This personal 'air conditioner' fits on your wrist

The air-conditioner of the future may just be small enough to fit on your wrist, with just a flick of a switch to heat or cool your body.

 

Dubbed Wristify, the smart bracelet is a wearable technology that aims to reduce energy needs of heating or cooling buildings by bringing thermal control to the wearer.

 

"Our approach is grounded in materials selection and an understanding of the thermal perception of skin," the developers said on their website (wristifyme.com).

 

They said the stimuli are optimized for "thermal sensation, energy efficiency and thermal dissipation."

 

 

Also, the developers said Wristify recently won the 7th annual MADMEC competition at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, "and we are excited to continue to push this project forward."

 

A separate report on tech site Mashable said the developers, a group of MIT students, designed the bracelet to monitor air and skin temperature.

 

Wristify team member Sam Shames, in an email to Mashable, said 16.5 percent of total US energy use comes from heating and cooling buildings and houses.

 

"We want to lower that number while helping people be more comfortable. This idea is captured nicely in the question: Why heat or cool an entire house or building when you could heat or cool a person directly instead?" he said.

 

A video on Mashable showed the prototype resembling a wristwatch. It can run for up to eight hours on a lithium polymer battery.

 

Heat, cool toggle

 

Shames said a thermoelectric module provides "controllable and customizable" thermal pulses to heat or cool the wrist.

 

He said the wearer can toggle the bracelet from heating to cooling mode with a switch. The bracelet's software controls the pulses.

 

Mashable said the team got its inspiration for the bracelet from a member's personal experiences with temperature problems.

 

It cited the case of co-founder and team member Mike Gibson, who was living with a roommate accustomed to a different climate. — TJD, GMA News