And we are live Awesome! I'm I'm back one more time I've been stinking up this room for a good portion of the Symposium uh but I swear that I've actually I've left this building um in in the last couple of days. but hi I'm Ben and uh this today this last session this last live stream that Brian's letting us do I'm going to talk about uh open HVAC so this is a little bit more Niche so if you're in the if you're in the Stream um thank you you're uh we we hope that we're entertaining. um and uh, we hope you learn something today. So yeah, I'm Ben background with uh I've worked with Haven IQ now work with Jim at Measurequick and uh, I'm not from the HVAC world but I am I've spent many years doing product development a lot of Iot based products uh and uh I have had a lot of experience in the Maker Community as well.

So um, that kind of is what inspired a little bit of what we're going to talk about here today. So I'm going to pass it off to the man on my right yeah hi, I'm Jason and it's great to be here I'm very excited. um my background is also not in HVAC I'm pretty new to it but I have totally fall in love. It is such a cool, such a cool industry, lots of great people, lots of great uh really fun problems to solve I think and just good stuff happening and I'm excited for the future.

Um my I've been a huge fan of open Source my whole life and so I have been trying to start open source stuff my co-founder and I since 2016 we have wanted to do some sort of Open Source Hardware company just trying to figure out like what that would be and uh then I started getting into this stuff and it's always kind of been interesting to me but I didn't really go down the the rabbit hole until recently but then totally fell in love and feel like there's a lot of opportunity for open source in HVAC So yeah it's got. that's me. uh and so I am Michael house I am an HVAC contractor who also uh dabbles in the world of software development um in as a hobby as well as you know I've create created a hardware control system for my equipment and so I just sort of have lots of interest and am interested in open source as well. um so and Chris and yep uh my name is Chris Hamilton um I am also from Hbac industry have been about 10 years.

Started at a mechanical contractor after graduating with an environmental studies degree. got into um you know dat analytics um and being an energy engineer as I was called at the contractor um a little bit of a of a tesser kind of of uh thing as as we've been talking about all weekend. you know something that's you know adjacent to what a technician and a specialist doing from the day to day. I was on the back end making sure equipment ran effectively and efficiently.

um, installing controls and um and sensors and stuff to collect data and uh you know, just connected with. you know all these smart people in this room you know one way or another and uh yeah we thought it'd be fun to come together and you know create a space where uh you know more people are able to do that. So so excited I'm glad to be here and that's where kind of this. We all have similar backgrounds I've seen you you know for a couple of years now creating like it was so weird when I first started seeing you poting just being like Oh yeah I just I I here.

check out my GitHub repo and I'm just like but you're you're a residential agac technician like why why do you have out to GitHub repo and so let's let's explore that. like the um because I've I've known other HVAC technicians that have tinkered that have like you know taken control systems and put pieces together um but you've you kind of went a step further that like I've I've worked a lot with kind of hackers, coders, programmers, makers that use GitHub repos for a lot of really crazy projects. Never met a HVAC Tech that was doing that. so why well I mean I think originally I started um trying to just automate things in my business and that got me into sort of programming in general and then um I Also am very sort of open about everything that I do and so it made sense to just sort of put my stuff out there in hopes that you know it's useful.

and so I generally explore programming topics to sort of understand things better, make my mental model model better than it was. you know, just by reading a paper or something or using a spreadsheet and it allows me to sort of, uh, understand the problem a little bit better for lack of a better term. and so then, uh, because I'm also like, self-taught in everything and and just sort of freely give it. uh, it sort of makes sense to just put it out there in case it's useful for other people.

and so that's just sort of My Philosophy or or things that jive well with me and you know there's plenty of stuff on my gith Hub repo that's like garbage or whatever when I first started and you know. But there's also stuff that I'm proud of for sure. and uh, so you know, Uh, but I just uh, enjoy the software space and everything and it's uh um yeah. and maybe for the UN initiated like GitHub is a you guys explain it what is GitHub Yeah, well um I'll take that if you if you don't mind.

um uh I think the where the first part of it comes from is what's interesting and git is a a version control system and it's pretty much one of the it's been dominant for a long time. Uh Version Control makes a lot of sense for where open source development happens or really just any kind of collaborative development because uh it's You know every time somebody makes a change to something they can stick a you know a description of it. This is what I did and you can see like what were the changes that were made and then you can upload that and that's where um it these repos where the work is happening. everybody can contribute and then there's poll requests and so if you're you know if you're part of a pro a project then you can just push your your stuff up.

