You’ve read about the ‘Women’s Winter’, and all the problems that the wrong communal air conditioning can cause. Perhaps you’ve already read about the beauty of having your own fancy portable air conditioner that also doubles up as a charger, torch and Bluetooth speaker.
However, this latest bit of news might well put paid to both of those things, because this is the fanciest personal air conditioner we’ve seen so far.
Source: www.dbknews.com Photo credit: Mary Baugher
It’s called the RoCo, which is short for ‘Robot Air Conditioner’. It works by measuring, not the air around the room, but your own personal ambient temperature, and it creates your own personal, temperature-controlled climate which can be completely different from that in the rest of the room.
Not only does it do this by cooling you down, but it can also act as a heater if you’re far too cold. It works by blowing air in a very targeted direction, to a specific temperature and at a specific speed.
The new personal air conditioning unit is being developed by researchers from the University of Maryland, who are several years into the project and are ready to show us all what they’ve got so far.
It works with wearable technology – the kind of technology that’s found in devices like the Fitbit – and measures individuals’ personal temperature and other data which it then uses to work out the perfect climate for you and you alone.
The repercussions for a building’s energy costs are huge – why spend money trying to heat or cool an entire room when you can just heat or cool the areas where there are people? That must be why the US Department of Energy has invested $2.5million in the project.
All this means you could be seeing a RoCo of your very own by 2019, and we’ll be sure to get some in stock.