The arm patch that prevents you from getting cold

This could be the ideal solution for people fighting over the thermostat in the office or at home.

Scientists have created an armband that functions as a "personal thermostat" to keep people always warm or cold at a constant temperature.

The patch inside works for more than eight hours and can lower the skin temperature up to 10 ° C (50 ° F).

Its inventors say that it is a simpler solution than central heating or air conditioning, which must change the temperature of an entire building to maintain the comfort of a few people.

This creates arguments when a person always cold goes back up the thermostat, letting others sweat.

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The cuff uses thermoelectric alloys – materials that use electricity to create a temperature difference – sandwiched between thermally conductive stretch sheets and connected to a small battery pack.

Tested on a person at background temperatures ranging from 22 to 36 ° C (72 to 97 ° F), it remained constant at 32 ° C (90 ° F).

Professor Chen, who led the University of California San Diego study, said, "This type of device can improve your personal thermal comfort, whether you're traveling on a hot day or getting too cold at night. office.

"If wearing this unit puts you at ease in a wider temperature range, you will no longer need to turn down the thermostat as much in the summer or heat as much as you need in the winter.

More than 10% of the energy consumed in the world is spent on heating and cooling buildings, which makes the Grail thermostat a personal thermostat.

But options for this are few, including clothes with built-in fans or bulky vests with circulating water and coolant packs.

The researchers built their patch by taking small pillars out of thermoelectric materials, soldering them to thin strips of copper electrodes and placing them between the two elastomeric stretch sheets.

An electric current from the battery moves on the pillars, causing heat from one sheet to the other.

If the heat reaches the leaf closest to the skin, it warms up. If it is transferred to the furthest sheet, the heat is removed from their skin and they cool down.

The square shape, flexible and light, measures five centimeters in diameter.

The researchers, writing in the journal Science Advances, estimate that about 100 of them are needed in a vest to cover parts of the body such as the back and neck that may overheat or get cold.

This consumes about 26 watts per hot day, less than half the needs of a laptop. However, its manufacture would still cost hundreds of pounds – a cost that researchers hope to reduce through further research.

On a male volunteer, the patch reached its target temperature in two minutes and stayed there. It is hoped that it will be available commercially in a few years.

Professor Chen said: "We have solved the fundamental problems, we are now tackling the major engineering problems: the electronics, hardware and the development of a mobile application to control the temperature. "