Air Conditioners

Researchers have paired a cooling system that draws thermal heat from a building and beams it into space with a solar panel, designing a system with the same rooftop footprint that ccould generate electricity and passively cool a building at the same time.

​Steve Feher wants to cool motorcyclists' heads, using the same technology he invented to cool drivers' butts. The Feher helmet is the world's first fully integrated air conditioned motorcycle helmet, and it claims to keep your head 10-15 degrees cooler than the outside world.

​Riding a motorcycle in very hot weather can be quite vexing, particularly when trapped in traffic-jammed daily commutes. BluArmor Helmets suggests a simple solution to keep the head cool; a detachable air cooler unit that fits to most full-face helmet in seconds and sends refreshing air inside.

​Chances are, you don't give a lot of thought to changing the air filter on your furnace or air conditioner. You might go check on it occasionally, or just put a reminder on the calendar. FloSmart, however, is designed to notify you when it detects that the filter needs replacing.

Legionnaires’ disease can spread when water in a building's air conditioning system becomes infected with Legionella bacteria. Checking for that bacteria takes up to two weeks, and requires water samples to be sent away. The Spartan Cube, however, can do the job on location in less than an hour.

Over the last few years a Stanford team has been developing a roof-mounted system that cools a building by reflecting heat into space, and the latest test has managed to use solar panel-like devices to cool water without needing any other energy source.

​Evapolar is back with a second iteration of their portable air conditioner after successfully completing an IndieGoGo campaign in 2015 and delivering over 20,000 units worldwide.

Doug Martin, an engineer at Ford, didn't like the idea of condensation from cars' air conditioners being wasted. That's why he created a prototype system which collects that condensation, and repurposes it as drinking water within the car. ​

​In no small part, crowdfunding has changed the way products make it to market. Some of the most innovative ideas of recent years owe their success to platforms like Kickstarter, so to highlight those success stories, we’ve picked out the cream of the crowdfunded crop, which you can buy right now.

A San Francisco-based startup has launched a Kickstarter campaign for a portable air conditioner that packs more than just a rotary compressor. The Zero Breeze is designed to illuminate, play music over Bluetooth, power devices, and last up to five hours on its rechargeable battery.

Solar-concentrating thermal technology is being used to power the air-conditioning system of an entire shopping center in Australia solely from the rays of the sun. It is expected that this technology will help drastically reduce commercial building energy use.

Philadelphia-based Likuma Labs has unveiled a new product that addresses the frustrations experienced with many window air conditioners. Noria is designed to be smaller, lighter, and quieter, while offering full-room circulation and smart connectivity.