Either that or harvest the algae to make Soylent Green.
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Agreed. Unless you want to redesign homes around this type of window, so that leaks won’t cause significant damage and can be easily repaired, then this system would be a ticking time bomb. On a related note, I’m guessing that insurance companies wouldn’t be fans of these windows.
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This already exists in the form of electronic films (that don’t have the mess potential of water, but do consume some electricity to operate). Designing with Switchable Glass - Smart Glass for Your Projects
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This.
This is still an issue in UV water purification plants. Biofouling on glass can shut down a munincipal water system.
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They’ll probably be using a propylene-glycol mixture both for that and its antibacterial properties (industry standard coolant/antifreeze formulation), but depending on the dilution ratio that still doesn’t necessarily go all that low before freezing - and stronger concentrations have a very visible yellow-green color, so they’re not likely to go all that strong.
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In addition to all the impracticalities highlighted above, I don’t see this design being feasible anywhere there is danger of wind-blown projectiles (e.g., hurricanes, tornadoes).
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Ask why that doesn’t happen to a water cooled vehicle engine and you’ll have the answer to how one would deal with the same problem with these windows - add a freezing point depressant such as a glycol or alcohol (sadly it has a side-effect of reducing the heat capacity of the water coolant a bit).
Personally the thing I suspect will be most problematic with these is keeping algae from growing. We use lots of water based heat transfer systems (engine cooling, refrigeration, a/c) but we do it in the dark, we don’t put a greenhouse in the middle of the system. The sort of biocides that you’d need to use might be too toxic to be a comfortable fit for a domestic environment.
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An aquarium, even. I think I want fish swimming in my windows, actually. Sounds relaxing.
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The sound of the cat head-butting or paw-slapping the window every few minutes wouldn’t be so restful. It’s bad enough when there’s a pigeon on the roof line opposite.
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So, a much more complicated heat pump. That’s what we have here, far as I can tell. It’s a novel idea, I’m sure it’ll be found in some place at some point, but doesn’t really seem to be very cost effective.
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To my understanding, antifreeze alone is insufficient at extreme temperatuures, which is why coolant systems in vehicles have expansion tanks.
I don’t think that would be sufficient for this purpose. The lowest temperature points in the system during extreme cold would be at the inlets/outlets of the window (wherever the window itself is shaded by the frame) which could clog with ice. Then expansion tanks wouldn’t be able to take on the increased volume and we’re back to the original problem.
Additionally, the colant system in cars is made of stronger/more flexible materials than glass, and is mostly constructed of (pressure-strong) tubes rather than (pressure-weak) large flat panels.
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I just hope they consider expansion on freezing.
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adult: “i’ll give you this pipe if you can hit this ball through that hole”
kid: “why are old people so weird?”
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Luckily we don’t let kids play outside unsupervised 
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Let alone baseballs…
How about a burst pipe? Not nice to have mold brewing inside a wall…
If a seal fails you have to replace the window anyway. This is already the case with vacuum double pane windows, such as houses in Canada have. Sooner or later, the seal fails and you get moisture between the panes. It’s no longer insulating at that point because the vacuum is gone, so it has to be replaced.
That said, I don’t think this water thing is a good idea for the reasons others above stated- keeping that from freezing and shattering in a cold winter would be a neat trick, and when that seal fails that water is gonna go somewhere you don’t want it.
Seems like triple pane vacuum glass and a good heat pump might be better performing, a whole lot less complicated, and way nicer fail modes.
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I can see it commercially, however I’d never have it in my home as we have at least a 3-4 power outages in the winter, & if the water stopped moving I don’t think it’d take long in -20 to be a real bummer.
Does seem like an answer looking for a problem to an extent. Reminds me tangentially of one of my favourite AC solutions;
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Just to be clear on that point- antifreeze is the only thing that keeps a car engine from exploding in the winter. If that water freezes, your engine block is toast. Nothing can stop ice expansion. This is in fact why cars have freeze plugs as a last resort to try and prevent this. Ice in the water jackets of the cylinders will crack open a 500lb cast iron block like an egg.
But again, none of that makes these water windows a good idea for all the reasons stated above.
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