[withinboredom]

Heat is dissipated when electricity goes unused too (usually by dumping it in some load resistor) so it’s possible the extra electricity is just generating heat, waiting to go to the processor. I’d lol if they have 5v coming in, and they’re stepping it down to 3.3v for the wake word processor (hence heat) while the main processor runs at 5v.

[dTal]

>Heat is dissipated when electricity goes unused too (usually by dumping it in some load resistor)

This isn't true. Your light switches do not heat up to lightbulb temperature when the light is off. Heat is only dissipated when electricity is "used", more or less by definition. You seem to be describing a linear voltage regulator, which does have a load resistor and is wasteful if the step-down distance is large, but no modern electronic circuit would use such a thing in a power supply - it would use a switched-mode buck regulator instead.

[causi]

Switch mode power supplies don't waste that degree of energy when doing nothing. That's multiple watts, probably at least 5 judging by the temperature, just being pissed away at all times.

[lultimouomo]

I guess that's why laptops batteries last exactly the same whether the computer is idling or not. Also, the reason they get very hot when you're not doing anything CPU intensive - it's all that unused electricity going to the dump load resistor!

[heavenlyblue]

They could just have a transformer that doesn't need a resistor for stepping it down