#ambilabs

2016 was an eventful year at Ambi Climate! Thanks to your support, we’ve introduced new features and expanded our global reach. Here’s a quick overview of what we’ve been up to:

New Features

Here are the Top 3 new features and upgrades we’ve introduced over the year: 

1. Insights 

The new “Insights” feature is designed for those who like to gain valuable information on their usage metrics and behaviours, such as average AC usage, modes and set points over the course of 4 weeks. It also displays a tailored analysis for each user from our AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology, where users can gain a better understanding on which factors (such as luminosity, weather, metabolism) affect their comfort level most! 

2. User Management 

We’ve also added a new user management feature on the app that allows you to invite others to control your Ambi Climate. Not only will it be more convenient in the long run, but the shared access will also mean higher transparency of AC usage for the whole family! 

3. IFTTT Integration 

The highly-anticipated IFTTT integration is now available! You can now connect your Ambi Climate to other devices that can act as triggers to control your AC, or vice versa. For example, you can turn on your AC before you arrive home or when you switch on the lights, send a tweet when it gets too cold and many more! Simply register on IFTTT now and build your own personal, comfy and automated smart home!

Worldwide Networks and Recognition

Earlier this year, we launched an additional online retail platform on Amazon, and thanks to your support, we’ve received a number of fantastic reviews from our customers worldwide!

One of our objectives at the start of the year was to begin a retail network, where our supporters can purchase an Ambi Climate unit offline. We made substantial progress with currently over 25 retail locations across Hong Kong, and distributors in both Thailand and Malaysia selling Ambi Climate. We are also happy to announce that Ambi Climate is now available in the new b8ta Santa Monica retail store in Los Angeles. With interests from distributors worldwide, we are constantly looking to expand into other regions, so keep your eyes peeled for updates!

Ambi Climate is now available in b8ta Santa Monica, United States 

We kept up the momentum and received several positive media reviews and awards, and generated a total of 130 + media coverages worldwide throughout the year! We were also honoured to be chosen as the winner of 2016 Hong Kong Electronic Industries Award under the ‘Smart Tech’ category and Mediazone’s 2016 ‘Most Valuable Service Award’ in Hong Kong.

Our Founder & CEO, Julian Lee (on the left), at the Hong Kong Electronic Industries Awards Ceremony 2016

2017: Looking Ahead 

The Ambi Labs team is working around the clock to bring you something more exciting next year, so please stay tuned! We will also be joining CES in January, and if you would like arrange a meet up with our Founders at the venue or simply reach out to us, please feel free to drop us an email ! We will be located at Booth 40266, The Smart Home Marketplace, Hall A-D at Las Vegas Sands Hotel between January 5 - 8th, 2017.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

2015 turned out to be a momentous year for us! While it was a lot of work, we came away with many milestones, marking our progress in many areas. Here is a quick recap of what we’ve been up to in 2015:

Fully Redesigned Android/iOS App

Our loyal beta users will remember our “Ambi green” app from last Christmas. We spent 8 months in beta, listening to our users to improve our feature set and finetune the user experience.

With the the addition of our new UI/UX designer, Axel, and our new Android and iOS developers, Tom and Timmy, this year we completely rebuilt both the Android and iOS app, vastly improving the on-boarding process and overall interface. Unlike the beta app, the current app is gesture-oriented, far more responsive and offers a rich user experience through our improved smart modes and additional features such as historical graphs and customization details.

We’ve come a long way from the beta app. Now you can tap the comfort index if you’re too hot or too cold. Ambi Climate listens and adjusts your AC automatically. Set thresholds to automatically manage your indoor climate while you’re away.

More Hands On Deck

In less than one year we grew by 8 people, from a team of 11 to 19. Having additional support allowed us to scale up our production and manufacturing, streamline internal operations and ramp up our marketing and community management efforts. Without our newest team members, we would not have been able to increase our remote support by four times, manufacture over 10,000 units or ship to more than 360 cities.

