conditioner out there. Friedrich’s Kühl, for instance, uses a WiFi adapter to connect to your device and schedule your cooling times. It doesn’t quantify your energy use, however, so that you’re working toward staying within a specific monetary goal.
Aros costs $300. That’s double the price of Amazon’s best-selling alternative. If you’re really fast and loose with your air conditioner, you could very well make up that price difference with the money you save on your energy bill. But if you find yourself only mildly annoyed by a $20 spike in costs, this A/C might have more bells and whistles than you actually need.
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