Three former Google employees want make heat pumps hot

Approximately 20% of US green house emissions come from homes. A new company is trying to change that with the help of a ductless HVAC system. Quilt, which was started by three former Google employees, was founded to address the energy crisis and make your home smarter and more efficient while you’re heating and cooling it.

Quilt has created a “home client solution” that utilizes heat pump adoption. It has four parts and works as a ductless HVAC system with mini split units to heat and cool your home. Not only will this provide the heating and cooling that you want in the winter and summer, but it will also use predictive algorithms to make your home more efficient.

As with many home innovations these days, Quilt can integrate with smart home platforms. Plus, it’s aesthetically pleasing, replacing some of the ugly heating and cooling systems we’ve had in our homes or windows for years.

How did Quilt come about

It sought to address a glaring issue

Quilt

Quilt was founded by Paul Lambert, Matthew Knoll, and Bill Kee, three Google employees who sought to create a company to combat the climate crisis. On its website, Quilt says its goal is to help pass on a better world to future generations. That started with addressing heating emissions from burning fossil fuels.

In an interview with Pocket-lint, Knoll, who serves as the company’s CTO, highlighted the use of heat pumps as a way to battle against fossil fuel usage. “Heat pumps are a magical technology — today they can reach 300% to 400% efficiency or even higher, meaning they’re putting out three to four times as much energy in the form of heat as they’re using in electricity,” he said. “To meet the US Department of Energy’s building decarbonization goals, we need to 10x the current pace of heat pump adoption, targeting a total of 100M home conversions by 2050. For this to happen, the world needs fantastic products that are easy and desirable to purchase. Today’s heat pumps lack great design and are difficult and stressful to adopt. Quilt’s next-generation, smart home heating and cooling system is built for the modern homeowner. It’s more efficient and intuitive than anything else on the market today.”

Knoll acknowledged that one of the hardest things when designing the company was battling against people’s reliance on fossil fuels. He said it is a “no-brainer” for homeowners and is going to be “more efficient and more delightful to use.”

What does Quilt look like

It’s sleeker than your traditional units

Quilt

There are many things that set Quilt apart from bulky window units and HVAC systems. The main one is the fact that it’s stylish. These days, most people want sleek devices, but trying to make an HVAC system sexy can be a challenge. Quilt worked with the industrial team at Mike & Maaike to design an indoor unit that is only 38 inches wide, seven inches tall, and eight inches deep. It features integrated colored lights in the mini splits as well, giving a pleasing aesthetic that you’re able to customize from the Quilt app.

The outdoor unit is able to power up to two indoor units and is smaller than traditional outdoor units. “The goal was to build a modern, architectural system that could be customized to blend in or stand out,” said Knoll. “With that in mind, we took a design approach with Quilt that’s less appliance-like and more like a permanent part of your home, like built-in cabinetry. We iterated with many different form factors, designs, and materials in real homes to arrive at a design that felt right at home.”

Quilt

It comes with a touchscreen dial that you can install on your wall that is similar to a smart thermostat. This serves as a remote for your system and you’re able to control it from there. You can also utilize the Quilt app and control each room individually. There are sensors built into the indoor units that will recognize when people are in the room and can adjust the heating and cooling based off of that.

The predictive algorithms that are used to run Quilt effectively were difficult to create but necessary, says Knoll. “Creating a vertically integrated product was challenging because it required complete end-to-end control of the system and the ability to capture the system’s data,” he said. “By measuring efficiency and energy consumption in real time, we can continually improve our algorithms and make smarter decisions. Unlike most heat pumps on the market, which are not built holistically, Quilt integrates hardware and software, allowing for continuous updates and improvements.”

How can Quilt integrate into a smart home

It will soon be able to work with your home ecosystem

Quilt

At the moment, Quilt is only available in the Bay Area for preorder, with installations slated to start later this summer. The next expansion will take place in Los Angeles later in the year. If interested, Quilt encourages consumers to sign up to preorder. A $100 deposit is required.

As opposed to an HVAC system with ducts that run throughout the house, a ductless one requires a mini split in each room that you want to enjoy heating and cooling in. Installing Quilt is $6,499 per room, and that includes installation fees. But Quilt will offer all available rebates to help quell the pricing. Knoll said the technology is flexible and customizable and currently ideal for single family homes.

While the system is not set up to integrate into home ecosystems like Amazon Alexa, Google Home, or Apple HomeKit yet, it is expected to come soon. The hardware is equipped to support Matter and Thread protocols, meaning that it will soon be able to talk with your other smart home devices.

Related

What is Thread? The smart home protocol explained

The biggest smart home manufacturers are implementing Thread compatibility into their products.

“Integration with Matter is on our road map, with an anticipated rollout around the end of 2024 or early 2025,” said Knoll. “This integration will enable compatibility with major smart home systems like Google Home, Alexa, and HomeKit.”

Where can Quilt go from here

The goal is to expand

Quilt

Ultimately, the founders of Quilt want to see it integrated into as many homes as possible. That’s not just because they want to sell their product. The upside of using Quilt cuts back on the need to burn fossil fuels, minimizing carbon emissions and helping battle against global warming. Quilt aims to work with lawmakers to create a better tomorrow for everyone.

“We envision a future where Quilt is in millions of households across the U.S. accelerating the energy transition and moving homes off fossil fuels,” Knoll said. “We also envision partnering with utilities and policymakers to incentivize mass heat pump adoption at the local and national levels. More broadly, we hope to raise mass awareness about the role home heating and cooling plays in climate change and empower homeowners with solutions that are delightful and intuitive.”