Application of Heart Rate Variability for Thermal Comfort in Office Buildings in Real-Life Conditions

In the context of building energy efficiency, occupants' preferences can be considered as a source of information complementary to those in traditional building management systems (BMS).The general availability of wearable devices in recent years has increased interest in this ecosystem of technologies, as well as in their practical applications and those that can potentially derive from them.This study aims at investigating the applicability of wearable heart rate sensors for evaluating aspects of mood associated to stress/comfort, and in particular in relation to thermal comfort.A procedure for data gathering and analysis is proposed and tested in an office building in real-life conditions.First results show that no clear pattern of comfort vs. discomfort can be observed in data during testing.In addition, some of the challenges of applicability of the technique in real-life conditions are discussed in the study.