[ARandumGuy]

Air conditioners are heat pumps. They move thermal energy from the inside to the outside to cool a space.

In this context, a heat pump refers to the same type of system, but in reverse. Instead of moving thermal energy from inside to outside, you're moving that energy from outside to inside. This can work even when it's cold out, because cold outside air still has a lot of thermal energy that can be moved.

The main benefits of heat pumps for heating are twofold:

1) It's significantly more efficient then electric resistive heat, because heat isn't being generated, simply moved around. 2) Heat pump systems can be configured to work to both heat and cool a space. There are very few changes needed to make this happen, meaning that if you need AC, you might as well get a heat pump to do both jobs.

[therusskiy]

Most air conditioners I encountered (as a person from a cold country) had this option. The Samsung one I have works from -15C (which is really not that cold, but still). Is this the same technology just for even colder tempreratures?