Hacker News Reader

Comment by jl6 | Hacker News Reader

I do feel that personal-climate-control clothing has potential in our future world of more climate extremes. Some kind of backpack with a fluid pump, heater-cooler unit, and battery. Cooling/heating fluid gets pumped around a suit. Inductive charging via pads on the posterior, as long as your seat is part of the superchairger network.

View on HN

> Some kind of backpack with a fluid pump, heater-cooler unit, and battery. Cooling/heating fluid gets pumped around a suit.

So we're all going to become Fremen, wearing stillsuits?

A damp towel in warm climate and a cup of tea when cold will do thank you, this sounds like hell on earth

Is a damp towel going to help when it's humid outside?

Even if it doesn't evaporate, it will still absorb body heat, briefly. Similarly, if you are in a humid area, sitting in a bath / some body of water will help a lot. Don't underestimate the heat capacity of water.

It will if the air is moving sufficiently fast over it, e.g in combination with the fan cooler. Or you can have a bucket with a mix of water, ice and salt, and point the fan to blow over it (we did this in army and it actually works fine as a poor man AC alternative).

> Some kind of backpack with a fluid pump, heater-cooler unit, and battery

Like Adam Savage’s cooling suit: https://youtu.be/z_Ti4GP0ntE

Nice our own personal Stillsuits…

Exactly what I thought. This dude wants us to become Fremen.

It reminded me of the body suits which people need in Termination Shock (2021)[0]. Written by Neal Stephenson, the same dude who wrote Snow Crash. Can recommend Termination Shock, very interesting, global story about climate change and the involved politics etc.

These body suits do exactly what's being described in these comments. Wearable packs which regulate humidity, temperature etc.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_Shock_(novel)

I could see that happening for heat: hot water bags are amazing, and being able to "wear" one occasionally on the upper back (using some improvisation with an empty backpack to keep it in place) has been one of the few things I consider a benefit of WFH. But cooling? Sure, the technology is doable but won't you get a very huge mess with condensation?

Some sort of wicking layer might help with condensation.

Backpack with such battery would weight a ton, and would add to discomfort. And inductive charging under arse would have terrible safety.

Much easier is to have plumbing in suit, and just plugin to heat exchanger pump on every location.

What about a radiant heating system that selectively supply heat only on human bodies instead of the entire environment?

I propose microwave heating https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di3fPj0pUbQ

kinda happening already eg https://www.therm-ic.com/en/heated-ski-gloves-for-men/751-ul...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com