The ignored, ugly utilities that run your home just got a major redesign

FastCompany: Could you love your furnace? Would you put your water heater on display? Is your air conditioner a reflection of your personal design aesthetic? Unless you are very, very weird, the answer to all those questions is no. A new home utilities startup called Everyday^ wants to make you say yes. Everyday^ has just launched what it calls an integrated home infrastructure system made up of the seemingly boring utilities of the home: HVAC systems, water heaters, air purifiers, and thermostats. A single-unit Air^ system will sell for about $2,280 and first be available in the European market.

[Photo: Everyday^] Home utilities are “something that people rarely think about,” says cofounder Morten Meisner-Jensen. “But they’re actually where the most money is spent and they’re some of the systems that we depend [on] the most. And some of these devices have some of the largest impacts on the global climate.” Everyday^, based in Copenhagen, has reconsidered these utilities through the lens of design and artificial intelligence , developing customizable devices that mesh with the furnishings in modern homes while also using AI to optimize how they perform. The first product, which was announced earlier this summer, is called Air^.

It’s a heat-pump-connected heating, cooling, and air purification unit. Its minimalist design and profile can be customized with interchangeable material surfaces. The company plans to expand its product line to include hot water, energy storage, and broader home energy systems. [Photo: Everyday^] Meisner-Jensen, who previously founded the stand-alone office pod maker Room , says the idea for Everyday^ came from noticing just how ugly, overlooked, and complicated most home utilities are. “They have not really been designed with the end user in mind.

It feels a little bit more like an industrial afterthought rather than something that feels intentional for the way that we live today,” he says. “If you walk into a home you’ll see certain elements that feel like they belong to the present or even the future, and then you run into other things that feel like they’re still caught in the past.” To create Everyday^, Meisner-Jensen teamed up with Kaave Pour, longtime head of the design firm Space10 , which operated for a decade as Ikea’s innovation lab.

That work led Pour and his team into tens of thousands of homes, gathering research on the way people used their spaces to inform future Ikea products. The overall clunkiness of home utilities struck a nerve, which led Pour to contact Meisner-Jensen about creating a better alternative. [Photo: Everyday^] Architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group is a design partner and investor. The approach they’ve developed for Everyday^ products is based on making them seem like they were actually designed to fit into a home and not just be tacked on.

“We realized that if you truly want to create something that feels integrated, you have to make it adaptable because no two homes are the same, no two rooms are the same,” Meisner-Jensen says. Air^ is a minimal rectangular box with vents, not unlike other HVAC appliances, but it features a variety of surface treatments that connect to the device with magnets, including several wood finishes and fabric covers. “Traditionally you would have selected a product designer to design your product and not an architect,” Meisner-Jensen says.

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The article discusses a significant redesign of home utilities that could influence brand perception in the home technology market, making it impactful and novel, though its direct relevance to broader brand strategy professionals may vary.