Sentir
We designed a wearable and mobile application that reads the body's thermal comfort level, which will indicate the thermometer whether to increase or decrease the temperature. The thermometer will be set to the average temperature of all users wearing the wearable so everybody is equally satisfied. Users can monitor the thermal comfort level of other users and the house. All numbers were eliminated in the visualization of temperature.
Research
A traditional thermometer requires a user to manually change the temperature when the user is feeling hot/cold and the thermometer will in return change the temperature of the house to the set temperature. There is little to no interaction between the user's body temperature and the temperature of the house. Every user of the household experiences a different thermal comfort level and by one user's manual change, the entire household must accomodate to the set temperature.
Wearable
Through research, we were able to find out that the skin temperature at the wrist provides the highest correlation to a person's feel of thermal comfort. By adding a wearable component, we can have an automated thermometer that responds to how household members are feeling thermally. The wearable is a thin bracelet that is light enough so a user does not feel any discomfort when wearing it in their home. The wearable will have a subtle glow for notifications but not be distracting to the user.
No More Numbers
For the representation of temperature, we got rid of all numbers because numbers have little significance to how a person is feeling at the moment. We used colors and gradients to show a more visual representation of temperatures, so people can relate more and understand how their thermal comfort level. In the case of 'special cases', we added features to the app that would notify users to perform an action rather than affect the temperature of the entire home. This conserves energy and provides users with alternative options.
