Comfort is not a one-size-fits-all experience. Yet for decades, we've been trapped in a world of heating solutions that treat temperature like a blunt instrument—flooding entire rooms with indiscriminate warmth, wasting energy, and leaving most people either too hot or too cold.
For Rohan Pandya, Focal’s co-founder and co-CEO, this wasn’t just an inefficiency—it was a personal frustration.
"I like warm spaces," he says, "but I’ve spent years keeping the thermostat low out of energy guilt—layering up, using space heaters, heating pads—anything to stay comfortable without waste." The real problem? Even the most motivated energy-conscious person can’t escape the hassle. And in shared spaces, where every person’s comfort is different, the battle over temperature never ends.
With advances in robotics and optics, Rohan saw a way forward: a 10x better heating solution—one that delivers warmth exactly where it’s needed, maximizing comfort and efficiency without compromise.
The breakthrough came from an unexpected parallel: lighting.
Humanity has optimized lighting because its waste was highly visible—unused bulbs glaring in an empty room, a spotlight misdirected. Heat, on the other hand, is invisible. We only notice it when we're too hot, too cold, or when the energy bill arrives.
At Focal, we see heat and light as the same, both are photons, one for illumination, the other for comfort. Just as lighting is designed with intention—task lights for focus, ambient lights for atmosphere, directional lights for precision—Focal applies this principle to warmth. Our node-based system works like a spotlight for heat, delivering warmth exactly where it’s needed, personalized to each person, without waste.
Focal’s approach to heating was radical—so we put it to the test. Instead of making assumptions, we prioritized real-world deployments, learning directly from restaurateurs and patrons who rely on heat the most. Hospitality was our first focus, where guest comfort is critical, outdoor dining is on the rise, and traditional heating solutions fell short.
Restaurateurs had long struggled with bulky, inefficient heaters—wasting energy, creating safety hazards, and adding unnecessary hassle for staff. Patrons, meanwhile, were left either too cold or too hot, with no way to adjust warmth to their needs. As outsiders to the industry, we took a first-principles approach, designing for real-world use rather than legacy conventions. Over two years, we made four major revisions, logging more than 15,000 hours of heating and warming over 5,500 people.
“Designing in a vacuum is dangerous. When you install a unit in a space, you immediately see what works and what doesn’t—how power runs, how staff interact with it, whether patrons instinctively understand it.” says Matt Leanse, Hardware Engineer.
Striking this balance was the most complex challenge we faced—rethinking not just how heaters look, but how they operate. The result? What once seemed like a radical rethink of heating now feels like the obvious solution—one designed to deliver warmth exactly where it’s needed while eliminating waste.
"We learned more from our early customers than we ever could in a lab," says Raj Tilwa, Co-Founder and Co-CEO. "Every iteration helped us refine the balance between often competing priorities—communicative design, energy efficiency, operational simplicity, and seamless integration—so that Focal could maximize comfort and reduce hassle through technology innovations."
For a heating system to work in a dynamic environment like a restaurant, it must do more than just look good: it must function effortlessly.
The team partnered with Now Studio, a nimble, hands-on industrial design agency based in San Francisco, to bring these principles to life with a deep love for creating delightful, thoughtful products and end-to-end experience in new product development.
“One of the key issues was visual clutter. Restaurants already have so many elements competing for attention. We focused on making the design pure, simple, and honest—so it feels natural in the space.”
– Kenneth Young, Industrial Designer, Founder of Now Studio
Together, Focal and Now Studio teams obsessed over simplicity, adaptability, and intuitiveness and established the key design principles for their heaters.
The design needed to be minimal and modular, blending into a variety of environments. Inspired by lighting fixtures, Focal’s heaters take on a sculptural form, avoiding visual clutter in already designed spaces.
Unlike conventional heaters with clunky controls, Focal’s system is designed for intuitive use, automatically detecting where heat is needed while giving patrons and staff easy manual overrides.
Focal’s heaters are built with machined aluminum and extrusions, using the same precision machines trusted by Swiss watchmakers. Inspired by high-end audio equipment and luxury lighting, these materials provide both premium aesthetics and durability, ensuring the system withstands outdoor conditions while seamlessly blending into designed spaces.
Everything around us is becoming personalized—from music, shopping, car seat positions, to movie recommendations. Yet comfort, one of our most fundamental needs, remains stuck in a one-size-fits-all approach. Leveraging robotics, learning algorithms, and sensor fusion, Focal’s system is packed with technology that disappears into the background to deliver heat autonomously.
Rohan’s background in autonomous vehicles and robotics at Carnegie Mellon and Zoox inspired their innovative approach: “If a car can detect its surroundings and adjust to complex environments, why couldn’t a heater do the same? Heating should adapt to people, not the other way around.”
This is why each Focal heater acts like an intelligent node, communicating with others in a swarm robotics network to optimize warmth distribution based on real-world conditions.
Using sensor fusion technology, the heater continuously analyzes:
“We use precision optics to direct and modulate heat exactly where it’s needed— just pure efficiency and comfort.” — Philip Wolfe, Robotics Systems Architect
For its thermal engine, Focal chose radiant heating over conduction (which requires direct contact) and convection (which inefficiently heats the air) because it directly warms people and objects, without being tethered, making it the most effective solution for outdoor spaces.
The result?
Focal also gets smarter over time. Proprietary AI algorithms analyze real-world use, learning from guest preferences and layout changes to deliver precise comfort.
Comfort is personal, this is why Focal’s heating system offers precise control for guests, restaurant owners, and staff. Diners can adjust their personal heat level through an app, creating a customized experience without staff intervention.
For restaurant owners a centralized control system provides effortless management, allowing them to automate temperature settings based on time, occupancy, and energy efficiency.
“Every restaurant is different,” Raj explains. “Tables move, guests shift, and staff don’t have time to tweak heating all night. Our system is designed to disappear into the background—smart enough to adjust on its own but flexible enough to give guests and owners control when they want it.”
For architects, designers, and design-conscious patrons, Focal represents a shift in how technology integrates into spaces. Focal isn’t just about warmth—it’s about redefining comfort. The result is a heating solution that:
“We’re not just building a heater. We’re creating a world where comfort is personal, effortless, and sustainable.”
— Rohan, Co-founder & Co-CEO
