[dahart]

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.

[bin_bash]

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.”

[nobodyandproud]

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.

[bin_bash]

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.

[nobodyandproud]

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.