Software may be reshaping the world, but some industries are only just beginning to catch up. Heat pumps are now joining the ranks of software-defined products, thanks to a breakthrough from climate-tech startup Quilt.
The company announced last week that it had delivered an over-the-air (OTA) update to its installed heat pumps, boosting their heating and cooling capacity by more than 20% overnight.
“From the very beginning, we wanted to design the systems to be able to be continuously improved, updated over the air,” said Quilt CEO Paul Lambert. “It’s a pattern that’s happened in EVs and gotten traction, but no one had really done that before in HVAC. We feel like we’ve created software-defined HVAC.”
Typically, HVAC equipment is adjusted only when something goes wrong. But Quilt’s engineering team,with alumni from Nest, Google, Apple, Tesla, and Lucid Motors, applied lessons from consumer tech and electric vehicles. Their approach relied on higher-quality sensors, additional pressure and temperature monitors, and embedded networking to enable safe OTA updates.
The update raised the outdoor unit’s cooling capacity from 19,700 BTUs per hour to 24,000, and heating from 20,500 BTUs to 25,200 BTUs. While efficiency levels remain unchanged, the added power helps the systems better handle extreme temperatures.
Quilt’s engineers validated the changes in-house before rolling them out to customers, ensuring reliability. “We realized the units had more to give,” said Isaac McQuillen, the lead engineer on the project. “That extra headroom lets us serve larger spaces without building entirely new models.”
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Though the upgraded sensors and connectivity added to the bill of materials, Lambert believes the long-term value outweighs the cost. Beyond performance, the OTA capability allows Quilt to expand its market reach and keep systems evolving, much like Tesla did for cars.
With this milestone, HVAC may be on its way to becoming another software-driven industry.
