Why AirMate IR is our first product

We have 44 product concepts on this site. A small team can only build one well at a time, so we scored eight of the strongest candidates on the things that decide whether a first product succeeds.

How we scored them

Each product got a 1–5 score on: time to a working prototype, parts and certification burden, safety risk, size of the market in the US, India, the Gulf and Europe, the gap against what you can buy today, how easily it sells online, recurring revenue, and how well it shows off on-device AI.

Product	Weighted score
AirMate IR	4.50
CookerCount	3.95
CycleTap	3.90
AlarmEcho	3.65
GarageEye AI	3.30
StoveSentry AI	2.85
ParkSense AI	2.80
MouldGuard	2.70

The result held when we changed the weights. With every criterion weighted equally, AirMate IR still led.

Why AirMate IR

• People already own the thing it improves. Most US homes use air conditioning, India sells millions of room ACs a year, and cooling dominates summer electricity demand in the Gulf.
• There is a real gap. Popular AC controllers either rely on phone location or a separate motion sensor, or put features behind a subscription. We did not find a mainstream controller that combines built-in still-presence radar, native Matter and no subscription.
• It is low risk. It runs on 5 V USB, never switches mains power and is not a safety device.
• We can prototype it quickly with an ESP32, an off-the-shelf 24 GHz radar module, a temperature and humidity sensor and IR LEDs, using open IR libraries that already understand dozens of AC protocols.
• It sells online by itself. “Your AC turns off when the room is really empty” makes sense in one line, with no sales call needed.

Three things we changed after the research

1. Price. At $35 there is almost no margin once parts, assembly, shipping and marketplace fees are counted. Our target is now $49, with a $39 early-bird price planned for founding-list members.
2. Chip module. The original ESP32-C3 module is being phased out for new designs and leaves little room for Matter and over-the-air updates. We will test a newer ESP32-C3 module and an ESP32-C6 in the first month and pick one.
3. India. Before selling in India we need to confirm the approval route for 24 GHz radar devices, so the India launch depends on that answer.

The biggest risk, and how we handle it

The worst outcome is the AC switching off while someone is asleep and very still. The firmware will never switch off when it is unsure, will turn cooling back on above a safe room temperature, and will have a “never auto-off” mode. We will not publish savings claims until the beta has measured them.

What’s next

The next update covers our first month: freezing the v0 spec, ordering dev kits and controlling five real AC brands from a breadboard prototype. If you want to help shape it, rate AirMate IR and tell us what you need, or join the founding list below.