If uh, you are a third party contributor, maybe you forked it and you did some stuff, you added a new feature. Now you can put that up there and if it gets approved by the community then there's a poll request and there's a merge where that uh becomes a part of the project then and so GitHub is a site that is just a hosting platform for that and it's free if your project is there in the open and so it's kind of taken off as a place that a lot of Open Source stuff is developed and uh yeah, I mean it's to me, it makes sense that that's where you started putting your stuff and are there other people contributing to your GitHub repos? I mean not a lot. I'm definitely open to that. Uh, you know, but like you know, people in the software Community don't know who Michael House is right, right? you know, so you know it's not.

and uh, you know a lot of my projects solve a specific problem for me or uh, explore other HVAC um, related items but you know it's it. Uh, and I honestly don't know how GitHub would works on. you know it's sort of like a search based thing and you get stars on repos and not a lot of mine have high star numbers or anything like that, right? So maybe I'm not like the one that comes up if you're searching for a certain word or whatever. but you know that the goal or idea is that you would be open to people contributing to it.

and um, but like I said, a lot of my stuff has just been me exploring different things and uh, um so and just a way to sort of have it all out there and verion it when there are changes and things for your own purposes. Yeah, and and uh, that's and what I want to kind of point out about GitHub is that it's It's kind of similar to a lot of the knowledge sharing that's already happening within. like the HVAC School Community except that uh, like this is to relate it to anybody here who kind of, you know, is not does not play around in this world. Um, there.

Just the biggest difference is that it's it's just a structure. It's a structure that enables that information to um I guess gain momentum is to be able to create kind of this uh, compounding value where like you know the thing that you created somebody else. if they need that solution, they add to it and then you get back this improved version and then now if thousands of people are starting to do that, you get something that's a thousand times better. Um, and and so that's kind of the that's where a lot of the this concept kind of came from.

at least for me. Um, was kind of seen those parallels of like people like yourself who they have, uh, you're part of HVAC School contributing knowledge. But then now you've also started to take it to the next level of using a more structured system to create knowledge that has an order of magnitude more impact potential. So that's that was a really interesting thing to me that was just like oh, maybe this this is time to kind of start taking it to the next level.

and and then uh so Chris for yourself like what would have been another inspiration as to why like you know, becoming a part of one of the first people in this uh open HVAC kind of idea that like what is it that inspired you? yeah uh so for me um coming from uh the contractor side and in smart controls and I've installed thousands of smart thermostats and Sens Suites on you know equipment that's half ton to 25 ton. um and you know we're getting all this data and how we're going to use it and we broke out became on company started licensing what we were doing and found you know that we had some Rivals competitors and sensey predict and AVX and and other things and we were all just such disperate sort of um you know solutions to the problem and you know um uh in 2023 it looked like sincey predict was you know one that was really winning out. um you know, getting things installed, getting more data and information to to technicians so that they can uh service and maintain equipment better understand what's going on with the unit and then uh you know they just announced that they're discontinuing it and you know that left a lot of contractors a lot of technicians. uh just like out in the open out in the C without you know any home to go to for what they just spent a lot of time, you know I think it started back in 2017 2018 when they're really getting that stuff ramped up.

So that's five years of them learning a system and then it's just is gone and you know we kind of got together and um you know said that sucks. You know we got to find something aband something where we can bring people together and in to where you know that will never happen. They'll always be this sort of like Hub of where uh we can go for the initial idea, the initial uh source code you know the initial whatever else so that we can go out, make our own sensors, install them, have them Comm communicate back and then also be able to communicate with everyone else you know in uh hbac with like hey I did this really cool thing it monitors just like sincey predict you can implement it. you know at your own company you can implement it yourself at your house.

check this out and you know maybe someone who does says like well I have this other s let's see if I can integrate this into it and then everyone just communicates and we build something that is so much more than sensey predict ever could have been and never going to away. So and one of the challenges because I've like as a part of I've been a part of you know maker community and like even the stuff that you're doing. There's a lot of smart people that make very Innovative things but a lot of those things aren't immediately commercializable because like the the Prototype is the easy part most of the time and uh I Had some great conversations last night about how um you know from all the other industries that I've been in the the the most kind of fickle. not in a bad way.

