FAQ

Absolutely, we welcome customers to our home and always enjoy meeting you. We just ask that you contact us to set a time to visit to make sure we’re available.

Yes, the Roadrunner Comfort has significant improvements over competitive units.

– Active Temperature Control. No other controller for existing swamp coolers has this. A Bluetooth-connected sensor clipped to the air vent monitors incoming air temperature. Then the controller uses a proprietary algorithm to determine how much water to put on the pads (how long to run the pump) to maintain the incoming air temperature at your set temp. Other controllers just turn the cooler on and off.

– Saves Water. Compared to a conventional thermostat or manual control, the Roadrunner Comfort uses less water. The amount is not dramatic, but it is significant.

– Ease of use. Thanks to the touchscreen, smart use of color and user-centered design, everyday operation and setting turn-on and turn-off times could not be easier.

– If you have Wifi, the unit will check overnight each night for updates, keeping you up to date with the latest features and improvements at no cost to you. It also keeps the clock set to the correct time.

– Here in Albuquerque, local service and support. 60-day no hassle returns, two-year warranty. Satisfaction unconditionally guaranteed.

All evaporative coolers are less effective with higher humidity. For what it’s worth, we live in Los Ranchos where it gets into the 100s fairly often this time of year, and our evaporative coolers have not had a problem keeping up. However, we’re most comfortable with the house around 78 degrees, so on very hot days we may turn the set temperature down to 74 or so in order to keep up with the heat coming in through the walls. We can generally depend on at least 25 degrees of cooling.

That said, we have a portable air conditioner, as well as a wall unit, that we use when the air quality is poor. My partner has lung issues and is very sensitive to poor air. So I tend to think the ideal setup has both options.

That said, Roadrunner Comfort does not alleviate issues with humidity, though we’re told by an NMT professor that he measured indoor humidity as reduced with it, as compared with a standard controller.

Absolutely. In extreme heat, the pump will run continuously, providing the greatest amount of cooling possible from your cooler. No other thermostat or switches can do better.

The display turns off two minutes after the last touch, both to save energy and to avoid unwanted lighting. 

The remote sensor has no shutoff capability, the battery must be removed to shut it down. The battery lifetime is on the order of 5 years of continuous operation. The battery shelf life is around 10 years, so removing the battery for the winter should effectively double its lifetime.

Absolutely, while the default setting is Fahrenheit, a “units” control on the Setup screen toggles between Fahrenheit and Celsius.

When it is warmer outside than your set temperature, the fan will tend to run continuously while the pump is turned on once a minute for some number of seconds, depending on how much wetness is needed in order to maintain incoming air at your set temperature.

When it is cooler outside, it will switch on and off as needed to keep your home (as measured at the cooling vent) at your set temperature.

The high-performance processor module in the Roadrunner Comfort (based on the Espressif ESP32-S3) requires a Wifi 4 (802.11 b/g/n, 600Mbps) network. Some Wifi 5 (802.11ac, 3.5Gbps) routers also provide a Wifi 4 network which is compatible with Roadrunner Comfort.

So, in summary, it will work with a Wifi 5 router only if that router also provides a Wifi 4 channel.

Yes, the Roadrunner Comfort’s operation is not dependent on the kind of media you install in your cooler. It automatically compensates for variations in pads, fans, capacity and more.

Unfortunately, our controller does not work with window-mounted coolers. The problem is that such coolers are not designed to work with aftermarket controls. Their controls are built into the unit and replacement is not easily possible. If your cooler is controlled by a separate, wall-mounted controller as shown below, then the Roadrunner Comfort will work for you.

We expect to eventually become “smart home” compatible, hopefully in 2026. All units for sale are fully capable of smart home compatibility, and it will be a free update when it becomes available.

Not yet. A lot of people have asked for this capability, and we’re working on it. We hope to offer that capability via a free upgrade in 2026.

Sorry, no. We are working on a certification process for local installers, but it is not yet active.

AC house wiring consists of two wires, ACL (hot or live) and ACN (common or neutral). Most swamp coolers have two wires for fan hi and lo, and a pump wire. Some older swamp coolers, typically those with manual switches, only switch ACL to the fan and pump, and do not have ACN in the control junction box. You need an ACN wire brought to that junction box for connection to the green wire of the Roadrunner Comfort. This usually requires an electrician.

The extra wire in your current thermostat is the ground wire. In the Roadrunner Comfort, the internal ground is based on the internal power supply, so no separate ground wire is needed. The fan and pump are controlled by relays that switch the ACL (POWER and BLACK on your control) power, returning (completing the circuit) to a common line, ACN (COMMON & WHITE).  So you can probably just cap off the ground wires. Please be careful, or call an electrician.