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MIT Wristband Could Make Air Conditioning Obsolete
- nathas 13y agoHeh, I tackled the same problem a few years back in college, but with robotics and computer vision. I prefer this approach.
- stedaniels 13y agoYou made a robot that followed you around and fanned you?! Very impressive, is the source on GitHub? ;-)
- nathas 13y agoIt actually detected any life forms in a room with medical grade temp sensors coupled with a kinect and then found 'hot spots'. It wouldn't follow you (although that could be done); it was stationary and one of the big requirements was safety (don't want a robot arm slapping you in the face while coding). Unfortunately no, the source isn't on github, although I should put it up there.
- georgemcfly 13y agoNo it couldnt. Air Conditioning is not just about temperature but also humidity, which this doesn't address. I think room fans would still be necessary to keep the air moving as well. Plus, could tricking your body into thinking its cooler than it actually is be dangerous? Make sure people don't wear it while doing vigorous physical activity in the summer heat.
- benjamincburns 13y agoI believe the idea is not that it's a nervous system trick, but by heating or cooling a part of the body with high blood flow which occurs near the surface of the skin, you're actually going to impart a meaningful change on overall body temperature. Hospitals already do this for patients with hypo/hyperthermia. This could be monitored/regulated with a second band worn on the upper arm near the armpit which measures body temperature directly. The question is more one of how much of an actual change can they impart (and under what circumstances?) given the size limitations of something like a wrist strap. My hunch is that this would need to be a fairly large system (including its power source) to have a meaningful impact outside of sedentary activity in an environment which is mildly under/over temperature. So good news for people who get chilly working long hours in their cold offices (which is a completely viable market), but not for runners looking to shed gear. Maybe there's something there for cyclists though, but only if they're willing to put up with a wheel generator. Also, humidity impacts comfort largely because of its impact evaporation rates. Reducing body temperature reduces the rate of perspiration, in turn reducing the impact of humidity. You're right that it won't eliminate the effects of very high humidity, but it would reduce them.
- ogig 13y ago>I believe the idea is not that it's a nervous system trick, but by heating or cooling a part of the body with high blood flow which occurs near the surface of the skin, you're actually going to impart a meaningful change on overall body temperature. From the article i understand that it is a nervous system trick: "The research suggested that anything with a temperature change greater than 0.1 degree Celsius per second would produce the effect".
- benjamincburns 13y agoAh... I just reread, and you're correct. Apparently I shouldn't post to HN while groggy...
- DanBC 13y agoFrom my very limited experience SF is not that humid, yet has a lot of AC. Things like painting roofs silver or insulating buildings are great starts to reducing AC use. (Dark roofs can reach 66C to 88C in hot weather, better roofing helps a lot. (http://www.epa.gov/greenhomes/ReduceEnergy.htm#advhome) http://www.epa.gov/greenhomes/ReduceEnergy.htm#advhome)) But this? I'd freakin' love to try something like this. I'm almost always too hot, even in England.
- ollysb 13y agoI can imagine this being great for the winter in england, you're always moving between hot/cold environments.
- ajtaylor 13y agoMy body naturally gets very warm, very quickly, with very little exercise. If they can make this work, I might actually be able to wear a suit all day! Luckily I don't need to but that's beside the point. Assuming they can get the size and look sorted so the average consumer doesn't become a social pariah by wearing one (calculator watches come to mind), I wonder how this is powered? And more importantly, would it last for 8-12 hours on a charge?
- benjamincburns 13y agoIf they're using Peltier devices it's probably going to require a largeish power supply, and some kind of heat dissipating/gathering device. One possible way to get around this for something like a suit jacket might be to move it from the wrist to the upper back, and to sew thin copper wires into the jacket. Also you could probably get away with having a few thin LiPoly cells placed in pockets around the jacket. Couple it all with an inductive charging coat hanger, and you've got a product worthy of SkyMall!
- nodata 13y agoIsn't this related to fitness? If you're physically fit you don't get hot so quickly.
- ajtaylor 13y agoIt often is, but I'm in pretty decent shape. I cycle regularly (my commute is 34 km one way), am not overweight and eat decently. For as long as I can remember, I've always started sweating very easily.
