Last week, we announced the Alexa Fund's investment in tado°, a Munich-based smart thermostat and climate control company that focuses primarily on comfort control systems for apartments and households in Europe. We've known tado° because of its early embrace of Alexa in the UK and Germany. Over the last several years, the company has worked closely with our Alexa teams to launch smart home capabilities that work with the thermostats and smart radiator regulators that tado° sells throughout Europe.

tado° has a particular expertise in linking to thousands of boiler models found throughout Europe. Its single interface is flexible enough to understand the operating parameters of these systems whether they're installed to work with the latest model or a reliable but decades-old system. Being able to talk to all of these systems means tado° is smart enough to understand if something is wrong with a home's heating system and set up an appointment with a service technician who can fix the problem. tado° can also sense when windows are open (and the home is wasting energy) or whether a fan should be turned on to circulate stuffy indoor air. tado° can even look out for your wallet by studying your energy use and identifying energy plans that may be more cost-effective based on your usage (in Europe, customers have free choice over their energy providers, much like choosing your own mobile phone plan).

Alexa makes daily life simpler and more productive at home, and we’re thrilled to be bringing the service to more customers in Europe with recent launches in Italy and Spain. We are excited to work with tado° as it builds features that work with Alexa and helps homeowners and apartment dwellers throughout Europe more effectively run their home and manage their comfort systems.