Sony is making a wearable "Air Conditioner" Reon Portable

[TacticalSquid]

So,

 

This is my first time hearing of Sony having a crowdfunded website for projects. With that aside, Sony is apparently working on some sort of personal "air conditioner" that you wear. The device is mounted in a pocket on the supplied tshirts in the package and a silicon pad makes contact with what appears to the the base of your neck and extracts heat from your body. The heat extracted is then exhausted through a port on the back of the supplied tshirt. Interestingly enough, the teaser video shows a businessman with a button up shirt over the tee suggesting that it is possible to do so without hindering cooling performance.

With that to be said, it seems like an illogical extension of the niche concept of active cooling for phones with, what appears to be the same concept, cooling your person. Interestingly enough my original thought that this is nothing more than a heatsink/fan in a pretty package may be partially incorrect as it is intended to also serve as a heater.

 

According to International Business Times (in the article listed below):

Sony said the Reon Pocket is capable of lowering a person’s temperature by about 13 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) during hot days, or raise a person’s body temperature by about 8 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) on cold days. The company arrived at these numbers after testing the device over “hundreds of simulations.”

 

If this device truly works I would definitely be interested in one myself, though once again, a bluetooth controlled heatsink/fan for $170 sounds pretty steep.

 

Links:

Official Product Page:

https://first-flight.sony.com/pj/reonpocket

Cited Sources:

https://www.ibtimes.com/sony-working-wearable-air-conditioner-those-hot-or-cold-days-2808962

[RejZoR]

Lol, it's literally a laptop fan, a battery pack to run it and some fancy electronics to connect the thing to the phone.

[dizmo]

Interesting. I'd probably try that. Though I really wonder how long the battery will last.

Haha, that tee shirt has waaaay too deep of a V tho...

[bcredeur97]

I'd really like to know what's all inside of this thing besides the laptop fan

[Trixanity]

8 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Lol, it's literally a laptop fan, a battery pack to run it and some fancy electronics to connect the thing to the phone.

If it's stupid but it works then it's not stupid.

[AlexOak]

I don't like this idea of a product... It's so, you know stupid that anyone can do it.

[TacticalSquid]

12 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Lol, it's literally a laptop fan, a battery pack to run it and some fancy electronics to connect the thing to the phone.

I thought that, but the supposed ability to heat throws me for a ringer. It's much harder to pull heat in than to release it into the air.

[HarryNyquist]

Sounds like that Sharper Image on-neck air cooling thing they had in the 90s, except without water.

[flibberdipper]

This just sounds like an expensive way to say that you are a baby when it comes to nature...

[Turtle Rig]

19 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Lol, it's literally a laptop fan, a battery pack to run it and some fancy electronics to connect the thing to the phone.

Well honestly guys Sony is dead to me.  They stopped selling monitors their TV's are limited and barely sell.  Their not in the camera business.  Their studio headphones are good... Other then that Sony is junk to me.  Mind you I used a Sony FW900 which I paid 2000 dollars 20 years ago.  I love that CRT but had to move on.  I would use 2304x1440 on it and things were great games were something LCD will never be in my opnion.  Then they saw the competition and shit in their pants and saw they cant compete with most companies.. So ya,,, Sony is a very Shady company to me..  Also dare I buy a Sony TV <, heck no,, I rather have LG in a heart beat ya know.  Once again this my opnion so don't get mad at me Sony lovers!  Thank you and God Bless

[Franck]

6 minutes ago, TacticalSquid said:

I thought that, but the supposed ability to heat throws me for a ringer. It's much harder to pull heat in than to release it into the air.

At this size it probably just solid state cooling. For heating it's a bad design to use SSC so i guess there is simply a electric heat plate also in the module.

[DuckDodgers]

This thing is an ordinary actively cooled Peltier Element with some small battery attached. I hope Sony doesn't try to break the laws of thermodynamics with this, but most probably the only "cooling" effect is the feel of cold, so your body won't sweat excessively. Another issue is how healthy would be to fool your body's cooling reaction in a hot summer day, by tampering with the natural feedback.

[jiyeon]

56 minutes ago, TacticalSquid said:

Sony is apparently working on some sort of personal "air conditioner" that you wear.

[TacticalSquid]

36 minutes ago, Turtle Rig said:

Well honestly guys Sony is dead to me.  They stopped selling monitors their TV's are limited and barely sell.  Their not in the camera business.  Their studio headphones are good... Other then that Sony is junk to me.  Mind you I used a Sony FW900 which I paid 2000 dollars 20 years ago.  I love that CRT but had to move on.  I would use 2304x1440 on it and things were great games were something LCD will never be in my opnion.  Then they saw the competition and shit in their pants and saw they cant compete with most companies.. So ya,,, Sony is a very Shady company to me..  Also dare I buy a Sony TV <, heck no,, I rather have LG in a heart beat ya know.  Once again this my opnion so don't get mad at me Sony lovers!  Thank you and God Bless

They definitely dropped the ball when it came to tv designs for a few years there and lost ground to Samsung. With that being said, they have an immensely competitive product out there now with their oleds, high end Z9 series and a very aggressively price good midrange tv, the x900 series. Their camera sensors are used widely in the industries and for a lot of cannon cameras, though cannon does use their own for some. It's fair to say they aren't the behemoth multicore they once were as its probably just too difficult with so many competitors. Look at Sharp's fall from grace. 