- sejje 13y agoIs this actually true? I'm not calling you out, but I see it reported in comments all the time, but I've never read anything about it. I failed with a quick search. Beyond that, this whole discussion just went down in another thread, but I'm like the parent post...I just sweat easily. Even when I was younger in great shape (4-6 hours of basketball daily) I would sweat quickly and profusely. I read that some percentage (~15% I believe) of people sweat more than others.
- Zak 13y agoI don't imagine this making AC obsolete. It might marginally reduce demand for AC, especially in cooler climates where AC might only be used occasionally if installed. If made in to a product, I expect it to be popular for outdoor use. I find it appealing enough for that use case that I'm contemplating building one.
- randywaterhouse 13y agoThis is interesting, and in my opinion definitely deserving of the prize they got for it. But I think it's real value (in contrast to "replacing A/C") is in developing markets, where a little wristband could really improve quality of life (in the sense that one isn't sweating to death in their shanty-town hut). Not only could it improve QoL, but it would also be much cheaper to install than a central air unit, and also much more feasible: everyone has a wrist, not everyone has an insulated home with consistent electrical service that could provide the power for a central air unit. Cool stuff!
- rytis 13y agoBut that wristband doesn't actually reduce your body temperature, sweating does. Unless I'm missing something obvious here??
- nkcmr 13y agoAt first I thought MIT had made AC Power Currents obsolete. An audible "no way!" followed shortly after.
- Vanayad 13y agoFirst thought that passed through my mind as well :))
- randomdata 13y agoI had the same thought, then wondered, upon seeing the title image, why anyone would want to pass AC current through their wrist in the first place.
- zhemao 13y agoYeah, I though it was going to be a cellphone charger.
- Raphael 13y agoThe wristband is a controller for a new video game that blows Assassin's Creed away.
- ctz 13y agoPeltier heat pumps are inefficient; typically wanting a whole bunch of watts for achieving a small temperature gradient. So I'm wondering about the practicalities of powering this thing such that it could be worn as a personal item.
- vidarh 13y agoThat doesn't seem to be much of a problem as the point is not to actually cool you, but to apply a temperature change of a fraction of a degree to a tiny part of skin to trick you into feeling colder.
- EEGuy 13y agoHmmm.... and all that waste heat from the Peltier junctions go into /heating/ the room -- making it a little warmer for everyone else.
- alexwright 13y agoWhen I stick a AA battery on a Peltier, to work out which side is which on unmarked unit, it actually does "feel" very cold really quickly. Hot side is obviously also very hot, very quickly. I'd think it's more likely that the hot side is going to be the problem. Dissipating that heat without something like liquid cooling and active fans.
- davyjones 13y agoI wonder how changing the perception actually impacts the body's thermostat. I would gladly sweat and let my body do its thing than have a heatstroke while being tricked into thinking that it is relatively cool outside.
- kohanz 13y agoAgreed. I'm very wary about the affects of "tricking" a vital system of my body for long periods of time.
- daraul 13y agoI can't find the article anywhere, but there was a similar idea done a while back where you would wear a 'dome' that was air-conditioned, keeping your head and shoulders cool. It worked wonderfully for keeping you feeling cool and as a result you didn't sweat. Also as a result, you didn't notice when your body temperature was rising too high, so it did absolutely nothing to prevent heat stroke or any other forms of heat exhaustion. I'd be concerned about this wristband doing roughly the same thing.
- sejje 13y agoI don't think this is something you should be wearing out for a jog, or while you work out in the fields, or similar. It sounds great for my situation, though, where I'm sitting around programming in Costa Rica. I could turn off the A/C and let the house be its normal temperature of 85 degrees or so.
- petercooper 13y agoLike drinking a coffee every day.
- WalterSear 13y agoThere's been a bit of a precedent for that though, so we know how it works.
- 13y ago
- jokoon 13y agoso if I have such a copper heat dispenser I got from taking a laptop apart, I can feel cool ?
- bnegreve 13y agoIt's not just a heat dispenser, it's a peltier [1] a device that can produce cold from electricity. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect
- AUmrysh 13y agoWell, it can transfer heat when electric current is applied. They used these for processor coolers in the 90s, I remember my father had one and it broke one day and so his processor let out the blue smoke.
