Big Aircon is watching you

The other day we took delivery of our second air conditioner, oh what joy.

We tried so hard to do the right thing by the environment and our electricity bills by making do with just the upstairs one, but in the end, the hottest Japanese summer on record finally got the better of us and we capitulated. And if it seemed a bit silly to buy an air conditioner right near the end of summer, well, the weather has just been getting hotter and hotter, with the top temp recording a new PB of 36 degrees all this week, and some people say this heatwave will continue right through to winter, obliterating autumn along the way, so it looks like we’re going to get good use out of it. Plus it works as a heater in winter (what’s that again?) which means we can now retire the ever so slightly smelly kerosene heater.

So no more 35 degrees inside the lounge room every day. No more inferno in the kitchen every time we use the stove. Finally we can start cooking again, not to mention hanging out in the lounge room instead of all camping in the upstairs office.

But there’s just one thing: our shiny new device is equipped with this wonderful new technology that scans the room constantly to detect where the people are so it can create a more pleasant air flow. Supposedly. My theory is that it’s part of secret program by the Japanese CIA to have scanning air-conditioners installed in every room across the land a la 1984. In fact I reckon they deliberately concocted this year’s heatwave just to make everyone buy air conditioners with people scanners in them.

And how does it scan the room? From this beady little eye, located right in the middle near the bottom:

The eyeball sweeps lazily back and forth all day long, left to right, right to left, watching us go about our business, constantly evaluating our movements for its so-called “learning” function. I’m convinced it’s evil. What is it thinking, I wonder to myself. What does it do with this “learned” information? Probably biding its time until the MACHINES TAKE OVER and deadly gas starts spurting forth out of those little louvres (and directed straight at us, since it knows where we are).

On a more immediate note, I worry that if I change position in the loungeroom it will get angry and glare at me like HAL in 2001:

“Not again! I just went and adjusted all the settings and now he’s gone and moved again! Sit still why can’t you!”

Heaven knows what it must think of Felix playing with his trains.

I have to admit that the eye is rather clever. There are a couple of buttons called Blow That Cool Air On Me* and Keep That Airflow Offa Me* and the machine works out where you are in the room and adjusts its little louvres as you’ve instructed. But that in itself is kind of spooky when you think about it.

You can of course turn the Evil Eye off, but I suspect that would make it even more angry and maybe it would contact Mitsubishi wirelessly, or report us to the JCIA as “foreigners of interest” since no doubt it’s already worked out that we haven’t got black hair.

At least we can escape into the kitchen like Winston Smith where hopefully it can’t see us behind the partition. Or does it have built-in X-ray technology too that can find us behind walls? I’ve got a funny feeling about our newest addition to the family…