Broadly speaking, your current fitness wearable or smartwatch tells you the time… and measures your vitals. But what if it could alter your vitals instead?? The Aircon watch is a wearable that, as its description says, can trick your brain into making you feel cold or warm, based on the temperature of the environment you’re in. Your body has a natural temperature of 98.7°F, and when you’re feeling hot or cold, it’s, in fact, your nervous system telling your brain to make you feel hot or cold. The Aircon alters that signal. A wearable that straps to your wrist, the Aircon tells you the time, but the fact that it can hack your perception of temperature makes it a product worth noticing. Imagine you’re out in the heat, perspiring up a storm, or you’ve just finished your daily workout and you’re feeling particularly sweaty… or an opposite situation, where you’re in a room with the AC running on full blast and you’re feeling chilly, or maybe it’s just old-fashioned winter. Your skin, which is capable of sensing heat or coldness, sends signals to your brain, making you respond to the stimulus by either perspiring or shivering. The Aircon sits on your wrist, with the watch and interface on the outside of your wrist, and a special component housing Aircon’s ClimaCon technology on the inside of your wrist. Sitting in an area where your nerves are closer to the skin surface, the Aircon can send signals to your nervous system, giving you the effect of feeling warm or cold, as if your wrists were running through a stream of warm or cold water. The simplistic interface below the watch lets you choose whether you want the watch to heat you up or cool you down, as well as pick the intensity. The technology behind the Aircon is sound, and a version of it is in fact used by the military too, who need to wear heavy anti-ballistic clothing along with large amounts of gear even in areas with soaring temperatures. Probably the first time the tech is finding its application in consumer electronics, Aircon has the same effect on your brain as an optical illusion does… but instead of playing with one’s perception of objects, background, motion, and depth, it alters one’s body temperature, making the wearer instantly feel hot or cold with the press of a button. Call it bio-hacking or the world’s tiniest air-conditioner… the Aircon is pretty darn impressive! Designer: Tommy Fung