Are you struggling to cope with the heat outdoors? Sony might have a solution, if not as soon as you might like. The company's First Flight program is crowdfunding a wearable air conditioner, the Reon Pocket, that slips into a pouch in a special t-...
By Thom Dunn
This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and Engadget may earn affiliate commission. Read the full guide to portable air conditioners....
Winter is on its way out soon, but you can keep it coming every day of the summer season, thanks to the atypical Lora. Unlike most air conditioners, Lora is not boxy nor an air curtain. It’s more like a pendant lamp that hangs from the ceiling and showers you with cool air. Adding a touch of ambient lighting to the mix (think Northern Lights), Lora goes on to showcase the fan speed, temperature and air blast in correlation to mesmerizing twinkly lights.
What I really appreciate is the attempt to break the clutter and give a new form to air conditioners. Adding lights and intuitive UI UX, is just a bonus.
Broadly speaking, your current fitness wearable or smartwatch tells you the time… and measures your vitals. But what if it could alter your vitals instead?? The Aircon watch is a wearable that, as its description says, can trick your brain into making you feel cold or warm, based on the temperature of the environment you’re in.
Your body has a natural temperature of 98.7°F, and when you’re feeling hot or cold, it’s, in fact, your nervous system telling your brain to make you feel hot or cold. The Aircon alters that signal. A wearable that straps to your wrist, the Aircon tells you the time, but the fact that it can hack your perception of temperature makes it a product worth noticing. Imagine you’re out in the heat, perspiring up a storm, or you’ve just finished your daily workout and you’re feeling particularly sweaty… or an opposite situation, where you’re in a room with the AC running on full blast and you’re feeling chilly, or maybe it’s just old-fashioned winter. Your skin, which is capable of sensing heat or coldness, sends signals to your brain, making you respond to the stimulus by either perspiring or shivering. The Aircon sits on your wrist, with the watch and interface on the outside of your wrist, and a special component housing Aircon’s ClimaCon technology on the inside of your wrist. Sitting in an area where your nerves are closer to the skin surface, the Aircon can send signals to your nervous system, giving you the effect of feeling warm or cold, as if your wrists were running through a stream of warm or cold water. The simplistic interface below the watch lets you choose whether you want the watch to heat you up or cool you down, as well as pick the intensity.
The technology behind the Aircon is sound, and a version of it is in fact used by the military too, who need to wear heavy anti-ballistic clothing along with large amounts of gear even in areas with soaring temperatures. Probably the first time the tech is finding its application in consumer electronics, Aircon has the same effect on your brain as an optical illusion does… but instead of playing with one’s perception of objects, background, motion, and depth, it alters one’s body temperature, making the wearer instantly feel hot or cold with the press of a button. Call it bio-hacking or the world’s tiniest air-conditioner… the Aircon is pretty darn impressive!
Set a designer free and they’ll make products that they would love to own and use. That seems to be the consensus with our Top Appliance Designs post today. While some of them try to just simply mimic the visual styles of other companies (VW, Dyson), other products try to do more than what they’re expected to do or do something a product hasn’t done before. That’s the essence of innovation, now isn’t it?
The products below show how designers are able to hack the frustration of users and consumers worldwide… and use that ability to design products that we’ve never seen before, but more importantly, can’t wait to see it turn into reality!
Klaus Bischoff – Volkswagen’s Head of Design – describes the brand’s design philosophy in 3 words: “Simple, sophisticated, and different.” Designer Jarim Koo has undoubtedly adopted this philosophy across the ‘Barista Beetle’ coffee machine.
Gotta love this twist on the rice cooker! Called the “Haier Multipurpose Cooker”, it takes the versatility of this popular appliance and multiplies it times 3! Instead of one unit for steaming, it features three cooking hubs with containers of different sizes.
A vacuum sealer feature is integrated directly on the door so you can quickly seal and store unused food. Just place the food item in the bag, place the edge into the slot and it will remove air before sealing it.
This sewing machine has an e-ink display on the side that guides you through spool loading processes and lets you choose from a large database of stitching styles by showing you graphics that make much more sense on screen than having to open and browse through a user manual every time you use the machine.
This minimalist lighting and air purifying pod is capable of being carrying and placed almost anywhere but is specifically designed for use in the kitchen.
The O-Fan (named aptly) powers itself via MicroUSB and instead of looking like a fan on the end of a USB stick, looks more traditional, with a dash of fresh and quirky.
It’s called Pop-Up Laundry and it’s a twist on the washing machine that takes inspiration from the toaster. Yes, you heard that right! Simply hang up your dirty shirt and with the push of a button it will lower and the cleaning/pressing process will begin.
It’s hand-operated and doesn’t require any batteries or electricity, meaning as long as you’ve got hot water, you’ve got fresh espresso!
The Cozy table exists at the intersection of furniture and appliance, doing double duty as both a side table and indoor air purifier. As an added bonus, the top surface doubles as an induction charger for Android and late model iPhones AND there’s a built-in light.
