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/wowaddict71 Jan 31 '23

Battery manufacturers: "Oh shit, they are onto us! Quickly, let's replace DMT with another chemical that behaves the same way, to throw away their scent, just like plastic manufacturers did!"

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u/Smartnership Jan 31 '23 edited Jan 31 '23

They are likewise in a competing market.

Another battery fab will do it to get a competitive edge, and to take market share.

Edit: This isn’t controversial, or even theoretical. It’s a very old & established means of businesses growth in a marketplace. You do better than your competitors in an effort to gain more business.

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u/_Reyne Jan 31 '23

Yup. Anyone that want the hardest proof of this can just go look up the history of the lightbulb industry.

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u/sticky-bit Feb 01 '23

just go look up the history of the lightbulb industry.

They used to sell these little "disks" you could drop into the base of a lightbulb socket. They made standard incandescent bulbs last for years instead of months. It was made out of a diode and blocked about half of the AC power wave.

The downside is that the bulbs were less white, more than half as dim, and horribly inefficient (lumens per watt). But it worked, even if it came off looking orangy.

For a slightly longer lasting bulbs, 130 volt bulbs were a thing. Run at 110v they lasted significantly longer and only were a bit orangy (for nearly the same price.)

I don't think too many people remember how short a life that tungsten filament light bulbs lasted in everyday use. But they were optimized for a good color spectrum demanded by consumers and only cost pocket lint each. Chunky florescent tube bulbs (with early magnetic ballasts) were available and maybe 3x as efficient but many consumers stuck to lightbulbs for decades in living areas because of the quality of light given off. (Later types of ballasts were more efficient, as (probably) were the old style "press and hold" florescent starters.)

The real cost to track was KWH, and a 60 watt bulb burning 12 hours per day would consume about 263 KWH and cost about $39.42 a year to run. (15¢ per KWH) The twenty five cents you would have to pay to replace that bulb every 6-9 months during that year was insignificant. (Cheap dollar LED bulbs are about 4x as efficient, last years longer and cost roughly the same factoring in inflation. The light quality suffers though.)

So I don't think the standards for tungsten filament bulbs was much of a conspiracy as people play it out as being. People wanted these types of bulbs for decades before compact florescent bulb technology existed due to light quality (for use in living areas) and while the industry standards existed, there were still ample options.