Tiny fans worn around the face or neck could help office workers stay comfortable while reducing the amount of energy buildings use for air conditioning, according to new research from Concordia University.
The study found that lightweight wearable fans can provide almost as much comfort as conventional desk fans.
Because they cool the individual rather than an entire room, they could be particularly useful in modern offices where only a small number of employees are present at any given time.
Many workplaces now use hybrid arrangements, meaning large office spaces may be only partly occupied. Yet centralized heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems often continue cooling the whole space. This can waste significant amounts of energy.
Researchers say personal cooling devices offer another approach. Instead of lowering the temperature of an entire office, workers could use small fans to cool themselves while the building’s air conditioning operates at a less energy-intensive setting.
The researchers compared two wearable devices—a face fan and a neck fan—with two types of desktop fans, one with traditional blades and another with a bladeless design.
The face and neck were chosen because they are especially sensitive to temperature, even though together they account for only about 5.5% of the body’s surface area. Cooling these areas can therefore have a surprisingly large effect on how comfortable someone feels.
The team tested all four devices in a controlled office environment kept at 25°C, or 77°F. Rather than using people, they used an advanced human-shaped thermal model known as a manikin.
The model was divided into 23 body segments and designed to simulate aspects of the way the human body exchanges heat with its surroundings. Researchers measured skin temperature, heat loss and overall thermal comfort while operating each fan at different speeds.
The traditional bladed desk fan provided the strongest overall cooling, as expected. However, the wearable face and neck fans performed surprisingly well.
Both wearable devices provided cooling similar to the bladeless desktop fan and produced levels of comfort comparable to using a conventional bladed desk fan at a low setting.
The face fan was particularly effective at cooling the area it targeted. It increased heat loss from the face by as much as seven watts. Both wearable devices provided enough cooling to bring overall thermal comfort back into what researchers described as a neutral, comfortable range.
Wearable fans also have practical advantages. They take up little or no desk space, require relatively little electricity and direct airflow toward the person wearing them. That means they are less likely to create unwanted drafts that might annoy coworkers sitting nearby.
The researchers believe these devices could eventually become part of a broader strategy for making office buildings more energy efficient.
Rather than spending large amounts of energy keeping an entire building uniformly cool, workplaces could combine centralized air conditioning with personal cooling devices tailored to individual workers.
Such an approach could be especially valuable as hybrid work becomes more common, helping people stay comfortable without wasting energy cooling large areas of mostly empty office space.
