In this study, a new hot-wire anemometer which has greater sensitivity than that of a constant temperature anemometer (CTA) was proposed. In contrast to CTA, the wire working resistance of the new anemometer increases with flow velocity, that is, the operating mode of the wire becomes variable temperature. The variable temperature anemometer(VTA) was made by substituting a voltage controlled variable resistor such as photoconductive cell or transistor for one of the resistors in the bridge. By positively feeding back the bridge top signal to the input side of these electronic components, the wire overheat ratio could be increased with velocity automatically. Static response analyses of the VTA, constant voltage anemometer (CVA) and CTA were made in detail and calibration experiments were performed to validate the proposed operating principle. The wire operating resistance of the CVA decreases with velocity and this leads to lower sensitivity than that of a CTA. But the sensitivity of the newly proposed VTA is superior to that of a CTA, since the wire overheat ratio increases with velocity. Consequently, it is found that the major factor that is responsible for large sensitivity of a VTA is not the working resistance itself but the change of the wire working resistance with velocity.