One Comfort Labs supported by NSF I-Corps to explore technology commercialization

One Comfort Labs, is borne out of the PhD research work of Santosh K. Gupta under the guidance of Dr. Koushik Kar. Accompanied by Sam Atkinson, Ian O’boyle, John Drogo and John Stall, their team was selected by the NSF I-Corps program to support their technology towards commercialization. The team is focused towards building a smart, energy efficient solution for residential homes and commercial buildings. Most of the smart home solutions currently available in the market are just a connected home solution, rather than a smart home solution. The smart hub, that the team is building, will transform a connected home to a smart home by making intelligent decisions towards energy efficiency and occupant comfort. This is achieved through real-time learning of the environmental conditions and occupant habits through a network of distributed sensors that the team is building in-house. The hub would also have APIs to enable connection for any supported third party home devices (thermostats, lights, music systems, home security, etc.).

 
Figure 1. From right to left: (Standing) - John Stall, Koushik Kar, John Drogo, Santosh K. Gupta; (Seated) - Sam Atkinson, Ian O'boyle

The team comprises of Dr. Koushik Kar, who is a professor of electrical, computer, and systems engineering (ECSE) at RPI. Santosh K. Gupta is a Silicon Valley veteran having worked at Cisco and Apple, and has been working on this solution since 2013 at RPI in the ECSE department. Ian O’boyle is a Senior in the Computer Science department, John Drogo is a Senior in the ECSE department, John Stall is a also Senior in the ECSE department, and Sam Atkinson the youngest member of the team is a Sophomore in the ECSE department.

To learn more about their project please visit their website at www.onecomfortlabs.com or reach out to any of the team members.