Microsoft and Johnson Controls present GLAS, a thermostat with Cortana
The interesting Microsoft and Johnson Controls project brings Cortana and Windows IoT Core to a thermostat with a transparent LCD screen. Voice commands, but not only: Nest’s glove is thrown away.
The World of Things Internet (or the Internet of Things) evolves at an ever-faster pace and are increasingly connected to the solutions. Thermostats were among the first smartad devices to emerge on the market, thanks to names like Nest and Tado, but so far Microsoft has missed. The company has now announced a collaboration with Johnson Controls, which has led to GLAS, a smart thermostat that leverages Cortana and Windows Azure.
GLAS is a project designed for home and business environments, and places great emphasis on controlling the device and voice commands, thanks to Cortana, and the semi-transparent touch screen – which implies a non-need for use an external device to access the functions.
The approach thus seems to be the best of two worlds: on the one that canonically controlled thermostats, directly controllable, and on the other the connected thermostats, which can be controlled remotely and carry out advanced functions.
GLAS is based on Windows 10 IoT Core and is able to detect the presence of people in the environment and adjust the temperature accordingly. Many features have not yet been made known, but GLAS stands out for the original design and is definitely different from what it has seen so far. There is no information on availability and prices yet.