Accolades and Awards

Julian gives the winning pitch at this year’s RISE Conference.

Having a larger team meant we were also able to mobilize ourselves to participate in various startup events and competitions around the world. In July, we attended our first Web Summit event, RISE, held in Hong Kong, and participated in the PITCH competition where Julian took home the grand prize. We were also honored to receive the Gold Award for Best Smart HK app from the Hong Kong ICT. 

As the RISE PITCH winner, in November we invited to attend this year’s Web Summit in Dublin, and more recently were invited to Jakarta as a finalist in the Samsung Singtel Regional Mobile App Challenge.

Ambi Climate in 39 Countries and Counting!

In the last 5 months, we took the feedback from our beta to test and manufacture our production units, obtaining FCC and CE certification and shipping out over 1000 units to date. With interest from distributors all over the world, especially during our participation at recent trade shows like the Electronics Fair and Global Sources, we’re happy to announce that Ambi Climate will be available at select retail stores in Singapore this holiday season. If you’re at ION Orchard in Singapore, stop by the Challenger Roadshow event before 3 Jan to check out Ambi Climate.

Bring home Ambi Climate today! Visit the Basement Atrium from now until January 3 and bring home ‪#‎AmbiClimate‬ today!

Media Reviews and Positive Feedback

Ahead of our retail debut in Singapore, we received positive media reviews from bloggers and journalists in both Singapore and Malaysia. Most notably we were pleased to find that CNET reviewer, Aloysius Tan, gave Ambi Climate 8.5/10 stars after testing a unit for 3 weeks. Check out his review to read more about his Ambi Climate experience:

“To my surprise, the Ambi Climate does as it claims – the amount of power used when Ambi Climate was active [for seven hours] easily matched that of my regular use, which is turning it off after three hours.”

“After spending about three weeks testing this, I’m pretty much sold on the idea. Given that most air conditioners in Asia are traditional, non-connected appliances, this device is an excellent add-on.”

“The app is simple and easy to use.”

Singapore blogger Jeremy Li of JeremySG also had a favorable experience setting up Ambi Climate, keeping his room comfortable and learning how much AC energy he is consuming.

“After using it for more than half a month now, I find it pretty useful especially when I am in the room working on my laptop or while sleeping. I like putting it in the comfort mode, so I can either leave it to the gadget to decide how cool my room should be.”

“The Ambi Climate also respond when I tap on my original air conditioner remote, taking note what I have told the air conditioner to do.”

“It does helps me to keep in check how much unnecessary cooling and my usual temperature setting to keep me comfortably cooled.”

We are also always delighted to hear how Ambi Climate is working for our users. Alexander found Ambi Climate keeps him and his family comfortable day and night:

2016: Looking Ahead

We hope to release some exciting new feature set updates soon, so please stay tuned. We’ll be heading to CES in January, so if you’re around, please stop by and say ‘hi’! You can find us at Booth 57011 in the Hong Kong Pavilion in Westgate East at the Westgate Resort and Casino.

Wishing you a very merry holiday season!

We are one week into our crowdfunding campaign, which launched on Tuesday of this week. It has been exciting to watch support pour in from various supporters around the world and as of today, we have raised over US$6,000 from over 50 backers in 7 countries. But we still have a ways to go -- we're about a fifth of our way to our goal!

Crowdfunding is a relatively new concept, especially here in Asia. Wikipedia has a pretty widely accepted definition for crowdfunding:

Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, typically via the Internet.

But what does that really mean?  And why are we crowdfunding? The answer to that starts from a common request we heard from you - as we have told more of our friends, family, and even random strangers about Ambi Climate, more and more of you began to ask: “Where can I get Ambi Climate? Can I buy one now?”

While there are many forms of crowdfunding, the type that we are using can be thought of as a form of taking pre-orders for our product. Typical channels of distribution -- through retail or wholesale, for example -- can be a long, slow process, and is fraught with risks; an electronics product can take up to 6 months to get into stores, and frequently requires a large volume of units, numbering into the thousands.  For startups, crowdfunding can be a relatively inexpensive yet highly effective way to quickly get your product to people who want to try it and gain valuable feedback from them as well.