but like the the the the H the residential HVAC industry if you're like because I had the struggle with Haven when you try to introduce a product into this industry is that if it falters, if it ends up kind of having a problem um, and there isn't a mitigation plan for it like right away that if you're trying to bring it to Market and trying to get Distributors and sales reps on board um and it's not stable then it'll get dropped like hot cakes it it it needs this. This Market really requires that type of like reliability for all of the solutions that are created and that's that's kind of been one of the things where I've done a lot of my own open source home automation at home, but kind of the I I don't really I I Don't fool myself into thinking like oh, I'm just going to now go start offering this to everybody in my neighborhood because when you do that, you're just taking on a whole bunch of risk and then you're you're making kind of. You're building this little hell that you built for yourself because of all of the you're taking something that's fun as a h but it like you're the people. All these other people in the world are not the same as you.

They will not be the same type of customer. we are in a like kind of a the the the innovator bleeding edge end of like monkeying around with these things being totally fine if stuff doesn't work sometimes because that journey of Discovery is really what's important. So just as as a like I want to transition then talking about the commercialization angle because I think that's actually one of the most important um kind of values as a part of this is that the um whatever this community. this is like another one of those intentional communities of practice, ideas, experiments where um kind of exploration, experimentation and just like play is is is very um encouraged and it's necessary but for it to make an impact in the residential Hbac Market there needs to be a an ability to make it uh actually commercializable.

um and because like I don't want to just have another like I have a lot of avenues for people that are kind of just being able to play around and and to explore things. What? I see because I want to make an impact on the residential HTC Market What I see is that there's a lot of um potential uh for uh, kind of taking these things that are kind of in this more prototype State and then using some of you know like product management principles and uh, kind of putting in the effort to then do like, like to to figure out a business model, to then kind of do the type of testing that's required, do all the hardening that's required and then to um, you know, actually establish the resources that could deliver that as a business service. and so that's like you know Chris you're kind of. That's where we connected A lot was in the um that monitoring side where uh, you know it's not just about M being like Oh yeah we could just hook sensors up and then they're pulling data back like that's not what's going to help contractors.

Is that like like in my opinion is that there are going to be unmet needs. and that's really important is unmet needs that the market is not current like that, there's no incentive for other you know, manufacturers or other kind of service providers to really meet that need. um that that's where Open Source has a huge potential. So like let's say low income housing projects where um like to be able to get data back or to be able to even do automation.

Um, there's not a lot of systems out there where let's say an Iot company is going to take on all that risk to try to make something that's so cheap that only kind of services that niche market because like they, they're not going to kind of get this scale. that makes sense for the the amount of investment that's needed uh to to make that business viable because you know for manufacturers to to create a product you have to take on a huge amount of risk. um like because you have to stand up the manufacturing facility, you have to buy all the like the capital expenses for the components. um but what if there are like interesting use cases where there's little hanging fruit, where there's that intersection of like an unmet need that's really important to solve but just not no real incentive for larger companies to solve it and then a bunch of nerds that are very interested in kind of doing something that's kind of a little bit experimental and uh is uh and then could make a bit of a difference.

So that's a that's why I Want to pass this off to you Jason because that's kind of in the world that you have now thrown yourself into. Yeah yeah, um I've you know it's been really interesting just seeing like even just in the past 15 20 years a lot of really successful companies have come out of Open Source projects and a lot of companies have founded uh with Open Source from the from the beginning and it's really cool. It's you know it's great seeing someone like you Michael who you know you're tinkering with this stuff anyways and you're doing it just because you're getting something out of it. you're having fun, uh, whatever your reasons are and uh, that's something that if it could be commercialized, if there's any aspect of what you're doing that would be reusable by someone else then like it would be great if that could actually turn into a problem.

I mean a sorry a company and and that can like be scaled up from that way and that helps bring the solutions that that you're doing to um, whoever it is that is and so that's what I'm interested in my company. So umor systems were trying to, uh, develop some of an open source platform for some of this stuff. Uh, and you know we don't necessarily know exactly what our first. uh, you know what, what problems we're trying to solve first? Uh, because we're still you know, trying to get feedback from the the industry and people who are going to be you know, boots on the ground using this stuff.

um and so just being able to do that like you know we were talking also about misconception of that. Some people think of Open Source as like free and that you free is in free is in beer as we like to say and it's just that you're not making money off it. but there's there's many different ways to commercialize open source projects and a lot of times those like once a project does have some commercialization potential that gives stability to the project and a little bit more longevity and helps to standardize its its application usability for the market. So um, you know it's I think there's a lot of opportunity about there.

