Sony is now selling its wearable air conditioner, the “Reon Pocket,” that claims to address what seems to be a yearly dilemma for many. Sony pioneered the portable music scene with its Walkman, dominated the physical media war with its Blu-Ray format and now, it's reinventing the way people deal with living under uncomfortable temperatures with a device that configures their body temperature via a smartphone app.
Reon Pocket started out as a project that was realized through Sony's crowd-funding platform, First Flight. It's just one of the many successfully crown-funded projects in a platform that aims to generate products that “move people emotionally through innovation.” After finally reaching past its crowd-funding goal, it's now ready to hit the market, albeit with a caveat - it's only available in Japan at the moment. Before interested buyers decide to import it as prematurely as Sony decided to trademark future PlayStation names, there's a couple of points to consider first.
Sony's portable air conditioning solution comes with quite a hefty price tag of 14,300 JPY, which translates to about a little over $132. According to the Sony product page, Reon Pocket acts as both a cooling device and a heater. It utilizes Sony's proprietary motion-sensing and thermal technologies, giving it the capability of automatically adjusting its wearer's temperature based on their activity, or manually via an Android or iOS app. The device claims to lower its wearer's temperature by 13 degrees Celsius, or raise it by a toasty 8.3 degrees Celsius after just 5 minutes. On the flip side, practical usage time lasts about as long as it takes to charge the device, which is about 2.5 hours. For something that will eventually gather sweat and odor, it's not fully waterproof either. Furthermore, its efficiency can only be fully achieved by wearing a shirt that's specifically designed to house the device.
A Timely Sony Release, Despite Its Debatable Need
It's summer for many, but is Sony's personal air conditioner the perfect solution for beating the heat? For starters, its price is a little too steep for a product that could potentially end up being among the properties Sony's considers selling off. Some would have to consider if briefly regulating their temperature is worth the effort of lugging around and maintaining yet another gadget as part of their everyday carry, not to mention having to regularly charge it for hours every time the battery is drained.
It's even harder to consider a needed purchase when there are alternatives that are, not only significantly cheaper, but also more convenient and practical. While it's certainly a novel concept, it's hard to say if hits the mark of its platform's slogan of “moving people emotionally” through its innovation. Of course, one can't help but wonder if this is the start of Sony's foray into a nascent wearable market, or if it's something that's doomed to share the same fate as its smartphone lineup.
Source: Sony