Sony's REON POCKET Gets Serious: New Spinoff Company Targets 22 Countries
What Just Happened
Sony has spun off its REON POCKET wearable thermal device business into a separate company called Sony Startup Technology Inc. (SSTI). The new subsidiary, led by CEO Kenji Itoh, aims to sell the REON POCKET—a wearable device that heats or cools your body—across 22 countries in 2025. The device has sold out every year since its launch, signaling strong demand that Sony's main company can't keep up with.
This kind of move is what happens when a side project inside a big corporation becomes successful enough that it needs its own focused team. The REON POCKET started as an experimental project within Sony but has evolved into a real product line with genuine market traction. Creating a separate company lets the team move faster, pursue partnerships, and specialize in what this product needs to reach more customers.
The New Hardware: REON POCKET PRO
The latest version, called the REON POCKET PRO, brings a meaningful technical upgrade. It uses two cooling modules instead of one, which roughly doubles the cooling area compared to older versions. Inside, a newly designed fan with nearly twice the airflow helps the device dissipate heat much more effectively—and that translates to roughly double the overall cooling performance compared to previous models.
Wearable thermal devices have historically struggled with a few core problems: they drain batteries fast, they can't move heat away from the device quickly enough, and they're bulky. The dual-module design addresses this by spreading the cooling work across two systems, so neither one gets overloaded. The better fan tackles the heat-dissipation bottleneck that has plagued portable thermoelectric devices for years. The PRO model also lasts longer on a single charge than the previous Pocket 5, which matters when you're wearing something all day.
Currently, the REON POCKET PRO costs £199 in the UK and isn't sold in the United States yet—gaps that Sony's expansion plan is meant to fix.
Who Wants This, and Why
The consistent yearly sell-outs point to real, unmet demand. Unlike the air conditioning system in your home, which cools or heats an entire space, the REON POCKET targets individual thermoregulation—keeping one person comfortable. This appeals to outdoor workers in extreme heat, commuters in climates they didn't choose, or anyone who gets too cold or hot easily.
By creating a dedicated subsidiary, Sony gains organizational independence to form partnerships, work out regional distribution deals, and collaborate on specialized technologies without the slower bureaucracy of a massive conglomerate. For a product that demands expertise in thermoelectric systems, materials science, and battery design, that focused structure makes practical sense.
The broader industry has largely converged on fitness trackers that count your steps and smartwatches that notify you of messages. The REON POCKET takes a different angle: it solves a physiological need—staying comfortable—rather than delivering information. That distinction may matter more than it appears.
The Engineering Challenge
Cooling or heating something with a battery-powered wearable is genuinely difficult. For decades, thermoelectric cooling belonged to industrial settings where size and power consumption barely mattered. Shrinking those systems down to something you can wear while keeping them actually effective requires rethinking how heat pumps work, what materials you use, and how you move heat from the device into the air without burning skin or draining the battery in hours.
Sony's track record—multiple generations of the REON POCKET, each iterating on the last, and consistent demand—suggests the company has methodically solved these technical problems. The dual-module architecture in the PRO model is a notable step toward making this technology practical for everyday use, rather than a curiosity.
Expansion and What Comes Next
The plan to enter 22 countries over the coming year will test whether SSTI can manufacture enough units to meet demand while keeping quality high. The annual sell-outs suggest Sony has been supply-limited, not demand-limited. Scaling production globally without dropping quality is the next hurdle.
Different regions have different regulations around safety (especially regarding skin contact) and electromagnetic compatibility, so the subsidiary structure may give SSTI better agility in navigating those frameworks market by market. The timing also aligns with growing concern about heat-related health risks and the energy savings that come from controlling one person's comfort rather than an entire building's climate.
How well SSTI performs will likely influence how other large tech companies handle new product categories that don't fit traditional consumer electronics pipelines. It will also signal whether personal climate control is a durable market opportunity or something narrower. So far, the evidence—years of sell-outs and a significant engineering commitment—points toward something real taking shape.
