Jack Blog
June 18th, 2014 By Jack Morton
Solving employee pain points doesn’t always have to be difficult. An Oakland-based start-up has designed an app called Comfy to improve employee satisfaction. How? By turning up the heat (or turning it down as the case may be).
Faulty and inefficient HVAC systems cause employees to freeze during the summer or overheat during the winter, so Comfy is stepping in to put temperature control in the hands of the employees. The app plugs into a building’s existing hardware. Then you can tell it if you’re too hot or too cold and it sends a blast of air directly to your part of the office. Over time, Comfy learns what temperature a group of coworkers likes at a certain time of day and adjusts accordingly.
The system can also figure out when people aren’t in a particular part of the building, minmizing waste and cutting HVAC bills by as much as 15-20%. The app creators plan to add more features to Comfy as Beacon technology improves. Down the road, you might be able to walk into the building and have your desk start to cool down for you, or have your light adjust to the level you want.