Air Conditioners Getting Smarter with AI

October 16, 2018

Tokyo- Air conditioners for households are growing smarter thanks to the use of artificial intelligence, offering a more comfortable room environment to users.

With the approach of winter, Japanese home appliances makers are gearing up to encourage consumers to switch to new air conditioners that not only are highly energy-efficient but also have sophisticated functions.

In late October, Panasonic Corp. will release new Eolia X series air conditioners, which can be connected to the Internet through wireless local area networks.

By obtaining pollen forecast data online from Weathernews Inc., the air conditioners will clean up the air before pollens start to spread and enter the room. They are expected to sell for around 280,000 yen to 440,000 yen.

The new products will help "keep the room clean all the time," a Panasonic official said.

Mitsubishi Electric Corp.  will release new air conditioners from its Kirigamine Z series in late November, with expected retail prices of 240,000 yen to 430,000 yen.

They will automatically adjust air-flow directions and volumes finely by forecasting changes in apparent temperatures using an infrared sensor and AI system.

An AI system in Daikin Industries Ltd.'s  top-end Urusara 7 models, to be released in November with expected prices of 240,000 yen to 450,000 yen, will learn a user's favorite room temperatures and humidity by learning from past settings.

New models from the Shirokuma-kun Premium X series of Hitachi-Johnson Controls Air Conditioning Inc., an affiliate of Hitachi Ltd., can judge the appropriate timing of cleaning the machines by employing a sensor and AI. They are likely to be priced at 270,000 yen to 430,000 yen.

According to the Japan Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Industry Association, shipments of household air conditioners in Japan in January-August this year rose some 7 pct from a year earlier to about 7.6 million units on the back of record-breaking heat wave in summer. Jiji Press