Three entrepreneurial graduates of Waterloo Engineering have launched a new product they hope will change the home heating industry, reducing carbon emissions and saving customers money by driving a move away from natural gas to greener electricity.
Stephen Lake, Matthew Bailey and Aaron Grant (all BASc ’12, mechatronics engineering) built on their prior success in business to co-found Vancouver-based Jetson with a goal of making electric home heating much more common.
The startup company’s first product, Jetson Air, is billed as the first fully integrated smart home heat pump platform, and can be integrated with existing ductwork to operate quietly and reliably in temperatures as low as -30° C.
“Jetson Air is bringing the same kind of innovation to your home’s heating and cooling that Tesla brought to your driveway, smart, electric, and built for the future,” Lake, the CEO, said in a recent media release.
Lake, Bailey and Grant first made their mark with the launch of Thalmic Labs, a Kitchener startup rooted in their Capstone Design project. Its flagship project, the Myo gesture control armband, turned your arm into a remote control.
Thalmic later pivoted to the development of smart glasses and, after changing names to North, was acquired by Google in 2020. The trio then worked for Google before launching Jetson in 2024 to try to make “a big dent in climate change.”
The company already has customers in Massachusetts, Colorado, and British Columbia, and is working to expand into new markets such as New York.