Marco Spadafora

Thermostats allow people to set the temperature they desire, even if personal thermal comfort perception is tied to a number of external stimuli [9]. Here we investigate dependability of people's thermal comfort, from the multi-sensory features of environment (light colors). We want to prototype a system that influences people's thermal comfort through other stimuli instead of temperature changing. The preliminary Spell research envisions a smart system for heating control that proactively compensates temperature variations using light color variations, accomplishing both the objectives: to satisfy user request for thermal comfort, while optimizing energy consumption. Two preliminary experiments were made: one demonstrates that people's perceived temperature is different from the actual temperature in a space; the second one shows how lights color affects the temperature perceived by people. As a result we derived preliminary guidelines for the prototyping the Spell system.