RavenBrick, a Denver based company, has created a “smart window“. Like the ever popular smart car, the smart window saves energy, but in a vastly different way. The window tints when the weather outside becomes hot, and turns back to clear glass when the temperature cools back down again. Unlike eyeglasses that tint in the sunlight, the new windows are only affected by heat, and not by light.
According to RavenBrick, the windows can save up to 30% of the energy used to cool buildings during the summer. While this is impressive, the windows still have the obvious problem of blocking out light during the summer, which is sure to make the interior dimmer and gloomier. However, the windows would still leave the room brighter than it would be with closed blinds, since the tint on the windows is supposed to let in about the same amount of light that most sunglasses do.
RavenBrick hopes that their new windows will hit the mainstream market sometime during 2011.
Modern Cereal Box 
This is such a fascinating, practical breakthrough! I would love to have these throughout my house, especially in this heat.
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This is so interesting! I can’t wait until this becomes commercially available… New York in the summer… ugh, am I right? I can’t believe I didn’t know about this blog, all these posts are crazy amazing btw. :]
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