This air conditioner stays flush within a wall, almost integrating itself into the building’s architecture like a radiator. It comes with an air outlet running along the top and sides, and a screen at the base that instead of flashing numbers and mnemonic symbols like fans and water droplets, builds context, by visualizing what the AC is doing.
Sized to fit the most compact of spaces, this steam washer eliminates the need for bulky under-counter washers and even dishwashing liquids.
This lightweight vacuum adopts an unconventional circular form that’s not only beautiful but functional for navigating smoothly around furniture and other objects. The the glass top interface notifies users when it’s time to empty the collection bin and will even alert when an area has already been vacuumed!
Herb Garden makes it possible to practice your green thumb on fresh, organic herbs from the comfort of home! About the size of a refrigerator, it features 3 sets of growing chambers, an LED light box, air pump and a fan for atmospheric adjustments.
If you find yourself yelling “what?! I can’t hear you!” over your current air conditioner, then the Anio is for you! It’s the first home A/C concept that utilizes magnetic cooling – a cutting edge technology that can achieve extremely low temperatures with little or no noise.
The magnetocaloric effect can be used for both cooling or heating by shifting magnetic field strains without using cooling agents. The result is an almost silent air conditioner. Better yet, it uses 50% less energy than conventional air conditioners. Environmentally friendly and 30% smaller than common air conditions, it’s the cleanest, most compact solution for comfort yet!
In an innovative way, WAVE combines the functions of an air conditioner and an air purifier to cool and clean the air in a room. Designed in two parts, the ‘sub-body’ is portable and can be placed separately to as a purifier. High on efficiency, the spiral airflow cools the room uniformly and adds bliss to a sweltering hot day.
The wall-mounted part functions as the air conditioner and is hooked up to a smaller dock on the right, which charges and holds the portable air purifier. The good thing about this design is that when used together, the air conditioner and the purifier are an excellent example of form following function.
Designers: Chen Weiran, Tu Qinghua, Shao Jinpeng, Wei Ziwei, Zhou Lilong & Li Sanxin for GD Midea
The air conditioner of our day, contradictory to pretty much everything we meticulously choose in our houses, is somehow bound to be ugly. But what if it could be beautiful?
The Heir a/c explores this idea in the form of a freestanding unit that’s as a sculptural as it is functional. Its artistic vertical shape is complimented an elegant mixture of materials including wood and stone. Capable of being placed nearly anywhere in the home, it looks cool while making you feel cool!
From what I reckon, Bang and Olufsen are doing pretty well for themselves in the Hi-fi audio business. I wouldn’t imagine them expanding their product range for business purposes any time soon, but it costs nothing to wonder, does it? What if B&O made air conditioners? Luckily for me, someone already asked themselves that question and embarked on a journey to envision what a B&O AC would look like.
The best way to describe the concept design is grand. Seamlessly capturing Bang and Olufsen’s signature ‘boolean’ style, the AC makes use of bold geometric shapes with a larger-than-life outlook. The display for instance is much bigger than necessary, but that’s how B&O roll! The circular display not only showcases relevant product information, it also gives a visual indication of the weather forecast, something pretty neat, because in an air-conditioned environment, it’s pretty difficult to tell what the actual weather is like. Full marks for nailing the design language, but extra marks for the additional user experience!
Enjoying the outdoors is fun in the summer, but sometimes it’s too hot to be comfortable. That’s when you want to have the Zero Breeze nearby. It is a portable air conditioner that measures just 18.3″ x 6.5″ x 3.8″ and weighs just 8.8 pounds. That small form factor delivers enough cooling power to lower the temperature in a 50-foot room.
It cools things down alright. It can actually get temperatures to as low as 44.6 degrees Fahrenheit in close quarters if you want to be almost frozen. What makes this especially impressive is that it requires no power outlet. The Zero Breeze comes with a battery dock that can keep it running for five hours between charges. Of course, you can plug it in too, if you’ve got access to an outlet.
It works it’s magic using a rotary compressor with Dupont’s R-134a refrigerant, the same coolant used for the air-conditioning systems in automobiles and home systems. Of course, it can be used indoors as well, but you’ll need to hook it up to the included exhaust hose to get rid of hot air through a window.
The Zero Breeze also doubles as a bluetooth speaker, a nightlight, and will even charge your gadgets. What other air conditioner can do that? Pledges to reserve a unit start at $389(USD) on Kickstarter, and the project has already blown through its goal by nearly 400% with over a month to go.
Are you struggling to cope with the heat outdoors? Sony might have a solution, if not as soon as you might like. The company's First Flight program is crowdfunding a wearable air conditioner, the Reon Pocket, that slips into a pouch in a special t-...
By Thom Dunn
This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and Engadget may earn affiliate commission. Read the full guide to portable air conditioners....
