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Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

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Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#171

Post by justnotworthit »

aetherspawn wrote: post #112
denimnerd42 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's frustrating is that while batteries are consumable products they could last much longer if they stay between 80 and 20% capacity without overheating. (this is similar to what tesla does) I wish there was a "battery care" settings on all electronics that would respect limits like this so that I could get thousands of cycles out of my devices instead of only Apple has added a feature which tries to do this intel…

Ex EV battery engineer here. You’re right that the cycle life of a lithium battery typically doubles per 0.05V (‘tik’) undercharged from 4.15V (and on the other end of the scale as well, less so). This typically corresponds to around 7-10% capacity per ‘tik’, so to effectively triple your battery cycle count would reduce the runtime by approximately 30%. Interesting effect here.. the amount of power in each cycle is…

Could you tell me if the "under X%" claim is true about battery? I saw an old study that didn't seem to be affected by how low the charge got, just heat (fast charge) and time spent charging over 80%.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#172

Post by philwelch »

theshrike79 wrote: post #136
tjbiddle wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was exactly my thought when I saw the headline. The air pods are so small, they're not contributing a large part to plastic waste. It's the same story with trying to get rid of plastic straws. In both cases, I don't want to dismiss the problem - it's just that there are bigger fish to fry to make a much large impact to the bottom line of plastic pollution. Now, after reading through the "Our Story" of Podswap's…

> It's the same story with trying to get rid of plastic straws. The plastic straw thing is not to make an impact on the environment, it was chosen to make an impact on everyone's life. Yes, we could do something bigger, but people won't notice because they can't see the effect in their day to day life. Ban plastic straws though and EVERYONE notices and talks about it constantly everywhere. And if even one person star…

This strikes me as the same basic reasoning as blocking traffic to protest various social causes.

If you're "making an impact on everyone's life" in the form of making their lives more annoying and inconvenient, those people are going to resent you and the cause for which you inconvenienced them.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#173

Post by TaylorAlexander »

wyre wrote: post #95
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems obvious to me that this is true at least with laptops. And whatever costs are saved by a 5% larger battery must surely be offset by the higher costs of replacement when the battery ultimately dies? I don't know it's so clear to me that this is true that I've not felt the need to research it. By all means if you have sources to the contrary I'd be happy to read them. To me, we could save significant environme…

It takes a long time for modern batteries to get to a point of unusability and replacement. Yes, Apple and others want consumers to purchase the new product and that is often the case because of the fast advancement of technology. This is worse with android phones because the support cycle is much shorter. I often drop my phone and it’s great not having to worry about my phone’s battery falling out making me lose my…

> most people dont care or think about it at all

This is orthogonal to the question of whether or not the practice is environmentally friendly. Most people have been buying gasoline for 50 years but that’s also causing environmental problems. All of these manufactured devices take a lot of resources to create. Often “unusability” means the operating system has outgrown the hardware, but we can easily imagine Apple allowing third party operating systems on their unsupported phone and tablet devices. This would extend the life of the hardware, significantly reduced waste, and lower people’s cost of living. But even when Apple devices can be fixed for free the company will quote exorbitant repair prices and suggest the customer replace the device. (See links below which I also shared in another comment)

From this we can see that Apple is not making the effort to keep old devices functional and they will mislead customers about it to sell them a new device. This leads to hardware waste and higher costs for consumers.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2_SZ4tfLns [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1A9y4S60kg [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7RXJP4mxCc

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#174

Post by lights0123 »

reaperducer wrote: post #64
lights0123 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they actually open them up and swap the battery and resell, i.e. refurbishing. Apple just throws them away.

According to the company's web site, they send you replacement AirPods before you send your old ones in. So no, they are not replacing your batteries and sending them back to you.

> and resell

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#176

Post by leucineleprec0n »

lathiat wrote: post #159
denimnerd42 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's frustrating is that while batteries are consumable products they could last much longer if they stay between 80 and 20% capacity without overheating. (this is similar to what tesla does) I wish there was a "battery care" settings on all electronics that would respect limits like this so that I could get thousands of cycles out of my devices instead of only Apple has added a feature which tries to do this intel…

Apple actually does this both with your iPhone battery and your AirPods but it’s automatic and you can’t ask to switch to that mode. I see it holding my AirPods at 80% overnight quite a bit. They call it “optimised battery charging”. I use my AirPods so much all day every day I do wish I could ask it to use that mode permanently.

You can turn off optimized battery charging. Settings > bluetooth device info > toggle it

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#177

Post by dann0 »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #62
dehrmann wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This leads to higher consumer costs and manufactured goods filling landfills prematurely. Citation needed. Apple claims, and I'm fine with taking it with a grain of salt, that because batteries aren't replaceable like old Nokia phones, they can make the battery larger, possibly reducing consumer costs and how often batteries are changed. It's not just Apple, either. Consumers seem to not care.

