Smart Wireless Charging Heating Insoles: Improving Body Thermal Comfort of Young Males in an Extremely Cold Environment

Abstract

Currently, no study was retrieved for scientifically design heating insoles and evaluating their actual effectiveness in improving body thermal comfort of occupational workers in extremely cold environments. To fill this gap, novel smart wireless charging heating insoles (SWHI) were developed, consisting of electrically heating pads targeted at the toe and heel regions. Seven young males were asked to perform twice repeated cycles of 50-min treadmill walking at 4.0 km/h and 20-min standing to simulate the occupational moderate intensity work in HEAT (i.e., safety boots with SWHI) and CON (i.e., boots with SWHI by removing heating system) inside a climatic chamber (−10 °C and 60% RH). Results demonstrated that HEAT could significantly elevate toe and heel temperatures (p < .05), remarkably improve feet- and whole-body thermal and comfort sensations (p < .05). The novel SWHI was highly suggested as an effective method for improving body thermal comfort of occupational workers in extremely cold environments.