Remotely Controlling Any Air Conditioner
Redshift Wireless has an interesting value preposition. We can remotely control almost any Air Conditioner or Heater on the market with an IR Remote Control. And because we can remotely control the device, we can implement strategies that will save you money. This then breaks down into two components. They are:
- Controlling an Air Conditioner or Heater
- Modifying the settings to reduce energy consumption
Now, Lets look at these in order.
Controlling Air Conditioners
Redshift Wireless comes from the problem of controlling Air Conditioners with the view that you want to use your existing devices until they need replacing. This is entirely reasonable, and generally the best thing for not only the environment, but the budgetary bottom line. What we have done is built a Universal IR Remote Control for Air Conditioners with a WiFi Internet link. We have built this device so that it is as easy as possible to get running, and does not require any special firewall settings. That is, it just works!
Then comes the second part of the equation. We have built a major database of IR Remote Controls for Air Conditioners. With this, we know everything about your Air Conditioner if we have ever seen it before. Configuring your remote hardware is as simple as a single mouse click. But if your Air Conditioner is one we have not seen before, things are a bit harder. In that case, we need to use our special software to import the buttons from your Air Conditioner’s Remote Control.
Whilst this might sound easy, it is actually a heap harder than it sounds. You see, most Air Conditioner Remotes do not actually send button presses. They really send every single setting in response to a button press. Therefore, whilst you may have moved the temperature from 22C to 23C, the command that is sent will vary depending on the fan settings, mode and louver settings. Thankfully, our software takes care of most of those issues, allowing us to quickly import your remote into our database.
Reducing Energy Consumption
Once we have control, we can then do something with this control. What we have come up with is a series of ways to reduce the energy consumption. These all add up to reduce usage. Many of these are items to improve the way that users interact with the Air Conditioner. We don’t do anything that you cannot do yourself. What we do is automate it so you don’t need to worry about things.
The first thing we looked at was advanced timer settings. These allow any or all units to be controlled remotely, and potentially all at once. What we also worked out was that it was rather hard in most cases to work out how to use timer settings on remotes, so we we built it into our software. The software can also take into account of Daylight Saving.
We then looked at Administrative Limits. We saw that in many cases staff did not care about the energy their usage was causing, and in many cases were using heating and cooling inappropriately. We saw cases where cooling was set to 18C in Summer, and heating to 28C in Winter. Pushing both these back to about 22C or 23C would make real savings. Therefore, we built limits into the software that stopped users from using inappropriate settings, potentially even at different times of the day.
Going further, we discovered that dirty filters can increase consumption by 5-15%, so we started monitoring usage times and made recommendations of when to clean the filters.
Each of these things adds up to significant savings in energy consumption.
Web and Traditional IR Interfaces
What we did next was build a Web Interface around this, allowing the settings to be changed anywhere in the world. But not satisfied with that, our next product will have a traditional remote control, with limits built in. So, not only can you have a standard remote control, you can also use your iPhone, iPad, tablet, PC, Laptop or Android device to help your business or school save energy.
More Information
Interested in more information? Contact us, and we will do our best to help you. Our ideal clients are those with five or more Air Conditioners that need controlling, but are more than happy to talk to anyone.