We've seen some really great examples in recent years and trying to yeah I think there's opportunity for really good products that would solve these problems. Yeah and another inspiration that that like kind of led to this being like oh maybe this is it's not just Michael house playing around with stuff that's open source. The Uh I I have a podcast. It's called a better AAC podcast where I interview the founder of one of the biggest open source projects on the planet.

Um so it's uh, his name is Paus and uh, the project is called Home Assistant and uh, it's a very accessible way to um I guess connect everything in your home to a platform that you have 100% uh, control over. So uh, and then you get to benefit from thousands of other programmers who have volunteered their time to allow every single connected product that you could ever think of now connect in your home like even to the point of like your diabetes monitor like like they they, uh um, you know, whatever Edge case that might not exist there. um often times there's a nerd that has that problem and then they just they create a module and then it plugs into it and then so you you can then like set this up in whatever type of Hardware you want. It's no cost to run the software and then you just you connect these things together and then you.

any automation. Any data analysis, anything that you want is now at your fingertips and so that's kind of like the that potential of all of you know if there are very technical text out there love to Tinker Um that's just an example. Home Assistant is an example of like this this platform where you have unlimited potential because of thousands of volunteers that each individually just had one problem that they were interested in solving or maybe a couple problems, but they just decided to do it within a group instead of by themselves. That's kind of one of the key things about an open source.

Community is that type of um I Guess coming together to um, build on each other's uh um contributions? Yeah, as you said yeah. so what we're trying to do is uh We've We've now kind of set up a a little website which uh it's just openhack doio it's not a lot right now. um but uh the the goal The idea is for it to become something that uh is not just for some nerds like the Nerds are the ones that are the Nerds and the Geeks and whoever you want however you want to identify often, that's that's the people that are going to be you know, creating content and uh, making uh, making the website valuable for others. But um, there's another Niche that I believe um could be filled which is related to a case study that uh from you know one of our friends Jenry Garcia who he has uh, he, he's uh, he do.

He's not satisfied with just somebody telling him that something works or not. Um, he needs he needs proof and I love that I love that I respect the crap out of him for being like nope, that where's the end? like get give me the show me the data, show me the proof. Otherwise I don't feel comfortable like selling this to my homeowner and so right now he actually has gone to the like. He's put in his own effort to, um, put together a scope of work with a research institution to basically to try to, uh, determine the uh, just how effective heat strips versus a ventilating dehumidifier are for climate zone 1A So like in the Miami Market um and that's that's absolutely brilliant because that's when we were at Haven That's something that we struggled with all the time.

Was this lack of of actual data that we could use to um, uh to be able to uh, like I guess do these automations like because a lot of Manufacturers they'll They release information like you know, they have manuals and they have tech support. Um, but when it comes to like all these disperate systems, especially things like accessories like humidifiers, dehumidifiers, heat strips, um, you know, even filtration and air cleaning devices. Uh, there's lab tests for some of those things, but where there's a massive void of field validation of of of these Solutions And so thus like when you actually do a work back from that problem where um, because there's no information. Now if you want to be an ethical contractor to say that hey, this is the answer for XY or Z situation, you don't actually have proof, you have something close where it's like maybe another person's experience being like Oh yeah, I Kind of like if you install this, it should do the job.

but like you don't have numbers, you don't have data. like if and if the data exists. Like if those types of field validation exercises are out there for the massive variety of equipment that we have in the market, somebody send it to me because I would like to see it because I haven't been able to find it in the last couple of years years of of looking for this information and so that's that's another that's kind of the a more of a mission-based uh part of this is to kind of take like because you do experiments all the time and those experiments to basically be like I just wanted to see what would happen if I did XY Z What if that was like wrapped with the scientific method that an academic researcher would do where you don't have to jump through all the bureaucratic Hoops but like the combination of your git rep you know your your git code that somebody else can like, look at your calculations and just be like oh yeah, there's like in that sequence, there's something a little bit wrong there. So I'm going to, you know, let's tweak that like boom I use a piece of exponential technology that helps you improve that side of the process and then maybe there's like, uh, you know you can get some training from an academic researcher that's really interested in figuring out some of these field validation problems and so they end up uh, like being like, Okay, here's how to like when you do an experiment like this.

