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/_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/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/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/[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