Offices are too hot or too cold is there a better way to control room temperature

Offices are too hot or too cold is there a better way to control room temperatureOffices are too hot or too cold is there a better way to control room temperatureIn any office, home or other shared space, theres almost always someone whos too cold, someone whos too hot and someone who doesnt know what the fuss around the thermostat is all about.Most often, building owners and operators find out how their heating and cooling systems are doing by asking occupants if theyre comfortable or whether they want to be cooler or warmer. However, everyone has a different ideal temperature at any given time, based on all sorts of factors, including their age and gender, their physical activity level, what theyre wearing and even how much stress theyre feeling at the moment. This is a complex problem For instance, people entering a cool room in the summer may initially feel comfortable but end up feeling too cold after a while.Those human variables are considered static over time in the curren t industry guidelines for heating and cooling, which recommend a range of 68.5 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit in winter and 75 to 80.5 in summer. As a result, people often feel too hot or too cold, despite how much energy heating and cooling systems use.More people would be more comfortable improving their health and productivity if furnaces and air conditioners could respond in real time to how building occupants were feeling, including how they change through the day. Our research group has been working on how to incorporate human feedback about room temperatures into heating and cooling systems. What were developing could help people feel more comfortable, and even let buildings use less energy.Getting peoples feedbackSome researchers have proposed asking officemates to basically vote on what the temperature should be. Using a phone app or website, building occupants say whether theyre too hot or too cold, and what would make them more comfortable. An algorithm then analyzes the grou ps answer and calculates a temperature estimated to be most acceptable to most people.Some systems let users vote on whether they are comfortable, and what would make them more so.Carol Menassa, et al., CC BY-NDHowever, that method has two significant limitations To work best, it requires near-constant input from people who are supposed to be working and still doesnt factor in whether someone who is uncomfortable could help themselves by putting on or taking off a sweater. It also doesnt take into account how peoples bodies experience temperature, which is closely tied to how cool or warm they prefer their environment to be.Monitoring temperature remotelyIn previous research, ur group placed multiple temperature sensors around an office, and combined their data with information from wristbands that sensed occupants skin temperature and heart rates and apps that polled workers about how they felt. We found that adding the data about how peoples bodies were reacting made the algorith m more accurate at calculating the room temperature at which people occupying a given space would feel most comfortable.A multi-sensor system monitors the environment and room occupants, and adjusts the room heat and cooling accordingly.Carol Menassa, et al., CC BY-NDOur current project, seeks to make things even easier and less intrusive for people, eliminating the wristbands and apps, and only using remote sensing of peoples skin temperature to measure how comfortable they are. We developed a method using regular cameras, thermal imaging and distance sensors to detect occupants presence in a space, focus on their faces and measure their skin temperature. From that data, our algorithm calculates whether and how to change the temperature in the room regardless of the number of occupants in the space. When we tested it in an office occupied by seven people, they complained less about feeling uncomfortably cold or warm.Face detection software coupled with temperature-sensing cameras can evaluate whether a person is warm, cold or just right.Carol Menassa, et al., CC BY-NDThis method is most effective in multi-occupancy spaces, like open-plan offices, meeting rooms and theaters. It can accommodate, and account for, differences in temperature between people in different areas of a room, whether they are standing or sitting or moving around. And it can adjust on the fly without requiring active human feedback. Our group will continue to explore this and other non-intrusive methods to help people feel more comfortable and be healthier and more productive.Carol Menassa, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan Da Li, Ph.D. Student in Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan, and Vineet Kamat, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of MichiganThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.