This further illustrates how absolutely crazy it is to produce these devices for a single use and then just throw them away, not even making sure they can be recycled properly. It's complete madness. I hope they'll be banned soon, I think the EU is working on it.
They should absolutely ban disposable but as long as they're smart about it and don't try and make it a general vape ban. Anything with a microcontroller and OLED display should need regulation to be "disposable". So fucking wasteful.
Vapes can and have always been something you can pop a battery and cartridge and custom juice in. There's zero reason to make it disposable. Make the coil/cotton/juice cartridge disposable... Like a juul was last I checked? That's reasonable.
And then next regulate how much nicotine can be in per ml. 60mg/ml is fucking insane. That is heart issue level of nicotine. I got buzzed off 12 mg/ml, used 3 or 6mg/ml regularly, and quit at 1.5mg/ml. There's no fucking reason other than harm and addiction to provide 60mg/ml.
Ja natürlich, die erste vape die ich geraucht hab war auch illegal und mit 50mg/ml, aber mich hat einfach überrascht, dass es scheinbar Länder gibt in denen so ein hoher Wert sogar legal ist
don't try and make it a general vape ban.
In some EU contries 10ml liquid costs more than pack of cigarettes, so they defacto banned vaping.
how much nicotine can be in per ml. 60mg/ml
20 mg/ml is EU wide limit since 2025
Disposable vapes are already forbidden, at least in France, idk if it is union wide.
But yeah, those things make no sense. The only thing with a battery that should be disposable would be fire alarm. Not because of the battery, but because the main sensor has a 10 years lifespan due to its natural deterioration.
Compared to a vape pen AirPods have insane life span. It's still bad, but not even in the same ballpark as something you usually throw away in a week or so.
That's fine for airpods but as someone who worked retail, there's just as many $15 earbuds that break near instantly that have to be thrown away and never fixed. Those things have 3 batteries in them.
You can also have your dying AirPods replaced at the battery rate of $40 too. Still doesn’t strike the overall problem, especially since Apple doesn’t advertise that replacement.
Not sure what you mean. Are you implying that because on occasion some people will lose an AirPod they are somehow worse than vape pods that are designed to be disposed of within days after first use?
People lose phones more often, huge source of e-waste that we should ban first. In fact most people wouldn't even have a reason to buy the earbuds if they didn't have a phone in the first place.
Because an existing SoC at scale is cheaper than a custom ASIC.
You see this all the time, custom keyboard running ARM+Linux, SmartNICs using RISC-V cores/FPGAs instead of ASIC accelerators. Even Microsoft refuses to commit to ASICs for network processing in their DCs and use FPGAs instead.
Sure, if you weren't competing with every other vape out there that has things like variable voltage settings (at least 3), a pre-heat feature, the ability to turn on/off with 5 presses, or to turn off automatically after 5-10 minutes without use, a low battery indicator, a charging indicator, a broken coil indicator...
Hmm, seems like you need a lot more than a battery, heating coil, button, and single transistor.
With the major caveat that dispos dont offer more than 2 of those features at best. Almost all those features you specify are on reusable devices. There are going to be some that do have those additional features, but at a price point that makes them nearly as or more costly than a reusable device.
The only IC you need for a disposable really, is a BMS, and a temp sensor (technically a timer so it also doesnt over draw, but timer ICs are built into everything) so it doesn't willfully light itself on fire in unusual circumstances.
All that to say: there is effectively 0 difference between most disposables released today and reusables, with the sole exception that you cant refill or recharge them. There should be no device with a battery deliberately intended to be thrown away, for anything, save for medical uses.
You’re sooooo right, check my response to that guy. I was into vaping years ago and loved mechanical vaoes, which were legit just a battery, heating coil mounted to a platform, button, and conductive tube. Super simple devices, so easy!
Except they’re INSANELY DANGEROUS! I loved them but I’ve had friends treat them carelessly and they WILL start on fire or even explode if not vented. You need a thorough understanding of Ohm’s law, batteries’ amperage limits, how to rewrap batteries with nicks in the wrap, and to never leave them unattended even with manual locking rings.
The person you replied to mentions adding a transistor which would do nothing. Add some more bits and just like you said, you’re competing with fully functional vapes with all those features and they’re cheap as hell. The chips cost nearly nothing, so that’s the route they go. Those vapes aren’t impervious to blowing up, but they’re much safer than simple mechanical vapes.
Disclaimer: I don't smoke anything, so I don't know any details.
