Using Occupants’ Control Behavior with Internet-Connected Personal Comfort System to Predict Individuals’ Thermal Preference

Occupants interact with thermal control devices available in buildings to address their comfort needs/desire; hence, the resulting behavior is an expression of one’s thermal preference. The new generation Personal Comfort System(PCS) with wireless connectivity offers a continuous stream of individuals’ heating and cooling usage data along with occupancy and environmental measurements in real time. This presentation summarizes findings from a field study of 40PCS heated and cooled chairs in an office building and reports the predictive performance of personal comfort models developed from continuous PCS data. Proposed models show an improvement of individuals’ comfort predictions by 20-30% compared to PMV.