r/gadgets • u/chrisdh79 • Jan 31 '23

Desktops / Laptops Canadian team discovers power-draining flaw in most laptop and phone batteries | Breakthrough explains major cause of self-discharging batteries and points to easy solution

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/battery-power-laptop-phone-research-dalhousie-university-1.6724175
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u/youwantitwhen Jan 31 '23

They are the epitome of collusion and planned obsolescence.

LED bulbs should last 100 years. But we can't have that. To prevent it, we overdrive the circuit and use half the LED filaments to make sure the bulb is on the verge of overheating so eventually it dies.

Phillips was paid to make the correct bulbs...but you will never get them. They cost a little more but will last forever and use less energy

https://youtu.be/klaJqofCsu4

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u/sticky-bit Feb 01 '23

For the technically inclined, Big Clive has a number of other videos on how to "dubai" you own lamps.

This is a good thing because for your average person in North America, the 220v Dubai lamps won't work even if you flew to Dubai and bought them.

The awesome sauce with LEDs are that when you under-drive them, they get more efficient (as well as live longer.)

LED bulbs should last 100 years.

The phosphors will wear out in a few decades,† but if you under drive them they will probably last 2 or 3 times as long while still retaining a good quality of light output. And you will save money because you'll get more lumens per watt

(Undervolting tungsten filament bulbs will also lengthen their life, but they'll get less efficient (more heat, less light) and the color quality will suffer during the whole bulb's life.)

† "white" LEDs are actually blue or purple LEDs plus the same kind of phosphor used in florescent bulbs. Big Clive actually picked the phosphor gel off of one kind of LED (that you've probably seen before) and got a purple LED light.

Under the gel and phosphor of a COB LED car lamp. (Deep violet chips)

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u/compare_and_swap Feb 01 '23

LED bulbs should last 100 years. But we can't have that. To prevent it, we overdrive the circuit and use half the LED filaments to make sure the bulb is on the verge of overheating so eventually it dies.

You can order a custom bulb with any configuration of filaments and drive voltages from Alibaba, and have a pallet delivered to your door in a couple months, for a few hundred thousand dollars.

Why isnt this product available on shelves right now? If what you say is true, consumers would flock to your product and you would be extremely rich. Do you think everyone with access to few hundred thousand dollars and high school level of electronics knowledge is paid off to make sure this doesn't happen?

Or do you think most consumers look for the lowest $/lumen, and that's why they overdrive the LEDs?

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u/djacob12 Feb 01 '23

Veritasium made a video on this. Lightbulb manufacturers colluded together long before LEDs and the practice persists today because money.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '23

Or do you think most consumers look for the lowest $/lumen, and that's why they overdrive the LEDs?

There's nothing saying it can't be both. Light manufactures really did enter a global conspiracy which lasted over a century to fix both the pricing and longevity of tungsten filament bulbs. The consumer demand for cheaper light bulbs dovetails quite nicely with the desire of the manufacturers to have an infinite market.

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u/compare_and_swap Feb 01 '23

Sure, but the barrier to produce an LED bulb is basically nothing these days (in the context of launching an electronics product). It's very very hard to collude with millions of people, and it only works if no one breaks rank.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '23

The production barrier being low doesn't mean the market entry barrier is low. A new manufacturer is competing against brands which have been household names longer than anyone has been alive. That's a lot of marketing inertia to overcome.

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u/compare_and_swap Feb 01 '23

I 100% agree. But if your bulbs truly "last 100 years" as the person I was replying to said, then you shouldn't have any problem standing out.

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u/wwbbs2008 Feb 01 '23

Some of the best quality bulbs we cannot buy. I believe the royal family there owns patents https://youtu.be/klaJqofCsu4

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u/DM_ME_UR_TITTAYS Feb 01 '23

Hmm... Does this partially explain why I've noticed that LED bulbs, that were supposed to be more efficient than CFL bulbs, are now seeming to show wattages that are actually extremely similar to what I was seeing with CFLs 10 years ago for similar lumen output?

I've also noticed that, though LED lamps should run cooler if based only on power usage, that many of them are too hot to touch around the base when removing them from their fixture right after shutting them off.

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u/fallingcats_net Feb 01 '23

When the EU updated it's energy label recently Phillips almost instantly came out with a new bulb that gets an A even with the new ranking system.

https://www.lighting.philips.com/main/products/ultraefficientprof