Wouldn't a button connected to a heating coil be a fire hazard? Is there no automatic shut-off based on temperature? If you add enough safety features, it might end up costing about the same as an embedded SoC.
All it would need is a thermal fuse/cutoff, like those in portable heating appliances (air fryers, grills etc.). I wonder what's needed to include a 10 second on & 30 seconds disabled timer, maybe it's cheaper
Digipart is showing me price for PY32F002B with a minimum purchase of 5000 as less that $0.10 (not the factory price, just the cheapest store).
The price for the cheapest NE555 (random manufacturer implementation of a 555) variant in Digipart is $0.13
(Granted, you also need at least a crystal and 2 caps, plus 1 power filtering cap per power line for the microcontroller, but those are all cheap)
It's ridiculous how modern microcontrollers are so stupidly cheap that even though they can run a lot more digital logic (in the form of software running in them) they almost always beat using older and much simpler digital parts even for something as simple as this.
Even microprocessors are getting stupidly cheap: somebody recently pointed me out the Allwinner F1C100s, which is about the smallest microprocessor that can run Linux, and it costs $2 in bulk to the point that some embedded engineer has made a business card with one running Linux which he just gives away.
You’re 100% correct. I have mechanical vapes—no safety cutoff, just an 18650 in a conductive tube with wire coils attached to posts. They’re amazing, and they’re extremely dangerous. Turning one into a protected vape with basic features like wattage adjustment? Way cheaper and easier to go SoC!
I used to be into vaping and a big mechanical vape fan. I still have all of my old mech vapes! Those were what you’re thinking of—a button, a conducive body, and a coil or two mounted to a post. You pop an 18650 in, no transistor or resistors needed. You adjust your wattage by changing the way you wrap your coils, and your wire gauge. Generally I’d like to run around .2 ohms, which pushes about 18-20 amps out of the 18650s.
These are NOT devices you want in the hands of regular people lawl. I’ve had friends in years past love how my setup was and get similar vapes for themselves. I’ve seen a burned-down backpack (RIP, all of his adderall XR), a table almost catch fire, and burnt carpet. No explosions because I told people “don’t get one of these, but if you’re not going to listen to me, for the love of glob make sure it’s vented.”
Anyway, yeah no way anyone should have these except electronics enthusiasts. Even with locking rings, they can just start firing if the person using it isn’t super careful. Nice batteries rated for 30a pulse are 2USD more than the garbage batteries that love to vent or explode.
You add in a transistor, that’s not gonna do anything. You add in a couple more things for protection and your cost is higher than it would have been by getting one of the chips in OP’s article, and you don’t have a nice interface for adjusting wattage and checking battery level and charging via USB and all that fun shit.
i disagree with the single transistor. overcharge prevention requires something more (i am not a batteriologist don't ask me what. i'd do it with a tesla coil because that'd look cooler)
Huh. The disposables I am occasionally "forced" to get (put it in a 510 thread gramma) have charging ports. I usually have to charge once or twice to get through the full gram.
That being said, the good local dispo just rebranded and gave me a bunch of 510 batteries with the old name on them. These batteries are fantastic and look about the same size as the server in the article
There is a little more to it, pressing the button 5 times turns it on and off. Three times often lets one cycle through power settings. But yeah, anything more than a very minimal programming is frankly suspicious.
It could be a lot is used to get the charge right idk.
Well the PY32F002B (costing a few cents) even though it has a 32-bit (entry level) ARM core @ 24MHz is literally cheaper than older and less powerful microcontrollers.
Granted, if you don't do anything else than react to a push button it's still cheaper to use discrete electronic components than a microcontroller, but given that this device has a LiPo battery (meaning there's battery control involved) and judging by the picture a USB-C connector, there's probably a bit more digital logic in it, by which point a 3 cent microcontroller plus a cheap SMD crystal and some caps is cheaper than using discrete components.
The domain of embedded systems has evolved to the point that it's the best option for almost everything in consumer electronics, mainly because at the lower end there are so many stupidly cheap and easy to use choices were you don't run an OS in it but instead just a single block of single-threaded code directly on the bare metal accessing registers directly.
Yeah, as per the analysis I did in another post, even a 555 and a couple of transistors to just blink an LED is more expensive than putting a microcontroller like this one there.
It's crazy to think that this is basically more powerful than the Apollo Guidance Computer that got people onto the moon. It costs 3 cents, and we use it for shit like this and then throw it away. What spectacular waste.
