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Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

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Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#81

Post by soheil »

z3ugma wrote: post #12

Chris, one of my biggest worries is that your startup will get acquired or go out of business and then the firmware will leave me with a $14,000 brick. What if I want to keep using the cloud-based thermostat when your servers get shut off or moved to another system, or if something like Google Nest closing down their API happens after you've exited? This is an expensive system with an expected long life, and I'd want…

It'd be super helpful to mention the total cost will be close to $14k on the $100 pre-order page or at least somewhere near the top of the homepage. Also probably one of the implicit reasons this comment got upvoted.

Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#82

Post by chewmieser »

kayson wrote: post #64

Ducted systems are horribly inefficient. Why heat/cool the entire house if you're only in one room? We paid $11k to have a 4-unit 42kbtu mini-split system installed in our condo. We love it. We turn the two units on in the living areas during the day, and just the two units in the bedroom at night. Each unit comes with its own remote and can be programmed individually. No need for an app-enabled/iot multi-zone thermo…

You could always use smart vents (e.g. https://flair.co/) to eliminate some of the inefficiencies you mentioned with ducted systems.

Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#84

Post by js2 »

AYBABTME wrote: post #36

My gas furnace sits next to my gas water heater. I want a central air heat pump that dumps the heat into my water heater when I'm cooling the house.

In the meantime there are heat pump water heaters that can absorb the heat in your furnace room.

Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#85

Post by cosmosisjones »

cmui wrote: post #62
sabareesh wrote: post #38

Typical medium unit at market place is only around 3K compared to your offering at 12k. Why is it so expensive https://www.homedepot.com/p/Pioneer-36-000-BTU-3-Ton-18-SEER...

Fair point, I should do a better job of communicating the unit sizes. Heat pump capacity varies as a function of outdoor temps. A standard unit is rated at 47F but the sizes I'm showing are at 5F (cold climate conditions). Also for this price you get the air quality module which does HEPA, fresh air intake and humidification and a smart thermostat that's designed to fully optimize this heat pump system.

so what about places like Duluth, MN where it can be -20F ambient, then -40F to -50F with a windchill for several weeks of the year?

Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#86

Post by gumptionary »

Love what you're trying to do. I recently moved most of the way off oil-based hydronic baseboard heating in my 1800's New England farmhouse through installing 3 ductless mini-splits with Mitsubishi Hyper Heat condensors. Just to help with your user research, my biggest decision points:

1. Cold weather operation. I get you're saying the units are good down to -15f, but there's nothing like the fact that I can talk to plenty of other people who have good experiences with Hyperheat at -15f to ensure that they'll actually work. Given I'm using these primarily for heat (the AC is a bonus), if they didn't heat well and efficiently at 0f then it was all pointless. 2. Repairability. Again, given I'm trying to use these as my primary heat, I need to know I'll have someone who will service the unit who can be here in a matter of hours. This is why I went away from the DIY route. Most installers around here (semi-rural New England) are super brand aligned and won't service the stuff they don't install.

Would be happy to help with user research if you're looking for folks to talk to.

Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#87

Post by stevenpetryk »

daredoes wrote: post #76
cmui wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally get this concern. Any good piece of critical home infrastructure should be able to operate without the cloud or an internet connection. Following this logic the thermostat + heat pump combination can operate fine without the cloud. You leave some optimized behavior on the table like demand response and weather response, but everything else will work (you'd have to manually enter your TOU rate plan to get th…

Would your company be willing to provide an open-source local-first websocket-based integration with https://www.home-assistant.io/ or use the new Matter + Thread standard to provide it for everyone? If that's available, this would be my top choice as I'm actively shopping for all-electric heat pumps

Or the company could at least leave it easy to hack :)

Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#88

Post by cmui »

daredoes wrote: post #76
cmui wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally get this concern. Any good piece of critical home infrastructure should be able to operate without the cloud or an internet connection. Following this logic the thermostat + heat pump combination can operate fine without the cloud. You leave some optimized behavior on the table like demand response and weather response, but everything else will work (you'd have to manually enter your TOU rate plan to get th…

Would your company be willing to provide an open-source local-first websocket-based integration with https://www.home-assistant.io/ or use the new Matter + Thread standard to provide it for everyone? If that's available, this would be my top choice as I'm actively shopping for all-electric heat pumps

It's something we'd definitely consider. Is the desire to have thermostat control via any third party?

edit - The current plan has been Matter/thread Homekit + Google Home integration. We can expose at least temperature control via this to everyone.

Re: Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners

#89

Post by soheil »

cmui wrote: post #45
z3ugma wrote: post #12

Chris, one of my biggest worries is that your startup will get acquired or go out of business and then the firmware will leave me with a $14,000 brick. What if I want to keep using the cloud-based thermostat when your servers get shut off or moved to another system, or if something like Google Nest closing down their API happens after you've exited? This is an expensive system with an expected long life, and I'd want…

I totally get this concern. Any good piece of critical home infrastructure should be able to operate without the cloud or an internet connection. Following this logic the thermostat + heat pump combination can operate fine without the cloud. You leave some optimized behavior on the table like demand response and weather response, but everything else will work (you'd have to manually enter your TOU rate plan to get th…

I'd be careful catering to everyone asking for everything but the kitchen sink. Creating a non-cloud capable system is dumb.

If you have customers like commenter above maybe put in a clause in the contract that says they will receive a partial refund if/when there is an acquisition event during the warranty period and bump up their price by 20%.

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