When you work in an office with centralized air-conditioning or heating, it can be pretty hard to please everyone with the “right” temperature that’s comfortable for everyone. It would be ideal to have something for each room or cubicle but of course, that’s impossible and impractical. So having a device that can give each person a more comfortable working experience would be pretty convenient. It’s still a concept for now but this wrist rest device might be the closest thing to that kind of setup.
Designer: Tony Elkington
The concept device is called Stratum: Workplace Thermal Comfort and it is a mat where you can rest your wrists and forearms and adjust it to the temperature that makes them comfortable. It is based on the concept of spatial alliesthesia which gives you different thermal stimuli depending on the weather or temperature conditions that you’re experiencing. For example, there is a pleasure in holding a cup of hot chocolate during winter or running a bottle of cold water on your face in the middle of the summer.
There is a device located on both ends of the elongated mat which is where you set up your desired temperature and where it self-regulates the temperature of the mat itself. Stratum is able to either cool it down or heat it up, depending on what you currently want. It basically personalizes the temperature at your desk, or at least the one where your wrists and forearms rest. As most people are sitting in front of the computer or writing something when at the desk, those are the parts of the body that can benefit from thermal adjustment.
You don’t need to constantly fiddle with the device as the mat is self-regulating and it’s easy to switch to your desired preset: heating, cooling, and neutral. In case you don’t need the mat or you need more space to do your other tasks, you can just roll it up and store somewhere until the next time you’ll be needing it. As someone that sometimes feels a bit cold when at the office, this is a pretty nifty device to have.