Here's some of the gotas: Here's some of the things that I was trained in: I'll give you a 30 SEC a 30 minute primer on how to collect this data so that it's actually usable in a research setting and then from there, maybe there's a um. You know if it's a if it's a data set that's actually attached to a home? Um, like where you you now have all these parameters of a home that you can like, uh, get collect and then notate instead of storing them in your book or like in a notebook or something like that there is I don't know if it's the right format but there are these um there's this data format called HP XML Home Performance XML which XML is a markup language is basically just a way to to format data. um but uh like it's something that the doe uses to try to do apples to apples comparisons of let's say home performance projects and so the like I didn't even know about that until um you know recently and it's been around for a long time. I Don't know if it's the right thing but it has an example of saying that like to that end goal of having field validation of these Solutions so that then when a policy maker goes to say hey like you know heat pumps everybody needs heat pumps Heat pumps Heat pumps heat pumps that's literally happening right now I am a like mostly a fan of of it but like as per even our conversations and some of the great presenters like even like Kimberly lell and up at the front just being like that's not the solution for everything it like there there are so many situations where that that can't be the case but then the the policy makers still make the decisions they make because they don't have good data what the hell like So we that's a like I think that there my H my my theory is that there is this ability for all these Frontline you know um experts like yourself could be taught to basically be like hey, so you know how if you want better outcomes then if you figured out how to take all those experiments that you do for yourself, you you now get a little bit of training on how to do conduct things using the scientific method.

you uh, um, you can get access to some of these open source tools that can help you run your experiment so that you don't need like you know, thousands of dollars of software and maybe use some open source sensors that can. That're because they're within the accuracy spec of the experiment. Like you know, 50 bucks, 100 bucks for the whole thing? maybe? um just hypothetical And then and then you have a format for being able to record it so that now, um, apples to Apple's comparisons with all the other climate zones. You can get 50 texts across the country doing this in in in parallel with each other, during the same, you know, maybe similar climate events, All that data, even the outdoor data is recorded.

Um and then like now you have a massive data set that like academics would only dream of being able to have access to Um because because that's the there's such a disconnect like the it's Not The World that most techs are are like that they're familiar with that there's a problem there, but that that deficiency of data just means that these policy makers then they. they kind of they. try to listen to experts, but um, like in my presentation where Carolyn Hazard who was working with building America um on their Um on this Uh project for the last like four years trying to determine the viability of using measurequick and uh CTI predict together to say that hey, like how much does this affect like you know the outcomes of a system, how much does it reduce the Um you know to reduce the faults with for an installation and it kind of was. They got a little bit of data back, but they didn't They weren't able to achieve their goals because it was so difficult to get the data that they needed from contractors because of how contractors they don't have that as a part of their culture is really tracking data, not residential contractors and so like that's that's really one of the big opportunities that I see from This is not just it's not just a bunch of people nerding, it is a bunch of people nerding out doing things that they find fun.

but then like my own agenda would be to kind of push kind of being like okay so like maybe let's explore to see if we can create this like almost pipeline that's really easy for anybody to adopt, make it easy for someone like yourself to learn and then we just kind of test it out and we we bring in some academic researchers. I Already got a couple that are on that are ready to go that are just being like yeah I'll help you define what this should be because I want that data so that's that's an angle for this too. What like and so what? What do you guys think of that approach I Love it. And one thing I want to mention as well is that um, you know it doesn't have to just be the people who have like, you don't have to be a hardcore firmware engineer in order to get some of this to happen like open source is already enabling you, that if you you know your company, you want to pay someone uh, at least you can and it's still you're not waiting on um, someone else, some some larger company to develop that into your platform.

and the same goes I Think with getting this data and getting these experiments and you know if people are concerned about policies that might be coming down you know coming into force in their area and they you know they know that this is going to be a problem they have. they like real evidence for them at least and they want to make that rigorous in a in a research sense that is at least going to like has the ability to impact policy. then you know coming in and joining Open Agac there are going to be other people there who do have those skills and are able to help build some of this stuff together. Um, and that's where.

