Might not the coolest looking watch out there, but it is literally the coolest watch!
So what is it..? I came across this wearable tech on one of the kickstarter campaigns. It was around 6000% funded. (yes six thousand). So it got me curious, either it was a very successful scam or a revolutionary technology.
I thought it could be scam because, ACs take up most of our power bill and yet here it is, a small portable battery operated solution that could save 1000s of our hard earned money and cut down on pollution at the same time. But if it was so good why didn’t anyone think of it before..? Why is it that all the big companies, constantly looking for innovation, never made any of these wearable ..?
So I wanted to make one myself and check it out. I purchased all the components required and started to build it. More over it does not require much hardware, essentially a Peltier module and a microcontroller is all that is needed. even microcontroller is not required, once the correct rhythm is known a simple 555 timer can be used. I used Attiny85 so that other peripherals can be added in the future easily.
The way it works is pulsating heat/cold on the wrist, where the veins are more towards the surface and is temp sensitive. Instead of having a constant hotness or cooling, in which case our body will adjust to this temperature and the device will have no affect in sometime, the temperature change come in waves. This way our body will still retain sensitivity.
But i think even a periodic wave could be not much effective. Our body could detect regular intervals and could be conditioned to it. Having module turn on at random interval of time and for random period could give better results. This is something I should try.
And I tried different heat/cooling pulse wave lengths. Even though it was oddly cool and comfortable,I did not find it much effective on hot afternoons. I tested this watch on my friends, and some liked it very much. Maybe this is just a Placibo effect, but there are many Military papers based on such cooling effects on solders.
David Degroot
The fact that cooling or hearing is induced in pulses means that our body is sensitive to the watch for very long time. If it were only constant cooling/heating the skin would adjust for that temperature and we would not feel the effect of the the device.
There was quite some research and papers publish on this matter.
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Stanford University
Some other research links that speaks about surface temperature cooling -