If the device developed by a firm incubating at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, is commercially successful, you will soon have shoes that can keep your feet cool in summer, and warm in winter. What is more, it will also help reduce the problem of your feet becoming smelly after you have worn the shoes for many hours.
Dhama Innovations Private Limited, which is incubating under the National Design Business Incubator (NDBI) at the NID, has developed a device that will keep the temperature inside the shoes at comfortable levels. To keep working, the shoes will require recharging every time their owner takes them off. The company has already produced a design of the prototype.
“We fitted the device to a pair of shoes to see if it worked,” said Kranthi Vistakula, founder of Dhama Innovations, “and it did!” He claimed that feet wearing the cooling shoes did not sweat at all while those without them did. It will be possible to charge the shoes with rechargeable lithium batteries. “Shoes fitted with the device developed by us will be comfortable to wear and offer relief from smelly feet as well,” Vistakula said.
The same device will keep the feet warm in winter. All that one needs to do is to tune the regulators fitted discreetly under the tongues of the shoes.
Vistakula, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and one of the innovators of the unique shoes, said that the device is based on a technology called the Peltier technology.
“When electric current is passed through two strategically-selected metals that are joined together, one of the metals cools while the other warms up,” he said. “The same metals behave the other way when the current is reversed.”
The company is currently in talks with brands like Bata and Reebok for the manufacture and distribution of the shoes. Their price, once produced, is likely to be double that of normal footwear, Vistakula said.
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