Sony has announced plans to release a personal air conditioning unit later this year.
Named The Reon Pocket, the device is a compact unit that slips into a pouch on a specially-designed t-shirt, allowing for a silent, wearable air-conditioner.
Although the device doesn’t condition the air around you, it sits on the base of your neck, absorbing heat and lowering your body temperature by up to 23F, or raising it by up to 14F in the winter months when it’s cold outside, allowing you to comfortably wear a business suit on the hottest day of the year.
The new unit can heat and cool and is, naturally, controlled by Bluetooth using an app, which Sony says will allow you to set a manually preferred temperature, and an auto-function, which will keep your body at a consistent temperature in correlation to the outside temperature, is in the works and will be released later.
One downside to the device at present is its battery life, with Sony predicting less than two hours from a single charge.
The device is set to launch in Japan in early 2020, and will make its way to other markets should it prove successful in the years that follow.
Priced at just ¥12,760 ($117), Sony should have no trouble selling these units to consumers, and we’d wager that many will be attempting to import them from Japan to get early access.
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