End Office Temperature Wars With Comfy
We’ve all fallen prey to the most dreaded of office conflicts: The temperature war. But now, there’s a new app that promises to solve your too-hot-to-be productive/too-cold-to-be-motivated woes during your 9-to-5. Building Robotics, an Oakland-based startup, has launched Comfy to put temperature control into the hands of employees, who can individualize it to their likings. Offices everywhere, rejoice!
You can easily install Comfy with a simple ethernet connection to your building’s current HVAC system. Then, users pinpoint their location on the app, so Comfy knows where to adjust the temperature. Pretty simple. Pretty genius.
Employees tell Comfy whether they’re hot or cold and Comfy directs a stream of air to their desk. Now, you can stop wearing three sweaters to work and the guy in the next cubicle might stop sweating so profusely. In that way, it allows employees to learn their coworkers’ preferences and in turn, gain perspective on their peers’ office well-being. Most people assume that their ideal temperature is universal, so if they’re cold, everyone else must be as well. Noticing that the guy next to you is actually roasting helps promote a team atmosphere — now because fixing his situation doesn’t also mean completely altering yours, just take to Gchat to say, “Hey bud, there’s an app for that!”
Anyone remember Disney’s Smart House? Well, Comfy is smart like that: Over time, the app will learn preferences of various parts of the office and auto-adjust the temperature. It will also automatically reduce heating/cooling to unoccupied parts of the office — think: Lobbies or conference rooms — saving as much as 15-20% off a building’s HVAC bill, as well as a significant amount of energy. Comfy will also save on maintenance costs, as facility workers aren’t constantly called to adjust the temperature.
Comfy relies on Apple’s new iBeacon technology to pinpoint your locale. As the technology is refined, Comfy’s creators see its features expanding as well. They envision Comfy recognizing when you enter the building and starting your auto-adjust right then and even adjusting the light level to your preference. So if you haven’t already opened a new window to email your office manager about Comfy, do it now!
What do y’all think? Will Comfy end your office temp wars? How else could you see this technology being helpful to large groups of people? Tell us in the comments below.
(h/t Fast Co Design)
