AVR Freaks

I can't help but wonder whether there might BE some viable way to actively bleed off a static charge that builds up on somebody. Envision a circuit with a pair of supercapacitors, a MCU, whatever sensor you'd use to detect a charge buildup (hall effect?), plus some means of controlling and limiting current flow (a gate + resistor?). You'd connect it to a ground and "charge" it with a circuit that would massively deplete one capacitor of electrons, and massively overstuff the other with excess electrons. As a charge built up on your body, it would dynamically connect the opposite supercapacitor to your body through some load (heat-generating, perhaps?) and modulate the connection (pwm?) to bleed it off. Maybe even include a charge pump to forcibly shift electrons from one to the other and keep both as opposite as possible.

Conceptually, it seems like something that could work... but the big question (assuming it could) is how long you'd be able to go between "recharges" in normal use.

In any case, I did more research on the one I found yesterday. So far, the reviews I've found online suggest that it DOES "kind of work", but HOW WELL it works depends on the relative humidity. In humid environments, it apparently works quite well. In dry environments, it's apparently useless. In other words, it works well when you don't need it, and fails when you need it the most.

Update! This review did some fairly objective testing, dissected one, and makes a fairly convincing argument that a cordless ESD protector could theoretically work... but THESE specific devices don't, and almost certainly can't.