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by bin_bash 1492 days ago
It’s a reasonable amount for computing but not much else: heating, cooling, cooking, refrigeration, washing machine. Those all need vastly more electricity.

About the only other household application of electricity I can think of that would use around 10w is lighting and even with LEDs it isn’t much. Probably enough for a single room.

My point is if mobile phones aren't considered “low power”, then what would be?
2 comments
dahart 1492 days ago
The context clearly was computing, and not cooking, right? It’s not surprising that the term “low power” is relative and thus overloaded. But if you bring cooking ovens into a conversation about computers, then a beefy desktop with two GPUs burning hot would be considered low power.

I don’t know that there’s a standard definition, but in electronics I think it’s most common for “low power devices” to be referring to sub-watt power levels. There’s regular low power like Arduino, or ultra low power like in this article that consume at most milliwatts or microwatts.

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bin_bash 1492 days ago
It is about general electricity applications and not limited to computing. The article states:

> “It’s not entirely straightforward,” he says. “So putting one on your roof isn’t going to provide the power supply for your house at this stage. There’s quite a bit more to do on that front. But [it could work] in rural areas of low and middle income countries, for example, in applications where a small amount of power might be very useful, such as environmental sensors or charging a mobile phone.”

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nobodyandproud 1492 days ago
That’s a disclaimer, scoping out certain applications per the research and qualified by “There’s quite a bit more to do on that front.”

I don’t it’s wrong to think about the general applications but the title and research had a very narrow focus.

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bin_bash 1492 days ago
Agreed, nobody thinks you could run a dishwasher on this technology. My point is the only place where the article labeled mobile phones as “low power” was in this disclaimer to contrast it with other household appliances.
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nobodyandproud 1492 days ago
Fair enough.

It’s also easy to miss that this was with a “AA” size container, and not the size of a pail or a dot battery.

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stkdump 1492 days ago
A clock maybe
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