Australian company, Milieu Labs, has combined its advanced sensory capabilities and innovative wireless technology to create a smart thermostat for the local market.
The Milieu Climate Smart Thermostat has already won a design award and was created by Milieu Labs founder, Kevin Mundy, who has worked on some of Australia’s most energy efficient air conditioning systems.
Mundy wanted to develop a new type of smart home air conditioning controller that was aesthetically sleek and exciting to use.
Air conditioning controllers or thermostats typically control up to 50 per cent of a home or office’s energy use.
“That is a lot of energy consumption being controlled by a single device yet there is no shortage of lacklustre aircon controllers,” Mundy said.
“These lacklustre devices are hard to set or program, didn’t maintain consistent comfort levels, could not be controlled from a smartphone and gave no insights into the quality of the air and the environment in your home.
“I was confident I could make a controller which wasn’t just great to use but could integrate with any air conditioning system in the world and was easy to set up and use.
“More importantly, it had to reduce energy use and be cost effective.”
Mundy also wanted a device that could provide information about air quality.
“Environmental factors within the home and office are important because they affect people’s wellbeing. So rather than make a separate device, I created the world’s most advanced air conditioning controller that didn’t just control heating and cooling systems but also monitor the indoor environment,” he said.
This led to the creation of Milieu Labs in March, 2020 and the release of the company’s first patented product, the Milieu Climate Smart Thermostat.
The Milieu Climate was engineered in Australia and can work with a broad range of heating and cooling systems like Ducted Reverse Cycle Systems, Ducted Gas Heating and Ducted Gas Heating with add-on Cooling, VRF and Multi-Head systems.
“Achieving such a broad range of compatibility was a challenge as there’s no standard interface for all AC brands out there,” Mundy said.
“Australia isn’t like the US where most of the systems all use the standard 24vac control system. Australia does have 24vac systems, but most brands have their own propriety control system, so you need a different solution for each brand.”
Fortunately the Milieu Climate Smart Thermostat has bridged that gap after years of local testing and development.
In addition to the smart thermostat unit, it comes with the intuitive Milieu Climate mobile app that is available for both Android and IOS.
Users can control up to eight properties with up to eight air conditioners per property for a total of 64 systems.
Milieu Climate also works with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa for users that rely on voice commands to control their heating or cooling system.
“The smart home and office is truly here! The unit itself offers a host of useful physical features too. For instance, the thermostat is made of two main parts, the Hub and the Smartbase,” Mundy said.
“The Smartbase is secured to the wall and wired to the air conditioning system, while the Hub magnetically attaches itself to the Smartbase.
“This makes the Milieu Climate the world’s first smart thermostat that can be detached from the wall and placed physically anywhere in the home or office to give complete temperature control.”
The Milieu Climate also offers advanced indoor fan control. For example, if bad air quality is detected and there is a high concentration of VOCs or CO2, the indoor fan can automatically turn on even when no cooling or heating is required.
“The unit will begin filtering out or ventilating the bad air,” Mundy said.
“We are planning many more updates in the coming months and will also be participating in the ARBS Exhibition in August. See us on stand 201. “
For more information visit milieulabs.com.au