Aura

Aura is an intelligent personal cooling fan designed to provide greater comfort for the user. Its wireless controller improves the user experience by detecting room temperature changes and altering the fan’s speed accordingly.

Year

2021

Client

University Project

Discipline

Industrial design, Embedded systems

An image of the Aura fan, with its controller, rendered on a white background.

Project Overview

A breath of fresh air.

Designer for the embedded systems project, focused on improving user's comfort and productivity within workspaces, homes and hospitals. The system is controlled by two PIC microcontrollers, which are programmed to react to ambient temperature changes.

Concepts

Ideation began with form development to understand the basic shape and mechanism. The designs that stood out the most were compact and calm, blending in with the workspace environment.

A group of ideation sketches showing the initial concepts for Aura.
Product

The system wirelessly drives the fan through a transmitter and receiver, outputting air thermally regulated to the desired speed.

Being wireless, the controller can be placed in non-traditional locations, allowing for greater accuracy when measuring the ambient temperature, and reducing the user’s direct interaction with the fan.

An Aura fan, and its controller
Two Aura fans.
Two Aura fans, one facing forward and one facing backward.
Electronics

The primary electronic components are stored in the base of the fan, enabling the user to take full advantage of Aura’s adjustable design, altering the inclination and azimuth of the airflow.

The Aura fan with a transparent base, to the see the internal circuit board.
A flat lay of the Aura fan's components.
The Aura controller and the printed circuit board.
Design

Aura’s design style is simple, modern and representative of nature - with aesthetics based on existing market solutions.

A group of three Aura fans - each with their own distinct pastel colour.
The Aura controller on a wooden desk, next to an iPhone.