We do want to point out that we are not crowdfunding equity, which is a type of crowdfunding that involves raising funds that give contributors shares of the company they have invested in. When you partake in our crowdfunding campaign, your funds are going toward the purchase of a pre-mass produced Ambi Climate device.

What many people may not realise is that the road to getting a product mass produced is quite a long one. For now, crowdfunding will help us get Ambi Climate to those who are excited about what we are doing until we are able to offer it on Amazon or in traditional brick-and-mortar electronics stores. Our crowdfunding campaign, which will run until 5 September, will help us do two things: firstly, raise awareness and increase visibility of our company and product and secondly, help us get our product into the hands of our loyal supporters, like you!

There are a lot of ways in which crowdfunding will benefit us:

Awareness: We want more than our family and friends to know what we are doing!

Attract talent: Greater awareness means we can grow our team and attract talented people to help us build better products

Biz ventures: It also opens the door to new business developments, partnerships and investment

Recruiting testers: At this stage of Ambi Climate’s development, the more people using the device, the better. In particular, the more testers we can get from other countries in Asia the better! And getting feedback from people who don’t know us personally *hopefully* means more impartial feedback (We love you too, mom...)

Raise funds to cover the cost of producing and shipping the devices purchased during this campaign

We hope this was a useful explanation into why we are crowdfunding and why your participation in our campaign means a lot to us, far beyond anything finance-related. We have been working on Ambi Climate for two years and are ready to put it into the hands of people who want to test it out. If you've been waiting to get your hands on an Ambi Climate, please back our campaign and spread the word! Let's get delightful AC comfort to everyone.

We are one week into our crowdfunding campaign, which launched on Tuesday of this week. It has been exciting to watch support pour in from various supporters around the world and as of today, we have raised over US$6,000 from over 50 backers in 7 countries. But we still have a ways to go -- we're about a fifth of our way to our goal!

Crowdfunding is a relatively new concept, especially here in Asia. Wikipedia has a pretty widely accepted definition for crowdfunding:

Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, typically via the Internet.

But what does that really mean?  And why are we crowdfunding? The answer to that starts from a common request we heard from you - as we have told more of our friends, family, and even random strangers about Ambi Climate, more and more of you began to ask: “Where can I get Ambi Climate? Can I buy one now?”

While there are many forms of crowdfunding, the type that we are using can be thought of as a form of taking pre-orders for our product. Typical channels of distribution -- through retail or wholesale, for example -- can be a long, slow process, and is fraught with risks; an electronics product can take up to 6 months to get into stores, and frequently requires a large volume of units, numbering into the thousands.  For startups, crowdfunding can be a relatively inexpensive yet highly effective way to quickly get your product to people who want to try it and gain valuable feedback from them as well.

We do want to point out that we are not crowdfunding equity, which is a type of crowdfunding that involves raising funds that give contributors shares of the company they have invested in. When you partake in our crowdfunding campaign, your funds are going toward the purchase of a pre-mass produced Ambi Climate device.

What many people may not realise is that the road to getting a product mass produced is quite a long one. For now, crowdfunding will help us get Ambi Climate to those who are excited about what we are doing until we are able to offer it on Amazon or in traditional brick-and-mortar electronics stores. Our crowdfunding campaign, which will run until 5 September, will help us do two things: firstly, raise awareness and increase visibility of our company and product and secondly, help us get our product into the hands of our loyal supporters, like you!

There are a lot of ways in which crowdfunding will benefit us:

Awareness: We want more than our family and friends to know what we are doing!

Attract talent: Greater awareness means we can grow our team and attract talented people to help us build better products

Biz ventures: It also opens the door to new business developments, partnerships and investment

Recruiting testers: At this stage of Ambi Climate’s development, the more people using the device, the better. In particular, the more testers we can get from other countries in Asia the better! And getting feedback from people who don’t know us personally *hopefully* means more impartial feedback (We love you too, mom...)

