[MUSIC PLAYING]
Thanks for coming, Steve.
No problem.
As you know, [? Abhishek ?] and I are working on temperature.
Hi, [? Aman. ?] How are you doing today?
I'm good, thank you.
You had told me that you had looked for a temperature app
before.
Mhm.
So could you tell me why were you
looking for that and the experience?
Sure.
So I'm a full-time student at MIT Sloan.
So in my room in the dormitories,
it's a bit of a constant struggle.
Because the dorm has central heating and cooling.
Over break in January, I was home in Connecticut
at my father's house.
He has a very old heating system.
And it's an original thermostat from probably 20 years ago.
And I went downstairs.
And I was like, when does heating start.
He said, there's a certain date.
Right.
The building manager-- he said, there's
a certain date where it switches from cooling to heating.
And it's not in your control.
It's centralized.
So I can see the temperature on the box-- the AC box.
So I have a little bit of control in my room.
But then it's pointless, right.
So I just set it at whatever the warmest is and just depend
on it.
Because a few degrees up and down won't really do anything.
Like OK, we need to figure out what the real temperature is
in this house.
We can calibrate the thermometer on the wall
and figure out if the thermometer's the problem,
or if the actual oil burner's the problem.
So he didn't have any thermometers around the house.
So I figured, hey, there's an app for everything.
Maybe there's an app to figure out
what the right temperature is.
I'm thinking to myself, well, I don't
know if there's a temperature sensor is my phone.
So I went on the App Store, checked it out, and there
was really-- I didn't find anything.
But you never had any temperature wars
in your workplace?
Like when some people felt it was too cold,
and some people said it was too hot.
I had actually-- now that you say--
I had a temperature war with my brother.
[LAUGHTER]
Over Christmas, I stayed at his apartment.
And I prefer a bit colder.
And I think he preferred a bit warmer.
I know you're a student now.
And I'm not sure if you've experienced temperature--
so maybe in class or a recent workplace you've been at,
have you experienced any temperature uncomfortability?
Yeah, so actually this was a systemic problem last semester.
I was in a class in E51.
And there's some older classrooms in there.
And basically, this room would fluctuate
between icy cold or super hot.
We tried to open the windows to cool the room down.
But there was construction happening outside.
So it was a constant like, throw on a jacket,
take my jacket off, throw on my jacket, take it off.
But yeah, data would help.
Because you could say, at least this is a baseline.
Or how do you feel now?
OK, is this good?
Let's lock this in.
Because I don't know if the vents-- especially
when it's on auto-- I don't know if the device always
reflects what the current temperature is.
Some do.
Maybe some don't.
If you would have found an app, what
would you have wanted it to do?
So I would've wanted an app that, literally, I just open it
up, and there's a big picture of a thermometer
or just like a number next to it that just said,
current temperature in the room where your phone is.
That's simply all I wanted it to do.
Just so I could get how hot or cold is it in this room.
That's it.
And that's all.
Nice.
And you said you use a weather app for every day.
Every morning.
So when do you use it--
Pretty much every single morning.
After I shower as I get dressed, I'll check my phone.
I used to use Google Now.
And now I use-- the Weather Channel has one.
Because they have a Feels Like feature.
Ah.
If you also gave a feature, just a quick brainstorm.
Like [INAUDIBLE] your feature thanks to your data point,
and your data point was used at these, these buildings.
And hence, that it was taken--
Oh, so feedback.
[INAUDIBLE] days.
If you had that clear feedback, for example,
would you like that?
And would it make you more acceptable
to giving more data inputs?
Maybe.
But again, it's sort of like this ephemeral, very loose
connection between, oh, your data point was used--
Yeah, yay.
Awesome, right?
But if there was some more tangible benefit-- your data
point was used to-- hey, your friend just
adjusted their home's temperature based on your-- I
don't know, it's kind of weird, though.
Thank you so much for coming to talk with us.
My pleasure.
Awesome.
Thanks a lot.
No worries, man.
Thank you for first giving us all
of those cool stories about temperature in your life,
and then also for humoring us in this brainstorming session.
Awesome.
Any of this would be useful.
So cool.
Well, we'll maybe follow up sometime--
Happy to help.
--and show you how we're coming along.
Yeah.
Cool.
But thanks so much.
Thanks.
That's awesome.