September 18, 2014

Hitachi Announces Air Conditioner with Living Camera 3D

by Shruti Shree

Hitachi Appliances, Inc. is launching nine models of air conditioners ‘Stainless Clean Shirokuma-kun X series’ in which a living camera 3D will be installed. No, it’s not a 3D camera, if you are thinking so. The living camera 3D will have three parts, an “image camera” which will tell the position of the person sitting in the room, a “thermal camera” which will estimate the temperature of the person and the ambience around him, and a newly added “things camera” which will detect the floor plan, the position and shape of furniture in the room. The “things camera” has a near Infrared LED which filters images to the camera through infrared transmission. The things camera will enable the warm air blow without being blocked by the furniture to reach the feet of the person. The indoor unit is divided into three flaps “3 piece front flap” to match the air flow detected by the living camera 3D. The AC also has a “Yukadan mode” which will specifically detect a person’s feet in the room and blow warm air to the feet. The 3D living camera can detect people entering and exiting the room, number of people and their locations, and also the layout of the room. Based on this information, the air conditioning unit can switch to energy-saving mode while maintaining an appropriate comfort level for each human activity.

The high tech and the super cool Stainless Clean Shirokuma-kun X series ACs will be available for sale from 31st of October. The price will range from 240,000 ~ 390,000 yen depending upon the model you chose.