Monolithic gadgets heat up to save you time and energy

The Cryoscope (left) and HAGENT (right)

While these two virtually featureless cubes don’t have touchscreens, Twitter accounts or even cup holders, rest assured they’re a pair of innovative devices you may find in your home before long. One will follow you around with the goal of keeping you warm and a quick touch of the other will yield tomorrow’s weather forecast.

The HAGENT, which can be seen on the right in the above image, is the larger of the two devices sitting approximately 1.5 feet cubed and is actually a robot rather than a footstool. Created by Andreas Meinhardt and Daniel Abendroth from Germany, the HAGENT uses barely visible wheels to roll itself towards detected heat sources such as an oven or a radiator, it then stores heat which it can emit later, once it returns to you.

This robotic lapdog is able to absorb heat thanks to phase-change material (PCM) contained within its cubizoid form. Phase-change materials can store and release energy when changing states, from a liquid to a solid and back for example. By fueling its charge with ambient heat the HAGENT, for the most part, is able to redistribute otherwise wasted energy to where it’s needed most — where you are.

Being that the HAGENT is still in the prototype stage I suppose there’s still time for them to add those cup holders, I mean if it’s going to follow you around anyway — just no beer on the heater-robot please.

The second half of this cubular duo is the Cryoscope, seen on the left in the top image. The Cryoscope is substantially smaller than the HAGENT and serves an entirely different purpose. At about 2.5 inches cubed the Cryoscope is intended to reside on a table or desk where it heats up and cools down based on the next day’s weather forecast. Why? So you can simply touch the small aluminum cube to feel what it will be like outside tomorrow.

“The Cryoscope shows the user exactly what to expect outside by haptically exhibiting exactly how cold or warm it is to be outside. The user simply touches an aluminum cube that has been heated or cooled to the appropriate temperature. The unit fetches weather data from the internet, and translates it to the cube physically, pumping heat in or out of the cube.” -Robb Godshaw

The device’s creator, Robb Godshaw, wanted to provide a way for humans to experience the weather forecast rather than just rely on numbers which have little to do with how humans actually perceive hot and cold. To this end the Cryoscope uses a Peltier thermoelectric element to pump heat in and out of its aluminum chassis while a heat sink and a cooling fan distribute and dissipate heat as needed. The neutral state of the cube is about 30°C, which is perceived as neutral by the skin. The cube is then adjusted by the number of degrees that the forecast differs from typical room temperature 23°C, thus feeling colder or hotter to the touch by a magnitude directly related to the upcoming weather forecast.

Check out the video below for more details and a view of the Cryoscope’s inner-workings.

Do you think that feeling the weather forecast would help you prepare for conditions better than simply reading or hearing the predicted temperature?

[via IEEE, DISCOVER Magazine]