For a few years, the thermostats of the Nest firm, which Google bought a couple of years ago, had become the design and functionality reference for this type of device. But since now, many have been the manufacturers that have been launching new similar devices, devices that have never stood out in design, the first point that buyers of this type of device usually take into account.
The guys from Redmond have teamed up with the Johnson Control firm to create a new smart thermostat, a thermostat that is not only aesthetically beautiful, has the virtual assistant Cortana, without depending on third parties to communicate with him, an advantage compared, for example with Nest, although it is not the only one.
Inside this transparent thermostat baptized with the name GLAS, we find the Windows 10 IoT Core operating system, which allows its management thanks to Cortana through voice commands. The GLAS thermostat is capable not only of showing us the room temperature and managing it, but it also allows us get information on air quality, outside temperature, energy consumption ... practically the same functions that the Nest thermostat offers us, a reference in the market.
This is Microsoft's first move in the world of the Internet of Things, a sector that has been booming in recent years and that little by little it will become a regular element in the homes of many millions of people. Windows 10 IoT is also available in some models of refrigerators from the Korean manufacturer LG, refrigerators with which we can interact thanks to Cortana. GLAS is also integrated with Microsoft's cloud services Microsoft Azure, a cloud service that has gained a large number of customers in recent years.