Have you ever thought of regulating your body temperature or keeping yourself at comfort using a wearable device? A group of MIT researchers have put their heads together to come up what is called the ‘Wristify’. This product has become a reality at a time when gigantic tech corporations have released innovative smart wearable technologies, especially the smart watches this season.
How does it work?
The Wristify device works on the principle where cooling or heating one part of the body can make your whole body feel warmer or cooler. The automated control system that is attached to the gadget’s heat sink adjusts the thermal pulses according to the thermometer reading that is integrated within. So, when your body rises in temperature the control system detects it and sends cool waves by changing the color of the wrist band into blue. On the other hand, the wrist band sends warm waves when your body lowers in temperature turning into orange. This idea could have been born when sometimes we apply warm towel on our forehead if we feel chilly – that helps to maintain thermal comfort.
Saving Energy
The ‘wristify’ team believes that by providing individual cooling and heating is an effective means by which one can save vast amount of energy that is used to heat and cool spaces within buildings. “Buildings right now use an incredible amount of energy just in space heating and cooling. In fact, all together this makes up 16.5 percent of all US primary energy consumption. We wanted to reduce that number, while maintaining individual thermal comfort,” says Sam Shames, who co-invented the Wristify with Mike Gibson, David Cohen-Tanugi, and Matt Smith. “We found the best way to do it was local heating and cooling of parts of the body.”
The team was awarded with US$10,000 for winning the title prize in MIT’s annual Making and Designing Materials Engineering Competition (MADMEC). The Wristify wearable cuff was also chosen among the finalists in a recent Intel’s Make it Wearable Challenge.
