Embr Wave Body Thermostat
The Embr Wave body thermostat is a personal temperature regulator that endeavors to warm you up in the frigid winter, and then cool you off in the hot summer. I first saw and wrote about it in prototype form almost 5 years ago, when it the wristband was called Wristify, and its MIT-student creators had just won $10,000 at the university's annual MADMEC competition for their invention. They parlayed that into a successful Kickstarter campaign, and, as of March 20, 2018, are open for business and selling the heat-me-up / cool-me-off bracelet as the Embr Wave.
As with the original Wristify concept, the Embr Wave doesn't act so much as a whole-body thermostat as it does a temperature controller for your brain. As anyone who has rubbed ice cubes on their wrists might know, if you cool or warm a single spot on the body, it can change how you feel everywhere else, even if your core temperature stays the same. In other words, your brain feels the relief on your wrist, and focuses on that warm (or cool) fuzzy feeling rather than the discomfort that may still be in your face, back, or butt cheeks.
The Embr Wave wristband has a button controller that increases or decreases the temperature of its own rectangular module, giving you a "shot" of warmth or chill. Embr Wave creators compare the sensation to "an ice cube on your skin in the summer or the warmth of your hands by the fireplace in the winter."
The Embr Wave wearable itself is stylish enough in design, but kinda big. Almost house-arrest-ankle-monitor big. Otherwise, it's not too different in appearance from an activity tracker, except rather than mostly silicone parts the Embr Wave has mostly metal parts. Its "thermostat" has a nickel-free anodized aluminum body, and the loop strap is a meshy stainless steel. The thermoelectric module operates via a rechargeable battery, whose full power is usually good for 2 to 3 days. A blue-and-red light bar at the top of the Embr Wave adjusts your temperature.
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