- bnegreve 13y agoI had one as well. Same experience with a brand new AMD Athlon XP 1800+.
- gpvos 13y agoIf your body continually feels like you are jumping into cold or hot water, wouldn't that induce stress?
- Oculus 13y agoI think that was a layman way of explaining the technology rather then how you actually feel.
- noptic 13y agoInteresting article - awfull title The device can make you feel a bit better but it can NOT replace an AC. It was never designed to replace an AC. If this was up for purchase i would get one especialy because it is portable and maybe it can be coupled with additional technology (measure blood preasure , acceleration, rfid access tags,...). People have been wearing wrist bands for ages (and even used them as currency) so it seems a good position for a gadget.
- petercooper 13y agoInteresting article - awfull title Unfortunately it's the modern media's job to give things catchy titles so they do well on the social media rounds. A lot of excellent stuff fails to do well on HN because it hasn't got the right title (I'm an HN firehose dweller so I get to enjoy a lot of the hidden gems :-)). Indeed, I'm pretty sure there's room for an "off HN" type site that solely focuses on the best HN submissions that didn't make it for whatever reason.
- ogig 13y agoBody temperature comfort is subtle. Is not the same 24ºC with an AC than by the sea shore, under a tree shadow with warm, slow wind. For some reason i don't think a heat sink tricking my physical feelings will do for my quality standards regarding temperature control. I already detest AC, as in, I can't stand in ACed places.
- bagosm 13y agoThank you MIT for this opportunity to be found frozen to death and smiling happily
- paul_f 13y agoHopelessly naive. An air conditioning system is used to cool spaces yes. But where I live, it is just as important to lower the humidity. This device will not help with that.
- fsckin 13y agoNaive? This is a proof of concept, and it makes people feel cooler. Dehumidifiers use significantly less power than cooling. The peltier they're using with a 30% duty cycle would require about 30W per person. Dehumidify a typical room: 500W Cooling a typical room: 2000W
- uptown 13y agoReminds me a little of this, though this uses a constant fan rather than a pulsing schedule of cooling jolts. I've used one before, and it works surprisingly well for such a low-tech contraption. http://www.sharperimage.com/si/view/product/CoolWare-Personal-Cooling-System/100849 http://www.sharperimage.com/si/view/product/CoolWare-Persona...
- officemonkey 13y agoI originally read this as "Alternating Current" and I thought "Oh Gee, not this shit again." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents
- Spoygg 13y agoHehehe I read it like that also :)
- miketyhs 13y agoSame here.
- tokenadult 13y agoI read the headline as "alternating current" also. Usually, engineers in the United States abbreviate "air conditioning" as "A/C," where the slash, used contrary to the usual usage of slashes, distinguishes one familiar abbreviation from another. I'm surprised the Wired editor didn't catch the ambiguity.
- optymizer 13y agoI like the idea of cooling people as opposed to whole buildings, but I don't like that this isn't actually decreasing your body's temperature, it just 'tricks' you into thinking it's colder/hotter outside. Perhaps it'll pave the way for clothes that can become cool or hot, depending on the temperature outside. I'd be very interested in those.
- dannypgh 13y agoWe're warm blooded. If you want to decrease your body's temperature, death is probably the way to go. We don't feel warm because our core temperature is above 98.6, we feel warm SL that we are aware that we're having to work harder (typically through sweat) to stay at 98.6. Likewise, it seems like you could make this safe if you could measure or estimate the user's core temperature. Should it deviate significantly from normal, shut the device off.
- Daniel_Newby 13y agoIt's considerably more complicated than body temperature and sweating. The body has ways of generating heat. If they do not turn off fast enough when the A/C fails, you get hot. It is entirely possible that this device could help elderly people in A/C failure, by forcing their bodies to adapt to variability instead of constant cool air. Likewise, sudden heat will cause the skin to flush and draw a great deal of blood[1]. This imposes a greater workload on the heart and results in shock if the heart cannot keep up. Constant exposure to heat, as with this device, should force the heart to gradually strengthen as the hot season builds, increasing heat tolerance. Likewise, variability should strengthen the heart. [1]If you ever have to enter a machine room with failed A/C, where the heat index is above body temperature, bundle up in heavy winter clothes over your whole body. Otherwise a runaway flushing response will draw heat into your body and kill you.