Yes, where "process" means measuring instantaneous changes in airflow as the user inhales (or doesn't), and regulating a heating coil accordingly by running actual program code - which requires a controller to run it and memory to store it in. I mean when you click "Reply" on this page all it has to do is process one button, but that involves a lot.
All that logic is still a choice though.
You could also just instruct the user to not press the button unless they're inhaling and just actually have it be an on and of button.
That's how vapes used to work.
Worst thing that could happen there is that you burn the wick, which is only a problem because it's not serviceable.
There were couple series of: full lcd screen, bt connected to smartphone for notifications and a speaker versions. Plus the rechargeable battery and usb c charging port (obviously).
It was selling about 35 bucks.
Forgot the game one: had controller buttons and 3 games: pacman, tetris and a lying shooter inbuilt. With full lcd and speaker. (Thus wasnt bt connected tho) Price was similar.
As someone who vapes quite a bit, I would genuinely love to see this. Disposables are an absolute shitshow and never should have existed in the first place.
Seriously. I struggle to fathom how running out for disposables is even slightly more convenient than refilling a proper tank every so often and replacing the coil. It tastes better, lasts longer and makes much less waste.
I think it's the marketing of it. A decent amount of people I've talked to genuinely don't know that there's a reusable option. This also changed when the tobacco industry got involved. Vaping used to have more of a culture of cessation. It was talked about how you could transition from cigs at a higher nicotine level, then bring it down until you're vaping zero nic, then quit that. I barely hear anyone talk about the quitting pipeline anymore. I don't think it's an accident, I think it's intentional.
Edit: I also think it's the fact that you only have to buy one thing, and the 3 things (device, coils, juice) aren't available in every gas station like disposables are. And the user experience - open the box and it starts right up, no refills, all it needs is a charge once in a while. People are really fucking lazy, by nature. But the cost of all those conveniences is indebted tenfold upon the environment, as destruction and waste.
I can't argue with that. I started to preemptively keep myself OFF of cigs (entire family smokes and I knew I would eventually pick up the habit). For a while now, most of the talk around it I've heard is just whether or not it's cool or cringe rather than how it can be used to quit smoking.
Maybe the disposables wouldn't be so egregious if you could keep the battery like you used to be able to and just replace the disposable tanks. I think that's what bothers me the most. We had an okay system before that wasn't really complicated and wasn't NEARLY as wasteful.
Vapes should never have existed? Smoking rates and nicotine addiction were finally going down... Then the good old invention of the vape brings it rocketing back again.
There are some shops that will actually collect the vapes and send them back to the manufacturer for recycling. But it's less common than it used to be, which frustrates me to no end, it should be the reverse if anything.
It makes you feel dirty, but the question is do you still do it anyway - and if the answer is yes, that's the problem. because that's what drives the whole industry.
Individuals having desires is not "the problem". That would be corporations having free reign to behave however the fuck they want, so long as they can pay the fed.
There's more than one problem. Even if politicians weren't bribey and Citizens United didn't give corps a license to bribe them, we would still have pollution and other problems because individuals choose convenience over doing the right thing - which is "the" problem I meant.
all of these, and gas turbines too, are synchronous. some wind turbines are almost-synchronous and some use giant inverters which is probably one of bigger mass uses of power electronics today
Yes, but think about it like you're a Chinese manufacturing engineer with only basic electronics education. You COULD do that design, build out the pcb, custom tool it to fit your plastic housing, etc etc.... Or you could go to the manufacturer down the street who already makes pre designed voltage reg MCU's on a board and spend like, 20 minutes in an IDE to code the specific voltage levels and button presses.
When production volume and turnaround time is the only things that matter in this shovel waste crap, "wasting" silicon is less expensive financially than building out the optimal solution.
my guess would be it's a parts commonality thing, it's not hard to make it the old way, there are datasheets for it too. sure you could probably make tiny and cheaper (30x10mm? maybe smaller) analog board with two chips and mosfet working as pwm controller and current limiter, but it'll have different passives for different battery sizes and heater powers. or you could make one design with optional usb port that you might just not solder on, and depending on model you just put different firmware inside
The old way is actually the analog style you've mentioned, but that was the very early days of ecigs well before they became mass market, the cottage industry modding scene had no hope of creating sophisticated microcontrollers and the charger wasn't even USB, it was a DC jack & plug. Lavatube was the first time we had that kind of microcontroller regulation & then the DNA15 and DNA20 came out, got cloned by China and that changed the game forever.
