In most of the developed world, natural gas heaters seamlessly provide heated water to a household without wasting an unnecessary amount of energy doing so. In the undeveloped world, that isn’t the case: the price for natural gas heating goes up because the boilers in use are outdated, knowing only to keep water heated but not necessarily when it should do so. This means that every night when people are sleeping and not using any, the boiler will still be chugging away and heating up water. This raises prices, wastes fossil fuels, and contaminates the air.
Jul Bujh is intended to solve the problem of wasteful legacy boilers by being an easy to install, snap-on device that turns a boiler’s control itself, rather than forcing people to wake up and head out into the freezing weather to do so themselves. With the device being Bluetooth Low Energy enabled, customizable, repeatable schedules can be set with an iOS or Android app utilizing multiple temperature options; a remote controlled option is in the works if you don’t have a smartphone. Once you do, you won’t have to think about it all winter: just four AA batteries can power the device all season. At $60 a pop, the potential for money saved trumps the investment necessary. The more people know this, the easier it will be for the company to raise $35,000 within the month.
The smart home is becoming increasingly more adept at conquering the issues of heating. Products like Hot-Tubes offer solutions alongside the heavyweights like Nest. Unfortunately, these solutions only apply to more developed nations where the issue of waste is present but much less intrusive financially, making it harder to feel its effects, and thus take action. Outside of the Jul Bujh, there isn’t really anything addressing the problem of legacy water heaters — let’s see if it makes the difference this winter.