- spbaar 13y agoAs someone who doesn't want to die, could you elaborate? What temperatures are you talking about that would cause that?
- ajb 13y agoThis may not replace AC, but I wonder if (in colder countries) it would help with dieting. Want to lose weight, just turn your thermostat down by a degree and use this device to help you adapt to it.
- eru 13y agoAre there any indications that turning thermostats down (or up) impacts weight?
- evacuationdrill 13y agoMaintaining body temperature takes energy, so being in a cooler environment would help, but it would be minimal, I'm fairly sure. Air has a much lower specific heat than water, and I remember reading a reddit discussion about drinking ice water all day to lose weight versus room temperature water. I don't remember what the result was, but it didn't take as many calories to heat the water as you'd think.
- InnocentB 13y agoWell a calorie is the amount of energy to raise a gram of water by one degree Celsius, so if you're drinking 2 litres of water a day and it's 0 degrees vs 20 degrees, you'll burn around 20,000 calories a day from the difference. Note though that that's calories, and not kilocalories, which is what we generally talk about for dietary purposes. So ~20kcal a day, which would represent about a 1% change for the average person. Not a huge gain.
- eru 13y agoAlso, people might just eat a spoonful of more food, if they need 20kcal more per day.
- mgraczyk 13y agoHow about a solar powered thermoelectric mesh woven into a short that cools my body off? Can I have a wired article if I build one, even when it doesn't work?
- bjoernw 13y agoHasn't there been one of these in SharperImage and Skymall for years?
- Morgawr 13y agoAt first I thought this thing hooked into your blood flow to actively cool down your blood, like watercooling does for computers, it would've been a much cooler idea (no pun intended) EDIT: fixed autocomplete phone typo
- richiverse 13y agoI read this as MIT wristband would make 'Atlantic City' obsolete. Perhaps some kind of card counting helper. ;)
- frezik 13y agoMIT has worked on that as well.
- sn41 13y agoI live in a small "flat" in India. Without A/C in the summer (only at night), our consumption is ~200 KWhr per month. With A/C only in one room for something like 4-5 hours per day, it shoots up to ~500 KWhr per month. Indians switching to A/C on a big scale will be a disaster for the world. I believe that the answer lies in architecture, not in more energy-intensive devices which may or may not actually work (this one fools the body - that could be catastrophic, increasing chances for a heat stroke). India was always hot - but older buildings used to be built (1) with high ceilings (2) with cross-ventilation. http://www.architecture.com/SustainabilityHub/Designstrategies/Air/1-2-1-3-naturalventilation-crossventilation.aspx http://www.architecture.com/SustainabilityHub/Designstrategi... This contrasts with buildings in cold countries, where buildings are insulated against winter. In the name of "better" buildings, Indians are switching to sealed buildings working with Central A/C. Blind imitation. On the other hand, there were builders committed to "environment-friendly", low cost buildings (not the modern scam of "green buildings", which are actually more expensive.) Laurie Baker in South India was one - a real unsung, and now forgotten hero: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurie_Baker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurie_Baker http://www.hindu.com/folio/fo9908/99080300.htm http://www.hindu.com/folio/fo9908/99080300.htm
- dangoldin 13y agoVery true. I visited New Delhi in December and noticed how heating/AC wasn't built in to the buildings yet it felt normal to just bundle up/unbundle up depending on the temperature. Getting rid of boilers and only boiling water when you need to is another approach that helps with energy cost - especially if they get smarter and can predict usage (on in the mornings, off when people are out of the home, etc).
- JPKab 13y agoOld homes (pre World War II) built in the southern United States all are centered around high ceilings, cross-ventilation. The home I grew up in wasn't air conditioned, and the summers, while nowhere near India's level, are extremely humid (90% plus most days) and are routinely above 90 degrees F. The drawback in this is the cultural need for privacy that seems to have developed in many modern countries. People want to be able to shut their door, and this interferes with the cross ventilation. The whole "separate rooms on separate floors" also drastically hurts this concept. My house was reasonable, but my bedroom was tucked into the roofline on the top floor. It was unbearably hot, so my brother, father, and I would sleep on cots on a screened in porch.