It seems obvious to me that this is true at least with laptops. And whatever costs are saved by a 5% larger battery must surely be offset by the higher costs of replacement when the battery ultimately dies? I don't know it's so clear to me that this is true that I've not felt the need to research it. By all means if you have sources to the contrary I'd be happy to read them. To me, we could save significant environme…

I love the idea that you have designed and made your own headphones. I'm also glad that these work for you.

However, your argument about reducing environmental waste is flawed. AirPod, in total, weigh less and use far less plastic than your design.

Given the scale of production, the raw material to final product path will be short and relatively low impact. Your process involves much more packaging, transport and middle-man costs.

Feature set wise, your design is also significantly less.

I'm very supportive of people making product that is better suited to them, but the idea of this approach being somehow less wasteful is completely ridiculous.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#178

Post by dann0 »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #139
samatman wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple laptops and phones objectively last longer than the competition. Most of that is software support. Some of it is that they make few models, and sell at a premium, so there is a robust secondary market in used devices. They continue to make and sell batteries for old models, and there are plenty of counterfeits available if you want to risk it. Apple recently (late last year) replaced the battery on my Mom's iPh…

> Apple laptops and phones objectively last longer than the competition. I'm not sure if you've spent much time watching Louis Rossman's youtube channel, but it is full of examples of Apple telling customers a device needs to be replaced when simple repairs are possible. [1][2][3] Apple worked with US Customs and Border Patrol to seize replacement batteries for laptops that apple will no longer service. [4] Rossman h…

I support RTR. I find Rossman annoying and abrasive, but he makes good points.

However, we are never going to live in a world of repaired devices. Feature development and performance increases happen too quickly.

Most people buy new phones every two years and upgrade not because the device isn't working or its become unusuable.

The better path, the one that Apple is pursuing, is improving the reclaim-ability of materials in devices.

I'd rather trade my old laptop in and buy a new one that has been made from the reclaimed materials of my old laptop, than have my older, slower, less capable one repaired.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#179

Post by TaylorAlexander »

dann0 wrote: post #178
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple laptops and phones objectively last longer than the competition. I'm not sure if you've spent much time watching Louis Rossman's youtube channel, but it is full of examples of Apple telling customers a device needs to be replaced when simple repairs are possible. [1][2][3] Apple worked with US Customs and Border Patrol to seize replacement batteries for laptops that apple will no longer service. [4] Rossman h…

I support RTR. I find Rossman annoying and abrasive, but he makes good points. However, we are never going to live in a world of repaired devices. Feature development and performance increases happen too quickly. Most people buy new phones every two years and upgrade not because the device isn't working or its become unusuable. The better path, the one that Apple is pursuing, is improving the reclaim-ability of mater…

> However, we are never going to live in a world of repaired devices.

This is not a binary thing. Devices are repaired all the time. For example cracked screens are one thing that people still repair. We already live in a world with repaired devices. The question is whether or not we should allow big companies that profit from new device sales to lie to customers and interfere with third party repair.

> Most people buy new phones every two years

I would suspect that "most people" do not. I did that when I was 24 and obsessed with having the latest tech. Now my phone is 5 years old and fine. Most people in the USA for example do not earn enough money to buy a new phone every two years. Those folks would love to be able to repair things and use them a bit longer.

> The better path, the one that Apple is pursuing, is improving the reclaim-ability of materials in devices.

This is not an either/or choice. Remember the phrase is "reduce, reuse, recycle". Recycling is fine, but re-using uses less resources and so should be a component of a real sustainability program.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#180

Post by TaylorAlexander »

dann0 wrote: post #177
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems obvious to me that this is true at least with laptops. And whatever costs are saved by a 5% larger battery must surely be offset by the higher costs of replacement when the battery ultimately dies? I don't know it's so clear to me that this is true that I've not felt the need to research it. By all means if you have sources to the contrary I'd be happy to read them. To me, we could save significant environme…

I love the idea that you have designed and made your own headphones. I'm also glad that these work for you. However, your argument about reducing environmental waste is flawed. AirPod, in total, weigh less and use far less plastic than your design. Given the scale of production, the raw material to final product path will be short and relatively low impact. Your process involves much more packaging, transport and mid…

Because the airpod is a small device, this is true. However in general I believe open source hardware and infinitely repairable devices across the board would lead to less waste than proprietary technology with restricted repair.

My vision is not that one person designs open source headphones. My vision is that the primary suppliers of consumer products make their products open source. That would be a very different world, but I argue that it would be one with significantly less material waste.

In such a world, headphones would be both well designed and infinitely repairable.

By the way I have a new design that is more attractive. https://twitter.com/TLAlexander/status/1403968653406597122

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