Like it's really just building off of each other's ideas like nobody is alone in anything that they want to contribute to this community Because you know we're all coming into this and working with these ideas and using them to build things up is. you know it takes some of the pressure off of you personally to be the the sole person who is trying to make the point you're trying to make what I was thinking about. Uh, there is like on the similar sort of similar vein is I Think us in the field we sometimes may have ideas that are hard to like, we don't know how we could prove them or bring them to Market Like we don't have ties with manufacturers necessarily and and if we, even if we did, are they going to listen or not? We who knows, right? And so there isn't really. I Think it could also be a p way to develop an idea, collect data like yes, this is a viable idea and maybe you're not the one who has to take it all the way through all the steps.

but it is a pathway or a pipeline to uh, you know, have an idea, actually come to life and and and be a viable you know solution in the marketplace right? Because the you know it sort of seems that you know manufacturers are, they don't have an incentive to make it do what we want it to do. necessarily right, like and I don't know necessarily what their incentive or driving factor is. but I know that it's not to allow Michael house to create the Franken system or whatever right? and so um M that's whates just money because I mean that same sentiment You know when working with certain manufacturers like I have over the for trying to get certain pieces of data that we believed you know, remotely monitoring we'd be able to know when a a filter needed to be changed. you know, not by the pressure, but you know by runtime based off of it being in a store or we wanted to know the pressures and the templine um tempure.

um and so we just um tried to work with manufacturers to get some of that done and they said well, can you guarantee that you'll sell thousand of these sensor Suites because that's what will motivate us to actually build out. You know on the back end the software version, the ability to capture that data and then for you to utilize it. It was all about. you know, economies of scale and in open Agac you know we can achieve that if you just have one customer or you want to know hey I would like to know if this you know multif family housing unit.

could you know if I could get it on five units and monitor them for three months and then collect data back, put it in whatever sort of you know Excel or Google Sheets or anything else and try and run as many tests as you can and then extrapolate that out for your area. You can find out a lot of good information that can help you sell things and you can do it with the force of everyone else around you who may also work in multif family housing units who want to know of what you're doing and you can all just come in together. And it doesn't really m matter about a manufacturer being able to create this thing for you. you're creating itself and like no fault on the manufactur is because like again, there's so much risk that they have to, um, take on uh to like to be like and so that that type of filter of saying like we can't actually interact until you know you have that volume I understand why it's it's a It's always disappointing because it's just being like Oh man, but like I really want to I want to solve that problem there just it's not.

That's what they're built for. and so this type of the they're they're built for outputting a stable, predictable sort of like you know, manufacturing line and that's awesome. Like the the market needs that but what's like I think the the kind of really a big trend is that. in most markets though, you can't just have um standardization and only standardization because then that leads to stagnation and so the like.

That's why a lot of startups are always necessary to to be able to kind of come in and be like hey, there's a problem that's not being solved. We're going to try to solve it. um and so. but there's a that model.

That open source model is just it's another. It's another approach where it just it uses different incentives. um, but it can produce results that neither kind of like. You know the small startup you know or the midmarket or the manufacturers are all going to be solving um, like, like because there there are still so many unsolved.

Like watching the HVAC Community For the last couple of years me trying to get a an IQ product to Market where like, we didn't have the in-house expertise to be able to, you know, create all those automations like that that solved everyone's problems all at once and so like the like. That's how a lot of there are manufacturers all over the globe that have this hybrid model of being able to like I guess, uh, encourage and to um, yeah, yeah, provide resources to uh, an open source community and then like and they respect that Rel Like they respect that type of autonomy that they have there. but then they're able to now take that Innovation and apply it to their internal processes like so and I believe that that that type of um cohesion is important because it's not about being like hey, manufacturer, you failed us and so we're going to go do our own thing because now you're just setting like again, you're just taking on a whole bunch of risk and so being able to kind of focus on that type of cycle of like you know your purpose is the predictability. Our purpose is the the instability to try to find something that uh is not within your business model.

um and that that's all clarified and and I didn't want to come out saying like you know all these M Yeah and so for for me it was there. there is a gap because the incentives are so apart and so you know how can we fill that Gap in in the best way possible. So well said. Yeah and like those data points are like they're more related to kind of like some of those like if you I don't know if you've ever read like total Tech like red academic papers um where they're very specific a lot of times like like J's J's example is great how like they is not like the the the use case approving to with enough like let's say homes to prove that like you know here's here's the variables that we control and now the one like you know constant that we're trying to test is is this sort of heps versus the um ventilating dehumidifiers and then that's the output that you want from the experiment, that's the data set and then that enables you to make in like big decisions.

