Project Coolbit is an interdisciplinary and multi-city research initiative to understand thermal comfort in a personalized and continuous way
Coolbit in the news: ‘Coolbit’ aims for personalised comfort advice in specific environments
Why study thermal comfort?
Human thermal comfort is among top environmental priorities for city livability around the world, as it directly impacts the well-being, productivity, and cognitive performance of urban dwellers. Additionally, climate change is increasing the intensity, duration, and frequency of heatwaves. So, the consideration of thermal environment moves beyond the prevention of “discomfort” and shifts into concerns regarding “heat stress”, which is increasingly threatening the health of individuals and particularly affecting the vulnerable population such as young children, elderly, and those with existing physical and mental health conditions.
Therefore, it is paramount that we deeply understand and closely monitor not only the local climate and urban fabric, but also the personalized characteristics that impact human health and well-being in the face of such heat events, and further promote smart city strategies to address this grave concern.
Most Deadly of the Natural Disasters:
“Heat mortality is referred to as “private and silent deaths” that kill more urban dwellers than any other natural disaster.”
Project Coolbit is a research project that aims to introduce Innovative methods of obtaining data on thermal comfort using wearable devices. Using the methodology, we aim to access real-time and dynamic information on the exposure to the thermal environment in the cities, and to do so in a human-centric way. Such information leads to climate-smart strategies in cities and ultimately aims to minimize the grave impact of urban heating on human life.
Project Coolbit has finalized the proof-of-concept studies and is pending funding for further developments.
About our research team
Project Coolbit is led by Dr. Negin Nazarian at University of New South Wales who is an expert on Urban Climatology and Dr. Clayton Miller at National University of Singapore expert on Urban Data Analytics. Additionally, as a multi-disciplinary project, we received scientific advice and supervision from a range of academic experts across the various discipline. For more information regarding our team visit Our Team.
Comfy App now available on Fitbit Versa and Ionic
The research team at UNSW and NUS has developed a simple smartwatch application (Coolbit clockface) to obtain momentary feedback about thermal comfort through non-intrusive vibrational prompts throughout the day. This application is now available for Versa and Ionic watches.