Mitsubishi's people-sensing air conditioners

by Donald Melanson, posted Nov 8th 2006 at 4:13AM

Mitsubishi's out to make your rooms cooler and slightly creepier with its new air conditioner units, packing an all-seeing infrared eye that'll adjust the temperature based on people's locations in the room. Seven models in the company's new ZW series will come equipped with the technology, which divides the room up into a number of sections to scan for humans, directing the air-flow appropriately and switching to economic mode to conserve power when it's left all by its lonesome. What's more, the AC can apparently even analyze a person's or family's seating habits over a couple of weeks which, for some of us, shouldn't be too hard to determine. No word on prices for any of the units yet, but they should start collecting aggregate data about your in-home lifestyle in Japan by mid December.

[Via Far East Gizmos]

Filed under: Household

Tags: air conditioner, AirConditioner, mitsubishi, zw series, ZwSeries

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Conjecture McSpeculate @ Nov 8th 2006 4:33AM

Does shooting red arrows at you count as a feature or a bug?

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Treofrog @ Nov 8th 2006 8:06PM

I think a bug>

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Calsun @ Mar 24th 2008 5:23PM

Any idea where to buy the ZW series?

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Filip @ Nov 8th 2006 6:23AM

(humans enters the room where a Mitsubishi is air conditioning)
Mitsubishi (thinks): "Humans in the room; ok, cooling"

(1 hour later)
Human 1: "Is it getting colder in here?"
Human 2: "Somewhat..."

(5 hours later)
Mitsubishi (thinks): "Humans in deep freeze: mission accomplished. Switching to hot setting." *insert computer evil laughter here*

Neutral

Deluxe @ Nov 8th 2006 6:52AM

I'm going to complain when mine doesn't come with red arrows.

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Calsun @ Mar 24th 2008 5:22PM

Any idea where to buy the ZW air conditioner?

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Graham McLeod @ Nov 8th 2006 7:13AM

I hope that isn't a photo of the unit - because all air conditioner units I know sense someone's presence if they have a remote control in their hand as well

Neutral

Jeffler @ Nov 8th 2006 8:11AM

Well, I'm going to do this for once.

I, for one, welcome our sentient air conditioner overlords.

Neutral

Mopo @ Nov 8th 2006 10:03AM

Some other air con maker (I think LG) have been doing (and advertising) this for years.

Neutral

Dylan @ Nov 8th 2006 10:05AM

Love the fact the red arrows have shadows, great work onthe press photo, heh.

Neutral

Gavin @ Nov 8th 2006 10:22AM

Are we sure this isn't a wall mounted fax? Or maybe a restroom paper towel dispenser?

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Victor Cornelius @ Nov 8th 2006 11:10AM

Infrared eye? How come there aren't any HAL 9000 jokes yet?

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Jeramy @ Nov 9th 2006 12:45AM

these a/c setups are sweet. i saw them when i went to europe a long time ago. for some reason though us industry thinks we're just fine with window units though...

Neutral

Calsun @ Mar 24th 2008 5:13PM

Where to find the Mitsubishi ZW series A/C? is it available in US market?

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