Sweating from summer’s heatwaves may become a thing of the past, thanks to Sony’s latest wearable aircon. It has announced the Reon Pocket – a body cooling and warming device that can be worn. The device is the size of a smartphone and will retail for ¥12,760 (about R1,680).
The device is designed to fit into a pocket on a specially-designed shirt. Once this is all set-up, Sony says users can experience a cooling of up to 13C or heating of up to 8C.
It won’t be blowing air in user’s shirts like traditional aircon. Instead, it works by using the Peltier effect, which creates a temperature difference by transferring heat using electric currents.
At launch, the thermostat can be controlled via its companion smartphone app. Sony says it has plans for an autonomous version that can run independently of a smartphone. According to Sony, it will able to run for 2 hours.
The project is expected to launch in Japan later this year. More information here (with the aid of Google Translate): https://first-flight.sony.com/pj/reonpocket