Sony makes a personal heatsink for the back of your neck and it's got a toasty-looking warming option, too
If you're anything like me, you will have spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about the cooling inside your PC. Keeping all those components in the right temperature ranges is essential for getting the best performance, but what about the fleshy meat-thing sitting in front of it?
Well, you could get something like the Noctua NV-FS1 for your personal cooling needs, or any other decent desk fan—but what about if you need cooling on the move? Sony appears to quite literally have your back here, as the Sony Reon Pocket 5 is a wearable that doesn't just cool you down but gives you a decent dose of heat in winter, too.
Sony advertises this bizarre device as "our most powerful cooling system yet", as there have been previous iterations of this temperature-changing gadget, but supposedly this model is 80% quieter with 1.8 times the cooling efficiency.
The idea here is to put the neckband on either side of your, err, neck, and leave the thermos module plate sitting in contact with the skin mid-way between your upper shoulder blades. The Peltier element inside cools down one side and warms up the other when electricity is passed through it, with a built-in fan to expel hot air through the vent at the top when used in cooling mode.
The device has five levels of cooling and four of warmth and can detect ambient temperature and adjust itself accordingly. It can also be synced with the Reon Pocket Tag to detect sunlight and anticipate your internal temperature needs.
Or you can connect it to an app on your phone and adjust it manually, thanks to a built-in Bluetooth connection. There's also a choice of two vents, one mounted close to your neckline for casual wear, and one that sits higher to get above the collar of a formal shirt. Sony says that the neck strap is suitable for a wide range of neck sizes, from 34 to 46 cm.
I know, I know, it looks faintly ridiculous. But having just spent my summer trawling around exhibition halls in the heat, I did notice that many people were cleverer than I. In general, if I'm honest, but the really clever ones brought personal fans.
You'd still have to hold a fan in front of you and look a bit of a plum, though, whereas this looks like it might escape detection—while stopping the back of your shirt from looking like Niagara Falls on a particularly heavy day.
To that end, Sony says that the Reon Pocket 5 is splash and sweat-resistant. It's available on the Sony UK store for £139, although I had trouble finding it available for sale in other countries. There's perhaps an irony that it appears to be easiest to buy in the UK—given the miserably sun-free summer we've just endured—although that warming function means it may well come in handy for, well, living in UK-like temperatures in general.