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

The delta-T that is correctly cited as being "around a max of 20°F" is the delta in temperature across the evaporator (IOW between the return duct and the supply duct [aka the goes-inta and the goes-outta]). It's not the delta-T between the outside air and inside air.

With good enough insulation and/or enough cooling, you can get whatever delta-T you want as is obviously the case with refrigerators and freezers.

Generally I hard pass on any device that does not have at least some basic manual controls itegrated into the unit itself (or an offline dedicated controller perhaps that wires to it). A phone app is great for controlling things away from home or setting up more advanced features like schedules and alarms but especially for a home appliance that is meant to last a long time (with installation costs) the last thing I want is reliance on a mobile device.

My ideal version of this in order of most important to least important:

1. Oldschool hardware thermostat / control knob (rotary knobs are cool and very reliable long term!) built into the thermostat itself or a port on the unit itself to wire up one of these also sold by the same company. If the unit requires a bit of intelligence to run the heat pump properly from a simple thermostat and control knob then that would be needed to be integrated into the firmware itself of the unit (or the hardware thermostat / knob).

2. Modern support for WiFi or Ethernet and fancy features through an app that communicates directly with the unit while on the home network or through the Cloud while away (Cloud could have additional features). API access is always cool for the nerds + easy GUI with visual programmable features for the power users that are not programmers.

3. Included instructions that any competent electrician can follow if any additional electrical wiring is needed (say if wires need to be a thicker guage or there needs to be more than 2 or if certain aftermarket thermostats need special wiring)

4. Easily replaceable filter by the end user + physical reset button built into the unit itself (in case some kind of protection is tripped). And ideally also a few easily user accessible parts (say like replacing a fuse or relay). The more standardized parts the better (such as filter sizes).

5. Guarantee certain number of years of updates (and phone version compatiblities) and also try to guarantee backwards compatiblity (in some way) with older devices (to some extent).

6. When the app / software finally does cease to be updated release either source code or some way for third parties to continue work customizing / updating the system for old or newer devices or niche systems.

7. Dedicated smart device or remote made specifically to work with this that provides all of the functions the phone app does but in a very simple to use, reliable way. This could be a stripped down android device (could be a very cheap model) or something more like an oldschool remote control with physical buttons and a simple black and white tiny OLED.

As long as they heat well (capacity-wise) at those temps, I wouldn't really care if the CoP was 1.5-ish (which it likely will be). You'll still get plenty of 3.5-5.0 CoP time in the (much, much longer) shoulder seasons that getting 3-5 days of sub-2.0 isn't that big of a deal [again, provided the capacity is there].