- vayarajesh 13y agoI think it is the concept "anything with a temperature change greater than 0.1 degree Celsius per second would produce the effect" is very interesting. Building a device to do that is not a big deal..
- breakbread 13y agoYeah, I definitely don't see this as making AC "obsolete" so much as perhaps raising the threshold of when you turn on the AC. As a resident of the Deep South, this could potentially make sitting outside during the height of the summer a more pleasant experience.
- jagtesh 13y agoHow does fooling the body into thinking the temperature is higher / lower affect the real temperature of the body? The article fails to explain that. This is like putting a frog in gradually boiling water. The frog cannot sense the increasing temperature, so it stays in the water until its dead.
- mhb 13y agoSnopes says the frog jumps out: http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp
- euroclydon 13y agoSo it's a trick? I'd rather see a thermal device that makes contact with a larger surface of one or more of my body's high-blood-flow areas and actually cool or heat it. I've found it efficient to cool or heat myself by letting cold or warm water run over my hands.
- ChristianMarks 13y agoCan't wait for the FDA trials.
- andyakb 13y agoWhy would their be FDA trials for this?
- ChristianMarks 13y agoIt could be classified as a medical device under FDA regulations:http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/DeviceRegulationandGuidance/Overview/ClassifyYourDevice/ucm051512.htm http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/DeviceRegulationandGuidanc...
- robomartin 13y agoOn a tech front, it's an interesting use of a peltier junction device. They are horribly inefficient yet really interesting. It is, effectively, a heat pump. It will make one side colder than the other. And that part is key. You must take away energy on the hot side or the entire thing will get hotter and hotter. Without heat removal on the hot side it would get hot enough to burn you very quickly. The article says they are using pulsed heat which might presumably deal with this issue. As others mentioned already, tricking the body like this could have negative consequences. I wonder if any studies exist on this (ice bags on the wrists or some such thing). It brought back memories of going sculling at the peak of winter. Due to the danger of falling into extremely cold water [0] I experimented with wearing a kayaker's dry suit. It worked reasonably well. A surprising find was that wearing a wool head-cap made me overheat. It was really amazing how quickly this would happen too. I can see this MIT gizmo having some effect because our skin is sensitive to heat flow, not absolute temperature. Not sure I'd like to trick my body that way though. What are the consequences of messing with the mechanism that maintains proper thermal balance? [0] There have been many incidents of rowers drowning in cold water within swimming distance of the shore. Swimming in cold water while wearing thin clothes and your heart pumping hard due to the physical exertion of rowing is extremely dangerous because hypothermic effects can be greatly accelerated. Even accomplished swimmers can drown fifty feet from shore.
- swamp40 13y agoThose wires are going to cramp some people's style, though.
- peter303 13y agoIt could kill people. If you dont thermoregulate properly then you will die of hyperthermia.
- ianbicking 13y agoThis is like a placebo, intended to trick you into perceiving cold or less-cold when it isn't there. But when there's a real matter at hand placebos only work very temporarily – then eventually reality catches up to you. So if it's actually hot, and my body needs to react to that to regulate my temperature, this doesn't change that. But I suppose it would let you turn the temperature up a couple degrees.
- donutdan4114 13y agoI don't think it's that much like a placebo. A placebo literally has no effect. This device actually has a cooling/heating effect that your body just perceives as being greater than it actually is.
- dharmach 13y agoI have nothing against all the energy efficiency development however many articles display a tone that everything was going well before but now due to emerging countries we are facing this havoc. Pathetic.
- brador 13y agoI invented this exact concept 2 months ago. Heat sink on a wrist band. I did nothing with it, good luck to these guys.
- downandout 13y agoI live in Las Vegas. Deaths occur in homes here every summer due to AC system failures (usually among the elderly and children that cannot easily leave and go to a cooler place). Many more do not die because they realize it is getting too hot and do whatever they have to do to get to a cooler place. A device like this that changes your perception of whether it is hot or cold would likely do more harm than good here and in other extreme climates. I can see huge product liability lawsuits in their future.
