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Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

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Re: Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

#161

Post by initramfs »

shp0ngle wrote: post #116
jandrese wrote: post #22

I have to wonder just how much power they get out of those button presses. It seems like it must be such a tiny amount that it's hardly worth the effort.

This reminds me of the OLPC crank. (It did have crank for power, right? Or do I misremember?)

It did, but it was removed after it was not very useful. The device used an AMD Geode processor at 1 watt, so a handcrank needed to produce a lot of power. A handcrank wouldn't be needed for a 2 milliwatt processor. At 15:52 it mentions why it was removed because it wasn't rugged enough for the demo: https://youtu.be/G2cAeIls3Vg?t=942

There is a long story on this: https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17233946/olpcs-100-laptop...

The third version had solar on the back but was never released: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO-3

Re: Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

#162

Post by initramfs »

jandrese wrote: post #160
shp0ngle wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of the OLPC crank. (It did have crank for power, right? Or do I misremember?)

A crack would provide orders of magnitude more power. There's just so little energy to harvest in a button press.

you meant crank :)

Re: Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

#164

Post by vanderZwan »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #159
vanderZwan wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the questions in your first paragraph are mostly answered by the paper. And your second paragraph feels a bit like an unfair comparison to me. This is a first attempt at seeing if this concept is even remotely feasible, and it uses off-the-shelf parts for that. It's not a company with a lot of money and resources invested in it that produces mediocre final products where the embodied energy of the solar panels is…

But you'd expect a research project to say "we tried harvesting button presses, rf, inertial energy, and all of it sucked except for solar, so we decided to up the solar as much as we can with a gameboy sized case". If they have budget issues, then buy one of those energy harvesting buttons, press it as fast as you can and measure the output... if it generates any meaningful amount of power, nice, buy one for every b…

> But you'd expect a research project to say "we tried harvesting button presses, rf, inertial energy, and all of it sucked except for solar, so we decided to up the solar as much as we can with a gameboy sized case".

Why do you assume this? It's academic research, not the R&D department at a company. They're not building a product to sell and they're probably working with a shoestring budget. The goal is to extract as much knowledge and insight as possible from as little hardware as possible.

Re: Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

#165

Post by ajsnigrutin »

vanderZwan wrote: post #164
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you'd expect a research project to say "we tried harvesting button presses, rf, inertial energy, and all of it sucked except for solar, so we decided to up the solar as much as we can with a gameboy sized case". If they have budget issues, then buy one of those energy harvesting buttons, press it as fast as you can and measure the output... if it generates any meaningful amount of power, nice, buy one for every b…

> But you'd expect a research project to say "we tried harvesting button presses, rf, inertial energy, and all of it sucked except for solar, so we decided to up the solar as much as we can with a gameboy sized case". Why do you assume this? It's academic research, not the R&D department at a company. They're not building a product to sell and they're probably working with a shoestring budget. The goal is to extract…

But the research is the same and the results are the same... buttons don't produce enough power to make it worthwile compared to larger solar cells.

The difference would be, if the buttons produced a comparable amount of power, where academics could then write "while expensive, with mass production, the cost of buttons will fall to a level to make it economically viable" and product designers would tell their bosses BOM prices for both options, and then a decision would be made.

Re: Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

#166

Post by bArray »

I remember years ago the Pocket Pikachu game [1]. Would be cool to have something similar but using energy harvesting to keep your digital pet active.

Given improvements in AI and processing power, with some form of decentralised trading, this would be super cool for kids.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Pikachu

Re: Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

#167

Post by vanderZwan »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #165
vanderZwan wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you'd expect a research project to say "we tried harvesting button presses, rf, inertial energy, and all of it sucked except for solar, so we decided to up the solar as much as we can with a gameboy sized case". Why do you assume this? It's academic research, not the R&D department at a company. They're not building a product to sell and they're probably working with a shoestring budget. The goal is to extract…

But the research is the same and the results are the same... buttons don't produce enough power to make it worthwile compared to larger solar cells. The difference would be, if the buttons produced a comparable amount of power, where academics could then write "while expensive, with mass production, the cost of buttons will fall to a level to make it economically viable" and product designers would tell their bosses…

How about reading the paper before commenting on what the paper does and does not say?

Re: Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

#168

Post by 0_____0 »

gambiting wrote: post #56
0_____0 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard of AM radio being audible in non-electric structures, like an old hangar door. Some combination of geometry, metal surface condition (corrosion?), and proximity to a station.

Well, if you're mad enough and don't care about trivial things like life, you can listen to AM radio by just touching the mast with any random item: https://youtu.be/b9UO9tn4MpI

Why am I not surprised to hear the odd «сука» in that video?

Re: Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

#170

Post by datpiff »

bobajeff wrote: post #100
Shish2k wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The original Gameboy ran on two AA batteries for 12-20 hours (depending on whether the light was on) I wonder if you googled for this? Googling for “original gameboy battery life” gives nearly this exact quote, but then reading the wikipedia article that it came from reveals that this is talking about the Gameboy Light (1998 - arguably “the original hardware with modern technology to reduce energy consumption”). I…

It's worth noting that back then AA batteries were less efficient. Which is why later when AA's got better Nintendo was able to release the Gameboy pocket and Gameboy color using only 2 batteries.

The new hardware used less power, the batteries didn't change very much.

edit. also Nintendo's figures show a lower battery time for the Pocket and Color, so they probably just decided to trade for space/weight.

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Support/Game-Boy-Pocket-Color/Pro...

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