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Smart Control for Small Air Conditioning Units: tado° Cooling

Those of us with central air conditioning don’t have much trouble adding “smart” elements to our system: a programmable thermostat will allow you to adjust your system’s settings based on when you’re home and when you’re not. Smaller air conditioning units – window, ductless, or portable units – generally don’t have these kinds of features built in (not that I’ve seen, at least), so you either leave it running while you’re not at home, or wait for it to cool things down when you are… and neither of these approaches is particularly efficient.

The folks at German company tado° are attempting to bridge the smart air conditioning divide with their tado° Cooling product. Take a look at their pitch video from their current Kickstarter campaign for an overview of how their product works:

Pretty cool, huh? No need to invest in central cooling (or hound your landlord to do so) to get the efficiency benefits of it. The current Kickstarter campaign has just about ended, but it’s also reached it’s goal. So, if you choose to pre-purchase a tado° Cooling system in the next few days, you’ll definitely get it (and at a lower cost than the company’s planned retail price).

As I said before, I’m not aware of anything quite like this for small air conditioning units – if I’ve missed something along the way, let me know. And if you decide to buy one of these, feel free to share your motivation with us.

Featured image credit: tado° Cooling pitch video

2 comments
  1. Offgridman

    Made this comment over on the repost at Cleantechnica but not sure if you will see it there.
    This type of function has been available for a long time on window air conditioners if you paid a little extra for the digital versions. My first was a GE about eleven years ago that came with a touch pad similar to a microwave which let you set the on off cycles for one day. The Sylvania I got five years ago also came with a remote control and it let you set different cycles per day for ten days in advance.
    The first time it was about forty dollars extra and the second only twenty five over same size models that only had the regular on off knobs, but both were under 150$ total for what are called one or two room units (12-16,000 btu if I remember right).
    The first unit was still working fine when I got the second but the US energy efficiency laws had gotten them so it was down to almost half of the amperage (power draw) of the first so was a lot easier on my offgrid solar system.
    I can see where they would be nice for pre cooling before someone comes home from work, which I have used occasionally when going out for the day. The main convenience for myself has been having it shut itself off after going to bed as living in the mountains most nights it cools off enough that it is just to much running all through the night.

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