sometimes like like the like a decision where I think in was it Florida that now you can't get heat strips or something. There's like either Florida or Georgia where like yeah you can't do electric only air handlers I think right. Like like because there is a I Think one of the scenarios here is you get an air conditioner with just electric heat strips as the heat Source right? Yeah and and like again there are people doing research in these areas and so like when if if if you know as as the community be brainstorming being like hey there's something I want to have solved um like the problem with Jry is that like it? Like right now the the research organization that you know that he wants to work with it's going to cost almost $100,000 so they like they have to go find that from somewhere and so what if there was a way to actually like bring in some experts that can help be like okay here's how to do get the same results but like you know maybe cheaper. It's a different type of risk that's being managed but like it could be possible to do um and to I just want to there's a um a message that I had thrown up there which is related to the data that is sought Beyond Uh, the data points gathered by Nest devices.

that that is Jre's example is one of them Where it's not just having a a large scale time series data from thermostats, it's about being able to have a scenario where it's just being like oh, there is No. There is no definite answer of whether something is going to work or not in this scenario. and so uh, an experiment is required. Yeah, and you need a specific data set for that? Yeah, right.

You know it's different than the the data set that is you're going to get from a thermostat. Yeah, and so like another example that's kind of inspiring to this is the the Home Cem Project where Corbert Lindford did a lot of publication of that. And if you're not familiar, just look up Home Kem And so the Chem is uh is capitalized. Um, insane scientific efforts that have been done over the last couple of years to like determine all of the like.

You know the chemical reactions uh that happen inside of a house? Um, because it is. It is not predictable and that's why there is push back on. you know saying that. Hey, we are going to let's go sell every air cleaner because there are unpredictable consequences.

Because we are. We have no. Well, we have some idea, but there are so many interactions that are happening all at once and it's all so unique in every single home. The amount of like chemical reactions that could be harming our health or just leading to better air quality and so homecam it.

It was a lot of researchers and a lot of investment by some you know benefactors that wanted to help with that research. but it's like what if what if that could be scaled down? what if that could be scaled down and like certain other smaller experiments could be done by people in an accessible way. So I'm going to wrap up the data side and I kind of want to go back to the uh, you know some of the other things that the community could be built for. so maybe Chris if you're you know you as being a part of uh uh open haac What do you want to see like what would you? what do you want to get out of it? oh so much.

I mean and that's kind of the thing. like I feel as though you and I through our conversations have thought about. you know these big picture sort of items, these the down the road sort of things and uh you know coming from you know all of this data that we could provide to local governments to help them. you know Assist uh you know uh lower income communities in in making the built environment more sustainable, more resilient.

um you know future and things like that like I love all that big picture stuff and the thing that actually excites me about it is that it's all got to start like very hyper local and small. just like what we're doing today getting a few people together you know from all across the country, all across America than you Canadian um to come together and uh, just talk about it and figure out what uh what? what can be done you know in our own homes I bought a home assistant because you're were like yeah, you know go and tinker and figure stuff out and I'm completely new to open source and to uh coding in general. you know coming from the HB world so it's kind of just utilizing my free time to figure out uh, new things and learning new things. and so at I mean at the very start I think that's what we want to do is just attract people who, uh, want to Tinker and have something that you know they want to do.

I mean you brought up the uh monitoring of of blood sugar. My sister is a type one diabetic. you know if she buys two you know Philips Hue bulbs and then links it to her continuous glucose monitor and then she can make it so that lights will turn red when she gets below like 50 or something like that. You know, like things like that that.