The problem with the older way is consumers understand watts alone as a relatively consistent measurement of power much better than they would the relation between voltage, resistance & current draw. They didn't want to learn Ohm 's Law back then and wouldn't want to know about it now. Microcontrollers simplified that massively.
Designing a board to run a microcontroller like that is actually pretty simple.
I've done it for fun with a couple similar microcontrollers, and whilst I'm an EE by training I don't do it professionally plus my training is from before embedded system, so I count as a Junior EE for that.
I'm pretty sure that even a freshly graduate Chinese EE can even on their own figure out the general recipe for integrating something this (following the datasheet, add crystal + load caps, plus about 1 caps each power pin for power filtering plus 1 global power filtering cap, plus possibly a pull-down/up resistor on the RESET pin) in a week or two and then for subsequent projects it will be feasible to do it in a few days.
Really, there's other shit in there (say, battery management) that's more work to figure out than how to add and place the parts for an entry level ARM microcontroller to work.
There are really cheap mcus that need maybe one capacitor if even that. It is cheaper, easier and more flexible than the multiple components required to configure an NE555.
I was just thinking that yeah again all it needs is some basic components. Like how a light bulb or fan might have multiple power settings but I don't expect them to be able to run doom.
Yeah, it doesn't make much since if you think in terms of how many transistors are needed to implement each of them as the microcontroller probably uses hundreds of thousands more transistors than a 555.
That said, given reasonably recent processes die size for both are probably pretty close (I reckon most of the size of a modern 555 die would be the points to place the wires to the package) and with pretty similar yields (pretty close to 100%)
I wouldn't be surprised if the reason has something to do with economies of scale since a cheap microcontroller can pretty much be used for the same things as a 555 and a whole lot more than that, so it makes sense more of the former are manufactured than of the latter, plus I bet the process generation used in making the microcontroller is probably more recent and hence one where there are more fabs operating. This latter reason would also explain why this more recent 32-bit microcontroller is actually cheaper than older 8-bit ones with less built-in memory and fewer peripherals (such as the ATTiny ones).
it's kinda dogshit but for this application it (cmos version) would be good enough. or better than that, there are dedicated pwm signal generators. i meant this thing in terms of complexity needed
It was a good insight into how the lightbulb dimming tech of the 80s/90s worked. Also why the dimmer switches back then were so dangerous with the capacitor likely just a few mm's away from the light switch which might not have been properly wired because UK homes back then didn't run a neutral back from the switch, but daisy-chained the switch and the bulb together and then ran the neutral back from the bulb
ok fine i'd put there a current limiter which you can make with 2 transistors and a diode. no need for an entire microcontroller. it's often included with batteries these days anyway
i think you can get away with resistors when you can work with 5V, up to 1.5A. lithium batteries need current limiter in series with voltage limiter, and this alone can be made in a very simple way, unless you want to know when battery is charged, or if you want extra efficiency that smps gives you, but this only makes sense for larger batteries (phone-sized and up) or when you want to handle everything to charger and connect battery to charger directly. then i think you need controller
It's probably cheaper and simpler to modify (say you suddenly want it to turn on when you click 3 times) to use a 0.1€ chip than to figure out how to do it and build it with discrete components.
20 years ago I was all "computer (chips) can do everything! We can use them everywhere! Replaceable, reprogrammable, fantastic!"
And no one cared.
Now they are everywhere and it's just a fucking mess 😔
Maybe 20 years from now the EU will have forced standards onto everything and you can (again) fix your dishwasher (and start it from work!!1!).
That's being changed, however, as a bunch of determined devs are using raycasting to go around the console's limitations, being heavily optimized to run SNK's arcade titles.
I'm curious who your sole downvoter was. Was it a potato producer that dislikes gaming ? Perhaps a lemon farmer who feels their fruit could run doom on 4k.
Was it someone who purchased a $5000 dollar rig only to find out they could have bought a singular potato? I guess we'll never know
I don't get those pieces of crap. There were these fancy electric cigarettes years ago, using those 3.7V rechargeable batteries. Custom designs (saw lightsaber designs), custom liquids, repairable, no e-waste. What is wrong with people to use those crapsticks? And why do those dumbnuts don't get that these things are e-waste not residual waste?
They are too lazy to refill a pod, and replace a pod - not even a coil.
They dont want to bother, and that's too complicated and they would just loose it anyway - better to buy those throwaway ones.