- bargl 13y agoI could also see this being a liability. They will probably need to take steps to mitigate the issue by adding more technology to the wrist band that help monitor health in general (health relating to heat exhaustion). This will raise the price of the product, but possibly enable them to do something like send the user (or 911) alerts when your body temperature rises to dangerous levels. In addition to that if they put a disclaimer on the box they can get away with a lot more. Something similar to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_packaging_warning_messages#United_States_of_America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_packaging_warning_messa.... This is an obstacle, and how they could go about it in a way that may add to the quality of life, or one where they assume no responsibility for your health if you use this in extreme climates. Also, I'd be interested to see if by "tricking" the body the wearer sweats less and then wouldn't get dehydrated as fast, possibly extending and improving quality of life in extreme climates... I'm far from a doctor, but you are right it needs to be looked into and addressed.
- taber 13y agosweat cools you down when it evaporates. I could only see that making it more dangerous to wear
- chrisgd 13y agoI don't mean any disrepect, but this comments seems a lot like the comments on the recent "Show HN: Dropbox" page from 2007, you are trying to think of a way this would fail, rather than potential uses. Solving the issue of access to air conditioning or heating for the poor is a completely seperate issue than providing a solution to help lower our use of A/C or heating.
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- ealloc 13y agoInteresting idea. I though it was going to be more like the 'cooling glove' [1] which actually cools you down, rather than just making you think you're cooler. Hairless skin on the hands and face has blood vessels close to the surface, and cooling those parts is proposed to quickly cool your blood and core temperature. It looks like the energy and space requirements for such cooling glove are too large to make it portable, however, and it also doesn't work much better than simply holding an ice pack! So, for portable devices, it seems like at most we can only trick ourselves into thinking we're cool. [1]http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/09/avacore_technologies_magic_cooling_glove_from_stanford_won_t_transform_your_workout_.2.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/0...
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- cpncrunch 13y agoAm I the only person who is skeptical about this? I don't see any published research. It sounds like their device just temporarily distracts you from noticing the heat or cold, in the same way that poking needles into random parts of your body distracts you from pain (aka acupuncture). I would like to see a placebo-controlled study where they having people sitting in a 35C room all day.
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- g8oz 13y agoAnyone had experience with Phase Change Material (PCM) clothing? Here is one supplier: http://www.outlast.com/en/technology/ http://www.outlast.com/en/technology/
- stevewilhelm 13y agoIf the MIT team had just printed their device on a 3D printer, their article would have knocked the Nexus 5 release off the front page.
- pawn 13y agoCool idea. If you attached a wristwatch to the outside face, I think that'd help it take off.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoDon't make AC obsolete, make it as efficient as you can and then power it from solar. The kind of people who will wear a heat pump on their wrist to try and save electricity, are not the people who run the most AC units.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoI think the article gets it wrong. Sorry. Having your body think that it is comfortable, especially when the environment is hazardous, would be a lose. Like filtering out the sound of smoke detectors so you can sleep easier. That said, this would be quite useful in office situations like ours where some people whine that 75 is too hot and other complain that at 70 they need mukluks. In that situation where the office is actually at a livable temperature, if we could adjust individual perceptions to be comfortable then it would be quite useful.
- DavidWanjiru 13y agoUnless my high school biology teachers lied to me, feeling hot or cold is not a mere perception; it's homeostasis, a complex mix of body temperature control, early warning system and pre-emptive shutdown all rolled into one. I don't see how useful tricking this system is, and I also fear it is dangerous to do it, if at all it's possible to successfully do it.
- Mustafabei 13y agoThis is not news. Sharper ımage already has a product like that in the market for years. http://www.sharperimage.com/si/view/product/CoolWare-Personal-Cooling-System/100849 http://www.sharperimage.com/si/view/product/CoolWare-Persona...
- erikb 13y agoI'd say the biggest market now or at least 10 years later will be China. They don't use them just for cooling but also for heating because the southern half of China has no public heating system. But that's just my instinct. Might be completely off and people in Brazil might actually use them much more.