Gentherm: Finding Your Temperate Zone
At this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere the average person finds themselves moving through various temperature gradients throughout the day.? We start our days in a chilly house, thermostats turned down for the evening, and ease into a familiar warmth in the morning only to be plunged into often bone-chilling cold if we must go outside. (I'm obviously not talking about Phoenix.)
This experience is even more varied and challenging when traveling.? The temperature change from home to taxi to airport/train terminal to airplane/bus/train to terminal to taxi to hotel room.? You get the picture.? Each environment has its own characteristics of individual control or lack of control.
My wife rules the thermostat in our home – this is non-negotiable.? Airport terminals can be cozy or chilly, it can be hard to predict.? Airplanes (and trains) can also be cozy or chilly.? Taxis and other ad hoc conveyances are subject to the control of the drivers, who are usually accommodating.? Hotel rooms can be a crapshoot with either clearly defined and functional controls or utter inscrutability and dysfunction.
All of which is to highlight the unique experience of the individually owned and driven car.?? In the car we are able to manage our discrete portions of the car according to our preferences.? For my wife and me this is not unlike our Sleep Number bed.
Yes, the average car offers the same level of intimacy as your bed.? It is therefore no surprise, then, that Gentherm has stepped forward with ClimateSense an in-cabin solution that automatically tunes seat-centric heating and ventilation systems to the temperature preferences of the individual.
More specifically, the Gentherm ClimateSense system provides the capability to heat one zone while cooling another, providing an elevated level of personalized, multi-zone comfort.? No more fiddling with buttons or other interfaces.? ClimateSense automatically ramps heating or cooling up or down to compensate for and mitigate driver discomfort.
I sat through a demonstration of ClimateSense recently at Gentherm offices and experienced the very same feelings I have been subjected to during the past few weeks of frigid temperatures in my own car.? My car, like most, kicks off seat heating at the highest setting leaving it to me to manage the reduction of heat manually when it becomes uncomfortable.
The ClimateSense system also starts at the highest setting, but the settings in the demonstrator adjusted as the system steadily warmed the different parts of my body.? There was no need to find some itty-bitty button to make any changes.
I had this same experience in a rental car recently.? It was late at night, in the cold and dark, and the car started up with the seat heater at full blast.? Eventually, I found myself groping around the dashboard for the means to dial it back once my seat became unbearably hot.
Gentherm describes the add-on version of its ClimateSense solution as a “drop-in software upgrade.”? The solution:
The automobile is the one place where humans have complete control of their temperature environment.? It makes sense that such an environment be infused with the intelligence of Gentherm’s ClimateSense technology.? I will be looking for it in my next car or maybe adding it to a car I already own? That makes sense.