These are the most common excuses.
Instead of asking why people are buying disposables, ask why nobody is buying those reusable vapes. These disposable companies must be doing quite a few things better if people are willing to throw away money and tech.
Many many MANY people would sooner buy something for 5 dollars 20 times then something for $100 once whether financial necessity or not feeling guilty for buying the super expensive thing.
Not to mention people being too lazy to want to do even basic maintenance. Also companies that prefer to sell something people need to keep buying over and over might not offer a longer term version.
Not vaping or even disposable, but my manscaped face trimmer, which is supposedly a higher end one, was the first electric trimmer I've gotten that didn't come with a little bottle of lube and the instructions even said "you don't need to lube this!" Knowing that they hadn't changed the laws of physics, I lubed it anyways and I'm convinced that's the only reason it hasn't permanently seized up by now because even with the lube and a full charge, there have been times where it didn't want to start going without a good tap after turning it on.
IMO it's quality for the price more than just price, I've bought and used so many brands of refillable pods/tank mods and they always have quality problems that just don't happen with the disposables. For anyone that's experienced them, all I have to say is e-juice leakage.
The webpage he hosted was a copy of his own blog post explaining the hack. It just about fit into the 20KB of available flash storage.
We can infer that on every request, the whole static page needs to be spooled out of flash onto RAM (in chunks no larger than 3k), then sent out over Ethernet.
That's an awful lot of work for the chip. I'm not surprised at all that it errors out under heavy load. The request queue probably grows until it collides with the buffer that bucket brigades the web page to the network.
I'm afraid to look up what optimizations were necessary to get that level of performance. It's damned impressive work.
The overall hardware package is in the same ballpark as an Arduino (25% less storage, but better processor and RAM), and people put servers on those . . . well, I won't say "all the time", but it isn't an uncommon project, either.
I wonder if anyone's ever bootstrapped Forth on one of these vapes—given that there are implementations <512b for other arches, it should fit—and then you could program on it directly rather than flashing machine code compiled elsewhere.
(The issue with 10-year-old phones on Google is that Google isn't designed for low-end hardware anymore. It's overloaded with scripts, styles, and other things that aren't necessary for doing its job. Present a ten-year-old phone with a page with no client-side script and restrained styling, and I'd bet it would do fine.)
As a manufacturer/seller of disposable vapes, literally everyone wants refillable tanks.
Obviously the customer does too but we're vertically integrated. We grow, extract, flavor, fill, and sell. Managing the logistics from China sucks and requires a decent amount of overbuying to ensure we have a steady stream. You never know when some orange retard will close up the border to x country that makes your stuff.
I'd love to just have a CoA of the distillate, flavor mixer like a coke machine, and a fill nozzle for the customer to hand to the cashier to fill.
I specifically remember refillable vaping was exactly what you had when you vaped.
You had the battery unit or a "mod" as it was called, on top of that you screwed a tank that had the coils, cotton and liquid, all that shit could be individually replaced and everybody had their own frankensteins combination of mod tank and other peripherals they liked to use.
Why did that stop being a thing in favor of these absurdly wasteful disposable pens?
Not sure what they're implying about being forced to sell non refillable vapes. I bought a Centaurus kit (refillable) two years ago and they're still selling. Though the same brand also has lines of disposables...
In reality the people buying disposables don't want to deal with the hassle that is e-juice (and changing coils). But the modern refillables are pretty good at not leaking every time you look at them wrong, though in my experience the big ones still don't like being upside down.
Yeah I've still got some of mine somewhere. I think the main reason the disposables took the market was partly that they are much cheaper, and partly that many people think they taste better. In my country the government has mandated that they be rechargable and have the flavour thingies replaceable, so they are, but they still seem to get thrown away a lot.
When I was a kid we had a 386-33MHz with 4MB RAM, it ran Doom at about 1-2FPS. Upgraded to a 486 DX (66MHz I think?) and 8MB RAM and it ran great on that. It's possible that the 386 would have been fine if we put more RAM in though, I think the biggest issue was swapping.
SmartVape CloudBar. A range of premium smart home vaping devices that connect to (and depend on) the cloud so you can smartvape remotely (e.g. in the bed, on the job, or even when travelling).
Vaping, even locally, always works, unless your subscription has expired, there's no internet connection available, or any of the necessary cloud service are down.
Hardware isn't the limitation, its willingness to fight locked down hardware and the power management of android. You might be able use ADB to control it, install termux and then with that, SSH server and then a server of some sort.
