A system that adjusts office room temperature that is too hot or too cold by people is under development

by Fox

Building a comfortable environment for employees by appropriately adjusting the room temperature of the office is important for improving employee productivity and maintaining health. However, in reality it is difficult to adjust to the temperature of the office that all employees convince, such as "This air conditioner temperature is too hot", "No, it is too cold" "Do not change the temperature as it is just because it is just right". A research team at the University of Michigan carries out various initiatives in order to successfully adjust the room temperature of such office.

Offices are too hot or too cold - is there a better way to control room temperature?
https://theconversation.com/offices-are-too-hot-or-too-cold-is-there-a-better-way-to-control-room-temperature-108982

Managers of buildings and offices often adjust room temperature by asking whether employees are comfortable with the room temperature at present or whether it is better to lower the temperature of the air conditioner or lower it. However, not all people think that the same room temperature is comfortable throughout the day, but comfortable room temperature will change depending on age, sex, momentum in the office, clothes being worn, and also the amount of stress .

As an easy-to-understand example, we feel temporarily very comfortable when air conditioning from a hot outdoor in a very hot summer season and air conditioning has entered into a cold room. However, as the temperature in the interior where air conditioning worked became high, there are many people who have experienced feeling that "This is too cold" for the room temperature which was initially felt comfortable. This is a very complicated problem and it is a factor that makes it impossible to find the room temperature that all employees feel comfortable.

Although the comfortable room temperature that people feel changes constantly, the recommended room temperature is within a certain range in industry guidelines formulated by the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention , despite fluctuating from moment to moment. In the guideline, it is within the range of 68.5 degrees Fahrenheit (about 20.3 degrees Celsius ) to 75 degrees Fahrenheit (about 23.9 degrees Celsius) during the winter period, in the summer it is within the range of 75 degrees Fahrenheit (about 23.9 degrees Celsius) to 80 degrees Fahrenheit ) Is recommended. However, even within this range, it seems that some people feel it is too hot or too cold.

by Sania Baker

The research team at the University of Michigan said that if the air conditioner can automatically control the room temperature taking into account that the room temperature that employees can spend comfortably throughout the day is taken into consideration, I think that productivity and health condition will improve. Therefore, the research team has been conducting research to incorporate people's feedback on room temperature into the temperature control of the air conditioner.

Similar research has been conducted for some time and researchers at the University of California have proposed a system for employees to ask "whether the current room temperature is comfortable" by voting . In this system, algorithms analyze the room temperature feedback obtained by using smartphone applications and PC sites and calculate "the temperature most convincing people".

However, the research team at the University of Michigan points out that there is a limit to this method. In order for this system to work well, it is a prerequisite that a certain number of votes are obtained from employees, and it is also necessary for the voters not to wear too much unnecessarily or wear jacket . Also, it is possible that the voting may be affected by the place where it happened by being too close to the air conditioner, the voting may be affected just by returning from outdoors.

by rawpixel.com

Therefore, the research team at the University of Michigan developed a method of installing multiple temperature sensors in the office and further combining information on skin temperature and heart rate collected from the wrist band worn by employees with employee's voting data. By analyzing not only the sense of the employee but also the data on how the body actually responds, we found that the algorithm that calculates the room temperature that people feel comfortable becomes more accurate It was.

In addition, the research team studied a method of analyzing how much room temperature is comfortable by sensing the people's skin temperature with a remote sensor in order to save the trouble of making employees wear a wristband or vote. It is. In order to measure the temperature of the exposed face by detecting where the employee is in the office, the research team combines a thermometer that senses the normal camera and the temperature, and a sensor that detects the distance to the face Thing.

By using these data, the algorithm developed by the research team seems to be able to properly adjust indoor temperature regardless of the number of employees in the office. In a test conducted with seven employees in the office, it is said that each employee did not complain about room temperature.

This method of working regardless of the number of people in the office without individual feedback by employees is effective in places where several people go in and out, such as offices, conference rooms, theaters, etc. where people are entering and leaving. Even when people are standing or sitting, even if they are moving around, people's skin temperature is detected and this method of automatically adjusting the room temperature is put to practical use to improve employee productivity and health condition You can expect. In addition to this method, the researchers are planning to study ways to adjust the room temperature of the appropriate office from other approaches.

by Cadeau Maestro