Microsoft has partnered with Johnson Controls, one of the leading providers of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), fire, and security systems in the world, to create the Glas Smart Thermostat. The GLAS is Microsoft's first of its kind with a sleek and gorgeous design, backed by its Windows 10 IoT Core, Azure Cloud, and Cortana voice services. Microsoft sparked the curiosity of many after releasing a teaser video on Youtube and now, people want more details.
Here's what you need to know
Johnson Controls is considered as the company that invented the first electric room thermostat.
Its collaboration with Microsoft is one sure way to be a game-changer in this relatively new area of technology. For this product partnership, Johnson was in charge of building the hardware while Microsoft provided all of the internal software.
GLAS is highly sensitive and can detect when you are in a room. This prompts to adjust its settings accordingly and is a great way to save money on energy bills. It has a built in monitoring for indoor and outdoor air quality as well as a mechanism for providing information on your energy usage and habits. You could even check and update your calendar using the smart 'stat.
As for design, GLAS is showcased to have an aluminum edge that mounts the thermostat to the wall.
The display is on a translucent touchscreen that will let you tap and swipe through different control settings. Needless to say, the Cortana intelligence also gives you access to the voice services where you can utter commands.
As per Microsoft's video, the thermostat is ideal for homes, businesses, offices, and rooms where smart atmospheric controls can function.
What sets it apart from the rest?
In general, smart thermostats is a new technology that gives users remote control over their home's temperature using a tablet, smartphone, desktop or a built in system. This provides greater control over central heating and should not be confused with smart meters, which are the meter readers for your energy supplier.
Currently, Microsoft and Johnson's pride rivals with other smart thermostats like the Nest, Ecobee, and Honeywell devices. Per initial reviews of experts, the latter group has now become ordinary in comparison to the new device of the former. Its design alone lives up to its name, GLAS, which illustrates the construction around a translucent touch screen.
The Learning Thermostat from Nest is now in its third iteration and works with Amazon Alexa products as well as the Google Home. Ecobee released two models of thermostats, namely Ecobee3 and Ecobee 4. Similar to Honeywell's Lyric thermostats, they work with Amazon Alexa product and the Siri-based Homekit platform from Apple.
GLAS, however, is the first Cortana-powered thermostat that offers cloud intelligence. It identifies ways to optimally adjust the home or room environment as well function in multiple settings.
