Australian company, Milieu Labs, launches award-winning smart thermostat that’s changing comfort control forever

Thermostats are commonplace today with lots of market options and a solid reputation for effective temperature control.

However, Australian company Milieu Labs has taken full advantage of advanced sensory capabilities and innovative digital technology to produce a whole new era of ‘smart thermostat’ that goes far beyond just temperature, offering homeowners and businesses unprecedented control over their environments like never before - and winning a Best In Class Good Design Award in the process.

Here’s the story behind the Milieu Climate Smart Thermostat, and why it has been labelled as the Best Smart Thermostat for Australia (2022 Buyer’s Guide – linkdhome.com).

After designing and working on some of Australia’s best and most energy-efficient air conditioning systems, Milieu Labs founder, Kevin Mundy was inspired to develop a new type of smart home air conditioning controller that was aesthetically sleek and exciting to use. Air conditioning controllers (or thermostats as they are known more in the US and other parts of the world) typically control up to 50% of a home or office’s energy use - this is a lot of energy consumption being controlled by a single device. Kevin found each home he lived in had very lacklustre air-con controllers, all of which were 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 environment in a home.

Kevin believed that if he could make a controller that was delightful to use and could integrate easily with any air conditioning system in the world while being easy to set up and use, then many people’s homes and offices would be able to reduce their energy use, saving on their bills in the process. Kevin also wanted a device that would provide more information about the air quality and other environmental factors within the home and office that could affect people’s wellbeing. So rather than make another separate device, he set out to create the world’s most advanced air conditioning controller that would not only control your heating and cooling systems but also monitor your complete indoor environment.

From this, Milieu Labs was officially formed in March 2020 and has since launched their first patented product, the “Milieu Climate Smart Thermostat”, which is engineered in Australia. True to its original vision, the Milieu Climate 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 – all while saving energy and providing an inspiring experience to use.

“Achieving such a broad range of compatibility was a challenge as there’s no standard interface for all AC brands out there,” Kevin says. “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.”

However, the Milieu Climate Smart Thermostat has bridged that gap after years of design testing and development in Australia.

In addition to the smart thermostat unit, it comes with the intuitive Milieu Climate mobile app that is available for both Android and IOS, which allows you to control up to 8 properties with up to 8 air conditioners per property for a total of 64 systems. Milieu Climate also works with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa if you just want to use voice commands to control your 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 Smart Base, where the Smart Base is secured to the wall and wired to the air conditioning system, while the Hub magnetically attaches itself to the Smart Base. 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 perfect local temperature control. The Milieu Climate also offers advanced indoor fan control so that, when bad air quality is detected like a high concentration of VOCs or CO2, the indoor fan can automatically turn on even when no cooling or heating is required, to start filtering out or ventilating the bad air.

The company is planning many more updates in the coming months and will be exhibiting at ARBS in August this coming year. Come and see us on stand 201.

For more information, visit milieulabs.com.au or contact us at media@milieulabs.com.au.