Sony Reon Pocket Pro Plus: Wearable AC Arrives in the US

Sony’s Reon Pocket Pro Plus, a wearable air conditioner that clips around your neck, is now on sale in the United States for $259.99 — and it sold out on Sony’s own store almost immediately. It cools by pressing a metal plate against the back of your neck rather than blowing air at you, runs anywhere from 10 to 30-plus hours depending on how hard you push it, and doubles as a warmer in winter.

I have been skeptical of neck gadgets for years. Most of them are fans with a marketing budget. This one is not a fan, and that distinction is the whole reason it is worth writing about.

How the Reon Pocket actually cools you

The Reon Pocket line uses a thermoelectric plate — a solid piece of metal that gets genuinely cold — pressed against the nape of your neck and upper spine. Blood running close to the surface there gets cooled and carries that cooling elsewhere. Sony’s framing is straightforward: chill the back of the neck and the rest of you follows.

The heat that plate pulls out of you has to go somewhere, so the unit vents it away from your body through a channel on the outside of the device. The neckband is adjustable and designed to sit under a shirt collar, which is the part I find genuinely clever. A neck fan announces itself. This mostly does not.

What is new in the Pro Plus

Sony claims 20% more cooling power than the previous Reon Pocket Pro. That is the headline, but the smaller changes matter more day to day.

There is now an automatic shutdown if the unit overheats, which is a reassuring thing to have on a device that lives against your skin. A new Smart Mode adjusts temperature on its own, fed by a small wireless sensing device Sony includes in the box that reads ambient temperature and tells the cooler how hard to work. Sony also redistributed the weight to cut fatigue over long wear — a real complaint about earlier models, which got noticeable after an hour.

You can still override everything manually, either with physical buttons on the unit or through Sony’s smartphone app.

About that battery number

If you have read a few articles about this device, you have probably seen conflicting battery claims — some outlets said 10 hours, others said 15. Both are sort of right, which is why I want to be specific.

Runtime scales with how cold you demand. The second-coldest setting gets you roughly 10 hours. Mid-level lands around 18. The lowest setting stretches past 30 hours. So the honest answer to “how long does it last” is: a full workday at aggressive cooling, or most of a week of light use, and any single number quoted without the setting attached is close to meaningless.

Charging is unremarkable in a good way — about three hours to full, two hours to 80%.

Who this is actually for

At $259.99 this is not an impulse buy, and I would not pretend otherwise. It makes sense for a specific set of people: anyone who commutes in heat and arrives somewhere they need to look composed, outdoor workers, people who run hot in offices where they do not control the thermostat, and anyone whose medication or condition makes heat genuinely dangerous rather than merely unpleasant.

It makes much less sense if you mostly want to be cooler on the sofa. A $30 fan and an open window do that. What you are paying for here is discreet, hands-free, wearable cooling that works while you are moving around and while you are dressed properly — and that is a narrow but real problem nobody had solved well before.

The year-round angle helps the math. Because it also warms, the Reon Pocket is not a device that sits in a drawer nine months a year, which is the fate of most seasonal gadgets. If you are weighing this against other body-worn tech, our rundown of the best smartwatches in 2026 and our honest take on whether smartwatches are worth it apply the same buy-or-skip logic to a more familiar category.

The catch: you cannot get one right now

Sony’s US store listed it, took preorders, and went out of stock. Stock is showing up through import sellers and marketplace listings at inconsistent prices, which is where I would urge caution — this is a device with a warranty and a companion app, and buying a grey-market import from an unfamiliar seller puts both of those at risk for the sake of getting it three weeks earlier.

My advice is to wait for Sony’s own restock. This is the third generation of a product line that has been selling in Japan for years, so supply is a scaling problem rather than a manufacturing mystery. Forbes covered the US arrival and testing impressions in more detail if you want a hands-on account before committing.

Frequently asked questions

How much does the Sony Reon Pocket Pro Plus cost in the US?

$259.99 direct from Sony Electronics. That is below earlier expectations, which had pegged it above $270. Third-party and import sellers are charging more while Sony’s own stock is unavailable, so the $259.99 figure is the one to hold out for.

How long does the battery last?

It depends entirely on the cooling level. Roughly 10 hours at the second-coldest setting, around 18 hours at mid-level, and more than 30 hours on the lowest. Recharging takes about three hours to full, or two hours to reach 80%.

Does it work as a heater in winter?

Yes. The same thermoelectric plate reverses to deliver warmth, so the device is designed for year-round use rather than just summer. That materially changes the value calculation on a $259.99 purchase.

Is it noticeable under clothing?

Fairly discreet. The cooling unit sits on an adjustable neckband intended to tuck beneath a shirt collar, and Sony redesigned the weight distribution in this generation specifically to reduce fatigue during long wear. It is not invisible, but it does not look like a gadget strapped to your throat the way neck fans do.

Is the Reon Pocket Pro Plus better than a neck fan?

They solve the problem differently. A neck fan moves air, which helps sweat evaporate but does nothing in high humidity and is audible to everyone near you. The Reon Pocket actively removes heat from your skin via a cold plate, so it works in humid conditions and stays quiet. It is also roughly ten times the price of a decent neck fan, so the question is how much that difference is worth to you.