New universal Sabbath remote lets any air conditioner run on Shabbat

The Institute of Science and Halacha has approved, for the first time, a universal Sabbath remote control for air conditioners, offering a practical solution to a long-standing halachic problem. Unlike earlier approaches that required buying an air conditioner with a built-in Sabbath device, the new remote can switch any existing unit into Sabbath mode.

The issue has troubled religious authorities for years because modern air conditioners use sensors and digital thermostats that react immediately to people in a room, open windows, and temperature changes. Those responses can make human actions affect the machine’s operation on Shabbat, raising halachic concerns that were difficult to solve.

According to the institute, headed by Rabbi Abraham Moshe Halperin in cooperation with Electra, the approved remote completely disables these systems and places the air conditioner into a physical Sabbath mode in which human activity no longer affects its functioning. The rabbis stressed that this is not just a regular Shabbat clock, since simple timer remotes do not neutralize the sensors and the unit still remains influenced by people.

The development took more than a year and underwent a series of strict tests in the institute’s laboratories, including different digital edge cases. Approval was granted only after the product met all of the institute’s halachic requirements.