Austroflamm Air+ Automatic Air Controls: A Glimpse to the Future?

With Austroflamm Air+, your stove fine-tunes itself—cleaner burns, steadier heat, clearer glass. Woodburning, upgraded.

July 3, 2025
By Reece Toscani
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Woodburner Innovations

What Is Austroflamm Air+ ?

If you’ve ever played “guess the air slider” at 11pm and ended up with either a sulking fire or a roaring blast furnace, Austroflamm Air+ exists to save your evenings (and your glass). It’s an optional automatic air control system that regulates combustion air for you—opening up when the fire needs a push, easing back to prevent over-firing, and generally keeping things clean and efficient without the constant fiddling. Austroflamm have integrated this new technology on four models in its current line-up, including:

Air+ is a small suite of electronics, a temperature sensor, and a motorised linkage that automatically adjusts the stove’s air dampers. Instead of you nudging levers every 10 minutes, Air+ uses the combustion-chamber temperature as feedback, then positions the damper to match what the fire needs at each stage of the burn. Austroflamm’s own manuals describe the system and its phases, including ignition, combustion, ember maintenance, and reloading behaviour. Crucially, there’s still a manual override—you’re not locked out if you want to take the wheel.

How It Works: From Cold Start to Coals

Austroflamm documents the control logic clearly across its operating manuals, so this isn’t marketing fluff—it’s an actual control sequence. Here’s the short version:

Calibration: On power-up, Air+ runs the damper fully open and fully closed to “learn” end positions. This keeps the mechanical linkage truthful.
Ignition: For the first phase, the damper opens wide to flood the firebox with air. Once the fire stabilises, it narrows to a partial-open ignition phase.
Combustion: As the stove gets into its stride, the system actively trims the damper based on live temperature—more air when the fire’s flagging, less when it’s over-eager.
Reloading: Open the door, add fuel; Air+ responds by opening up to energise the ember bed, then returns to a steady-state burn when temperatures climb.
Embers: Toward the end of the cycle, Air+ holds an intermediate position to maintain a healthy ember bed without wasting heat up the chimney.

The manuals also make two practical points operators appreciate: manual adjustment is possible despite the automatic control, and the calibration step repeats to keep everything aligned over time. Translation: you get the convenience of automation without losing control, and the system resists drifting out of tune.

Why Bother? Real-World Payoffs

Let’s be blunt: automatic control only deserves its keep if it delivers on three things—cleaner burns, less faff, and better efficiency. Air+ is designed to do exactly that.

Cleaner, more consistent combustion. By avoiding chronic over- or under-airing (the two great sins of manual operation), you get steadier flames, a more complete burn, and less soot trying to redecorate your flue.
Easier glass maintenance. Timing the airwash and avoiding smoky smoulder phases keeps the viewing window presentable. (It won’t cure wet logs or a disastrous flue, but it makes a good setup look great.)
Less operator error. The system quietly corrects for our human tendency to over-adjust. Light the fire correctly, shut the door, and let Air+ do what it’s paid to do.
Heat where you want it. Pair Air+ with Austroflamm’s broader efficiency features (e.g., Xtra heat storage on models like Kylie Xtra) and you’re stacking the deck for better comfort and fewer log runs.

Prefer flying manual?

Still like doing it the old-fashioned way? Learn how to use your air control sliders properly — fewer cold starts, cleaner glass, better burns.
Read our guide to woodburner air controls »

Where You’ll Find It

Austroflamm offers Air+ as an accessory across several stoves rather than baking it into every model by default. The Kylie Xtra product page highlights Air+ specifically—both to underline the “hands-off” convenience and to complement the Xtra heat storage story. If you’re speccing Kylie Xtra for a corner install (its tapered, conical form is literally shaped for corners), Air+ is the cherry on top: gorgeous fire view, clean burn, minimal fuss.

Installation & Setup:

It’s not rocket science, but it is precision mechanics living in a hot, ashy box—so respect the process.

Follow the book. Austroflamm provides detailed install instructions for Air+ (including a multilingual “Air+ montieren” guide and model-specific manuals with dedicated sections for Air+ installation and operation). Don’t improvise the linkage or calibration steps.
Calibrate properly. If the calibration is skipped or the endpoints drift, your damper positions won’t match reality, and performance will suffer. The manual covers this and repeats why it matters.
Keep sensors clean & wiring sane. Soot-caked sensors and loose connectors are how “automatics” turn into “antics.” A little routine housekeeping pays for itself. (Yes, even on posh stoves.)
Manual override is there for a reason. If conditions are weird (atrocious draft, gale-force winds, poor fuel), take control, stabilise things, then hand back to the system.

Limitations: Because Nothing Is Magic

Air+ is clever, but it’s not a wizard. Some candid realities:

It reads temperature, not everything. Air+ doesn’t directly measure draft or oxygen—its brain is the firebox temperature sensor. Bad flue design or saturated logs will still give you a bad time.
Electronics add failure points. Motors and sensors live a hard life near hot steel. The system includes fault modes and reverts to safe positions, but maintenance discipline matters.
It won’t fix sloppy installs. If your chimney is a physics crime scene, start there. Air+ optimises a sound setup; it can’t bend the laws of draft.

How It Compares With Other Automatic Control Systems:

This post is about Austroflamm Air+, but it’s worth noting the market trend. Scan/Jøtul’s Zensoric, Rais CleverAir, Contura’s ASF, and UK-relevant systems like Charnwood’s electronic control on their Intelligent range and HWAM’s IHS/SmartControl are all marching the same direction: automated, sensor-guided combustion. The exact sensing and control vary, but the industry’s message is loud—manual dampers alone are yesterday’s tech.

The Bigger Picture: Why Air+ Points to the Future

Regulators aren’t going to relax on particulates or CO any time soon, and consumers aren’t going to fall out of love with convenience. Add steadily cheaper, tougher electronics and you get an obvious conclusion: Air+-style automatic control is on the glide path to becoming standard on mid- to high-end woodburners. Austroflamm calling it out on hero models like Kylie Xtra is a tell: they know buyers want the “light it, let it run” experience without the compromises of pellets. Expect tomorrow’s versions to layer in more sensors, more learning, and more gentle hand-holding for everyday users.

Key Takeaways

Austroflamm Air+ is an optional, electronic automatic air control that regulates damper position based on firebox temperature. Manual override remains available.
It follows a calibrated, staged burn sequence: aggressive air for lighting, tapered control during combustion, boosted reloading, and ember maintenance at the end.
Benefits: cleaner burns, steadier flames, better glass, and less fiddling—especially when paired with features like Xtra heat storage on compatible models.
It isn’t a miracle cure for bad fuel or bad chimneys; installation quality and maintenance still decide the ceiling of your results.

Have you got an Austroflamm stove with Air+ fitted on your stove? How’s it behaved with real-world wood and real-world chimneys? Any quirks or pro tips? Drop a comment below—I’m collecting user experiences for a follow-up piece that compares Air+ to other smart systems in the wild.

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Reece Toscani

Reece has over two decades in the fireplace and stove world — testing, reviewing, and occasionally getting covered in soot, all in the name of wood-fired home heating. He cuts through the nonsense, busts the myths, and shares straight-talking advice to help you enjoy your stove without the confusion. From Fireplace Products to Redefining Woodburners, if it burns wood, he’s probably tested it, fixed it, or argued about it. Now, through Woodburner Insights, he shares that experience with the world — both here and on YouTube.