William “Wes” Schake, left, and Rashad Reynolds demonstrate the smart jacket that they developed with fellow electronical-engineering graduate Christopher Campbell. Equipped with temperature sensors, the jacket warms to settings preselected by the user and controlled via a smart phone. Schake is wearing the jacket.

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Three recent University of Akron electrical engineering graduates designed a "smart" jacket that literally puts its wearers in their personal comfort zones. Equipped with temperature sensors, the jacket warms to settings preselected by the user and controlled via a smart phone. Christopher Campbell of Copley, Rashad Reynolds of Cleveland and William "Wes" Schake of Silver Lake describe their Climate Wear as a one-kind-fits-most-seasons jacket.

The idea for the sensor-driven, temperature-controlled jacket came to Schake as he was driving to class on a cold, early spring morning wearing a heavy winter coat, but certain he would be lugging it home while wishing for a lighter weight jacket by afternoon.

"It was the typical dilemma we all face in between seasons," says Schake, who served as manager of the team's senior design project.

The jacket's internal heating system incorporates sensors that detect and display current external temperatures and preset temperatures, which regulate comfort-conditions of the garment according to users' desires. The Climate Wear system reaches the users' desired temperature within 30 seconds of each degree difference, excluding highly frigid temperatures, and provides display feedback within 3 seconds.            

Arm, front and back jacket panels can be regulated with the same or various temperature settings. The user interface displays current zone temperatures and estimated battery life and sounds an alarm when battery life has reached 50 percent usage, at which time the user can switch to an "econo-mode" setting of 65 degrees to preserve battery life. The jacket's rechargeable 12v DC batteries last about two hours.

"The jacket's heating zones can be switched on manually or automatically," says Campbell, the team's hardware manager. "The jacket's sensors, which monitor temperature settings, can be set using a slider on a smart- phone screen."

Users can regulate the heat of their jacket via a smart phone, the screen of which is shown here.

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Rashad, who served as software manager for the project, says the team selected a LilyPad Arduino microcontroller, which is housed within a casing that can disconnect from the internal wiring to allow for easy removal from the jacket. This microcontroller offers a degree of water resistance, Campbell adds.

The student team put its ingenuity to work on a jacket donated by Gerbing, a Seattle-based company that specializes in heated clothing. While the prototype remains on display in the UA College of Engineering awaiting an interested licensee, the team envisions its future design of a portable system users can remove from their current jackets and install in future jackets to keep up with fashion trends.

Media contact: Denise Henry, 330-972-6477 or henryd@uakron.edu.