The Cozy locally controls building-wide heat: Radiator Labs [crowdfunding]

Have you ever lived in one of those apartments or dorms that gets way, way too hot in the winter? It’s so hot you open the windows, which proves to be a terrible solution.

That usually happens when one heating system is heating an entire large building and it happens especially badly on steam radiator systems. A boiler has to pump out a lot of heat to make sure that both the first floor and the fifth floor get adequate heat. If you are in one of those lower floors, you could be broiling.

Enter: The Cozy. It’s the main product from Radiator Labs. The Cozy wraps your radiator and absorbs the heat. Using external temperature gauges, it releases out heat as necessary, based on your preferences.

Back the Cozy on Kickstarter now. $299 gets you your own Cozy, projected to arrive in October 2014. Better yet, get your landlord to back it for your whole building. With 27 days to go, the team has raised about 10 percent of its $100,000 goal.

It’s nice not paying for heat yourself, but it’s not nice having no control over the temperature. The Cozy is an attempt to solve that problem, and the company reports positive results on whole building tests, often on college dormitories.

Cozy users will be able to control their unit via their smart phone, set temperature schedules and adjust temperatures remotely while away.

Additionally, if lots of units in a building have Cozies on their radiator, it should reduce the overall fuel needed to heat the building, cutting both carbon and air pollution.

The team is based in Metrotech Center according to DNAInfo. The Radiator Labs website currently shows a team of three.