You know, no, um, indivi no company is ever going to make but could drastically change the life of in of multiple individuals that we can just kind of get together and do like I'm excited for that sort of thing in In HVAC and so you know a lot of it. I Think has started with like the indoor air quality sort of aspect of it and wanted to make sure CO2 Voc's particulates are all sort of managed. uh you know in your home where you breathe the most air and wanting to make sure that it's healthy and there's um, you know a gap in you know all the things. uh right now get it to work with manufacturers and uh you know filter and get air flow going and so I think uh just at the hyper local level is fun to get started, communicate meet new people who have completely different backgrounds in me and try and come together and build something you know whether it's small or it has Grand scale in the future I think that's kind of what I'm most excited about for for the community is just you know, meet meeting people.

uh I mean so for me I uh would be interested in just you know, make my work, being helpful to other people maybe or um, you know, being in involved in something that's bigger than yourself and perhaps can change the way that uh, the future looks and so to me I Just uh you know I want the HVAC industry to be great and I enjoy open-source stuff. So I think being part of a community that is pushing towards similar goals and being able to help each other with those uh, depending on our strong suit um or ideas then that is a valuable thing. So yeah and for me I think a lot of it is come comes from the the freedom and flexibility aspect of Open Source and trying to make it so that as as the technology that's being increasingly getting really cool that we get to to use in this industry I would love it if that technology was also something that was as inviting to everyone as we want it to be and everyone specifically. I Think the a lot of the potential is for contractors, the people who really have their hands on this stuff every day and having the equipment you know giving it, having it give you all the information that you need to do successful installs, all the information you need to prove to your customers that what you're doing is really valuable to them or why it makes sense for them to want to invest in a better solution.

uh I think having that information is really valuable and then also from that the ability to make things a little bit more flexible and make it easier to work on things. uh, a lot easier to find the documentation you need. These are all things that the the Open Source Community has tend to done tend to do really well and uh I think you know it would be. There's there's a lot of really smart people who are hungry to come and contribute things and help make this stuff better and easier to use, easier to work on.

And I think that that's something that I would love to see is just getting like you know having having real input from people who are in the field working on these things. What is it that you need in order to do your job better? And how can we help you? How can the open source community help you get that for what you're working on? Yeah, yeah because that's a the frustration with not specifically like you know, manufacturers being bad, but the frustration with there being problems that people just can't seem to solve. like because they're either a part is out of, you know, end of life, um or you know somebody couldn't find the manual in time or the person who is in charge of training just wasn't available like there's always there. There's there's so many little things that can add up which is which is why people like yourself just kind of like you take a different route.

It's it's it's strange to some, but um, that's that's the route that that some people um, you know are going to need. So with uh, you know this is something that is uh, like like we like we said, it's still fairly new. So there's there's a website that .io and there's a Discord server. so if you're not familiar with Discord it's a basically just a chat room.

kind of. um a lot of video game nerds use it. Uh, but it's a just a program that you can download on your computer or phone or use from the web and then it allows us you to just basically have real-time chats with people. You can also do like you know, video calls, voice calls, screen sharing.

There's uh, like there's even voice channels. so that let's say if you're in the middle of doing a um like let's say a jam session on a um on a GitHub repo and just everybody can be talking all at once in a voice Channel um to to try to debug some code together. Uh so so it's a like As you see, there's a couple of ideas of what we want you know to to integrate here. Um, but one of the first things that we're doing is just trying to put the Uh resources on the website.

for people that don't know open source, we're trying to create a bit of a guide and kind of being like you know, here's the introduction and here's also how it relates to you as an H fact Tech and how this actually can TI to commercialization because Open Source by itself doesn't solve your problems. it's the it's the connecting those dots to be like. Okay, this is now how it's something that you know. Eventually maybe something comes out of this where there's a you know, this new piece of technology that you can actually use in your customers homes.

Maybe maybe there's a new piece of technology that you know becomes like somebody so creative that all of a a a manufacturer you know comes and says oh crap I Love that I'm GNA we're going to include that in in. you know, one of our next you know things that we're doing. so we don't like the kind of the emergent qualities I use that word a bunch of times today. but the that's what that's what I really love about these types of communities is that it's hard to predict exactly what'll come out of it.

Um, but if there's alignment on kind of like those, those values and a little bit of you know this is where we're going towards. um then usually good things happen. Yeah, so anything else to add guys? uh not not really I just want to say um, you know we'd love to have uh, people who are interested in this stuff. Any you know, whatever whatever it is that you might be interested in, uh you know, come join us.

We would love to hear what you're thinking about. hear what we can help you with. Um, and I'm also yeah I'm hopeful for good things. I Think open source has a lot of potential here.

I Think just making making equipment more transparent and giving us the tools that we that we need is something that would benefit everyone. So awesome! Thanks Ben Thanks Chris thanks Michael Let's all go home. The we're basically the last ones here at Kos So yeah, probably everything. Everything is closing down outside already.

Yeah, all right. yeah.