New Heating / Cooling device

In Short- this is a prototype of a device that would heat or cool you with a device the size of a large watch.

The article is portraying it as an energy saver, but I wonder if if could be used to help with either heat stroke, or with hypothermia.


The approach is somewhat similar to what Stanford Research was using on their Cooling Glove, used for cooldown after exercise.


https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/1699...in-energy-costs

Sounds a bit of a gimmick to me.
It might make the user FEEL cooler, but cant actually reduce the body temperature significantly.
A slight and intermittent cooling of a very small area of the skin simply can not remove significant heat, nor indeed add significant heat.
In extreme cases this might possibly even be dangerous, if the body is dangerously hot due to illness, extreme exertion, or very high ambient temperatures, then real cooling is needed to reduce the body temperature. Use of this device MIGHT make the victim FEEL cooler when in fact they are dangerously hot and still at serious risk.

I am reading this post having just returned from an excursion on which one of our party was a victim of mild heat exhaustion. We treated her condition with hydration, rest, and cooling liquids and cloths applied to her body.

I don't think an appliance like this would have helped, since there is a big difference between feeling cool and actually being cool - shedding excess heat and returning body functions to some semblance of normal.

Wouldn´t it be more efficient to cool down a person by stripping off clothes and wrapping them in wet cotton bed sheets?

The area and potential heat flow through the device are insufficient for having a substantial effect on a persons body temperature. On that I agree with the other posters.
I seriously doubt that the device can actually save energy. A peltier element consumes about 3W to transport 1W. That energy needs to be disipated too. A person creates roughly 50W of heat without much activity. When made feel cooler the body will create more heat to make up for the heat loss. AC does not only have to get rid of the heat it also needs to provide fresh air and remove humidity. It would save much more energy to allow a room to get a few Kelvin warmer.

Yes, it surely would, but there were other considerations. There were a number of bystanders, and the further problem that our person had to negotiate a long flight of stairs (158 steps +/-), and use a ladder to board a boat to leave the island, so inserting (discreetly) wet cloth seemed a better option. Of course, if her condition had worsened, we would have taken more drastic measures, called for a helo, etc., but thankfully that was not necessary... To say nothing of the fact that we had no bed sheets handy.

Incidentally, this incident reinforced my belief in slways having a bandanna, preferably red, handy. Two months go, I drew one from my pocket to use as a wrap to hold an eye dressing in place. On tis recent occasion, it worked well as a cooling wrap - also headband, signal flag, handkerchief, etc,,....

My post was not directed to your post but more of a general speculation regarding the "cooling device."