Raise funds to cover the cost of producing and shipping the devices purchased during this campaign

We hope this was a useful explanation into why we are crowdfunding and why your participation in our campaign means a lot to us, far beyond anything finance-related. We have been working on Ambi Climate for two years and are ready to put it into the hands of people who want to test it out. If you've been waiting to get your hands on an Ambi Climate, please back our campaign and spread the word! Let's get delightful AC comfort to everyone.

At the beginning of December, a large box arrived at Ambi Labs containing one highly anticipated machine: The Form 1 3D Printer. Julian had ordered one last year and was delighted to find the shipment waiting for him after a long week of events.

The Form 1 uses stereolithography technology, a high precision system that directs a laser across a tray of liquid resin, which causes a thin layer to solidify. The build platform lifts upward to allow for the next layer. After thousands of repetitions, the part is completed.

We were excited to see how our designs would fare as the Form 1 has been touted for marrying professional output with accessibility. 

Both the machine and software were fairly easy to set up out of the box. Once the printer and software were installed, we created design files for Ambi Climate enclosure parts.

We started with Formlabs Clear resin. Several hours and millilitres of resin later, we had our first batch of Form 1 printed enclosures.

After each part was printed, we removed the build platform for post-processing and use a scraper to detach the part(s) from the build platform.

At this point the parts were still uncured.  We placed the pieces into a tub of isopropyl alcohol and agitated the tub to remove any excess resin. Then we let the pieces soak.

The supports are simple to remove by cutting away the excess with a razor. We sanded the edges for a smoother finish and spray painted a few enclosures.

We have successfully printed seven sets of enclosures from nine print runs. Two of the runs ran out of resin but otherwise we have been quite pleased with the print yield.

It has been one heck of a year at Ambi Labs! Already 2014 is shaping up quickly and we are looking forward to the next set of challenges and rewards that await us in the new year. Until then, let's take glance back at 2013 and revisit a few highlights.

Over the past year, our team grew from six members to ten. We continue to enjoy a diverse team with skills and experiences from all over the globe! 

We gave our social media a makeover and re-designed our website. Check us out on Twitter and Facebook if you haven't already!

We helped to organise one of Hong Kong's first startup showcases focused on local hardware startups.

We participated in our first expo.

We're moving into the first stages of our alpha testing. (Email us if you're interested in participating!)

We won a pitch competition.

And the best part is: we're just getting started!

If being in a startup is like running a marathon, this Friday might be a small victory lap. Over the last two weeks we have participated in a pitch competition, a week-long venture forum and a three-day expo! It was quite a lot of work to manage all these events at once but each experience was valuable in many ways.

This year’s Hong Kong Trade and Development Council World SME Expo was held from 5-7 December at the HK Convention and Exhibition Centre. Up to this point, we had never participated in an expo or convention of any sort but felt that this venue would prepare us for future events of a similar scale and raise awareness of Ambi Climate at the same time.

We were invited to join the Expo by exhibiting as a member of the Hong Kong TiE chapter. With a little less than two weeks to prepare we said, “Oh what the hell? Let’s do it!” and set forth…

We designed a t-shirt.

We created a few print assets and came up with Ambi-themed collateral.

We designed some USBs.

We slotted ourselves to man the booth.

We set up our booth and then it was off to the Expo!

We shared the TiE booth with four local enterprises and had a chance to check out the Business of Design Week, IDT and the Inno Design Tech Expos as well.

On the first evening of the Expo, Julian was interviewed by the HKTDC to share about Ambi Climate.

The Expo was considerably more quiet than we had expected but on the whole, we came away with a greater understanding of the details needed to be part of an expo. We were able to observe a number of well-produced booths that will serve as helpful examples for future events!

Want to know what else we’ve been up to? Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.