 

Sony, interesting enough, finally sells shit tvs to compete with other companies which is strange and goes against the grain of the sony mantra.

 

My point is, they're not as down and out as youd think, though they're certainly not the high electronics gods they once were.

[Turtle Rig]

1 minute ago, TacticalSquid said:

They definitely dropped the ball when it came to tv designs for a few years there and lost ground to Samsung. With that being said, they have an immensely competitive product out there now with their oleds, high end Z9 series and a very aggressively price good midrange tv, the x900 series. Their camera sensors are used widely in the industries and for a lot of cannon cameras, though cannon does use their own for some. It's fair to say they aren't the behemoth multicore they once were as its probably just too difficult with so many competitors. Look at Sharp's fall from grace. 

 

Sony, interesting enough, finally sells shit tvs to compete with other companies which is strange and goes against the grain of the sony mantra.

 

My point is, they're not as down and out as youd think, though they're certainly not the high electronics gods they once were.

Beautifully said my friend.  Your 100 percent right.. 

[rcmaehl]

This is just a peltier cooler. We've had the technology since 1834. It's not "Air Conditioning" (although there are ACs that use it... at $800+ for a small unit) I definitely WOULD NOT want to touch the back of that shirt opposite of the cooling side

 

Where's Thunderf00t when you need him. You could probably save $140 by making your own. 

[LyondellBasell]

3 hours ago, Turtle Rig said:

 Their not in the camera business. 

Sony is decidedly IN the camera business. They just announced the A7R4 on the 16th, and have a full line of mirrorless bodies and lenses, as well as video cameras if pro video is your thing.

 

[Turtle Rig]

11 minutes ago, LyondellBasell said:

Sony is decidedly IN the camera business. They just announced the A7R on the 16th, and have a full line of mirrorless bodies and lenses, as well as video cameras if pro video is your thing.

 

Your corect, my bad I forgot they do make video sh*T but very limited. Not the same Sony as 10 years ago.  ya know

[spartaman64]

4 minutes ago, Turtle Rig said:

Your corect, my bad I forgot they do make video sh*T but very limited. Not the same Sony as 10 years ago.  ya know

most smartphone cameras are sony sensors and i dont think sony make their own display panels they probably either use samsung or lg panels for their tvs

[BigDamn]

can i hook it to my balls and keep em cool. no more ball sweat baby

[Turtle Rig]

3 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

most smartphone cameras are sony sensors

I believe you my friend..But not Apple phones uh ?  Also note they don't make monitors when they were the king of monitors 20 years ago when I bought my 2000 dolllar FW900 22.5inch 2304x1440 @80hz.  Games were flawless on it lol, But ya see,, Sony gave up they couldn't compete with LG and Sammy ya know.

[spartaman64]

2 minutes ago, Turtle Rig said:

I believe you my friend..But not Apple phones uh ?

apple phones also

https://www.dpreview.com/news/1564509739/iphone-xs-max-teardown-reveals-new-sensor-with-more-focus-pixels

[Turtle Rig]

5 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

apple phones also

https://www.dpreview.com/news/1564509739/iphone-xs-max-teardown-reveals-new-sensor-with-more-focus-pixels

No kidding I didn't know this.  That is crazy,   I guess their making their money and have no care to build monitors and sh*T.

[Delphi1662]

So I'm interested in this due to the current summer weather around me but cant help but think that the battery on that thing is going to generate more heat than the fan can deal with

[flibberdipper]

5 hours ago, Turtle Rig said:

Well honestly guys Sony is dead to me.  They stopped selling monitors their TV's are limited and barely sell.  Their not in the camera business.  Their studio headphones are good... Other then that Sony is junk to me.  Mind you I used a Sony FW900 which I paid 2000 dollars 20 years ago.  I love that CRT but had to move on.  I would use 2304x1440 on it and things were great games were something LCD will never be in my opnion.  Then they saw the competition and shit in their pants and saw they cant compete with most companies.. So ya,,, Sony is a very Shady company to me..  Also dare I buy a Sony TV <, heck no,, I rather have LG in a heart beat ya know.  Once again this my opnion so don't get mad at me Sony lovers!  Thank you and God Bless

As usual, your ignorance is stunning.