In my experience, most phones don't seem to boot sans battery, so its just a matter of time until the battery goes poof and your system goes down. Some manage it though - you do get a decent amount of hardware for the power consumption.
If it's an OLED and it's cracked you have only a couple hours to get your shit off of it before it goes completely blank. LCDs are usually somewhat fine depending on how they're broken. They don't get worse
It took a day to go from partially fucked to unusable, the entire screen is like seizuring. There was no actual crack though, must have hit a rock or something getting lobbed onto the ground.
178 Comments
amelia@feddit.org · 245 pts · 70d
This further illustrates how absolutely crazy it is to produce these devices for a single use and then just throw them away, not even making sure they can be recycled properly. It's complete madness. I hope they'll be banned soon, I think the EU is working on it.
terranoid@lemmy.cafe · 82 pts · 70d
They should absolutely ban disposable but as long as they're smart about it and don't try and make it a general vape ban. Anything with a microcontroller and OLED display should need regulation to be "disposable". So fucking wasteful.
Vapes can and have always been something you can pop a battery and cartridge and custom juice in. There's zero reason to make it disposable. Make the coil/cotton/juice cartridge disposable... Like a juul was last I checked? That's reasonable.
And then next regulate how much nicotine can be in per ml. 60mg/ml is fucking insane. That is heart issue level of nicotine. I got buzzed off 12 mg/ml, used 3 or 6mg/ml regularly, and quit at 1.5mg/ml. There's no fucking reason other than harm and addiction to provide 60mg/ml.
SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz · 8 pts · 70d
OLED maybe but small micros are now so cheap and so small that they're negligible.
Battery is probably still the biggest environmental impact.
cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 70d
One of those 3 cent one time programmable microcontrollers would be sufficient. Something with enough power to run a web server is just wasteful.
bacon_pdp@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 70d
SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social · 9 pts · 70d
And the term web server doesn't mean it has to run the whole of AWS. It just means it can deliver some content over http.
Dultas@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 70d
Yeah, I doubt it's running more than a couple concurrent connections. Idle web servers take very little resources.
teslekova@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 70d
Getting ever closer to smart dust.
Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 70d
Germany only allows 20mg/ml, I didn't know there were countries that allowed 60??? 😭
Anivia@feddit.org · 2 pts · 69d
Du kriegst auch in Deutschland sehr leicht Vapes mit mehr als 20mg/ml, sind nur eben illegal. Der Schwarzmarkt für Vapes ist groß
Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 60d
Ja natürlich, die erste vape die ich geraucht hab war auch illegal und mit 50mg/ml, aber mich hat einfach überrascht, dass es scheinbar Länder gibt in denen so ein hoher Wert sogar legal ist
michael_palmer@lemmy.sdf.org · 1 pts · 70d
michael_palmer@lemmy.sdf.org · 24 pts · 70d
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/07/10/council-adopts-new-regulation-on-batteries-and-waste-batteries/
Coming soon...
Dremor@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 70d
Disposable vapes are already forbidden, at least in France, idk if it is union wide.
But yeah, those things make no sense. The only thing with a battery that should be disposable would be fire alarm. Not because of the battery, but because the main sensor has a 10 years lifespan due to its natural deterioration.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 70d
I feel the same way about earpods.
abfarid@startrek.website · 13 pts · 70d
Compared to a vape pen AirPods have insane life span. It's still bad, but not even in the same ballpark as something you usually throw away in a week or so.
cookiecoookie@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 70d
That's fine for airpods but as someone who worked retail, there's just as many $15 earbuds that break near instantly that have to be thrown away and never fixed. Those things have 3 batteries in them.
LlilL@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 69d
You can also have your dying AirPods replaced at the battery rate of $40 too. Still doesn’t strike the overall problem, especially since Apple doesn’t advertise that replacement.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 69d
yeah, no one ever loses an airpod...
oh wait
abfarid@startrek.website · 2 pts · 69d
Not sure what you mean. Are you implying that because on occasion some people will lose an AirPod they are somehow worse than vape pods that are designed to be disposed of within days after first use?
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 69d
people who like the concept don't give a fuck about the environment, it's just convenient for them so fuck it.
I'm sure you'll justify it for yourself lol.
you don't need them, you just like them, and don't care that it's created an entire new class of ewaste.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 69d
People lose phones more often, huge source of e-waste that we should ban first. In fact most people wouldn't even have a reason to buy the earbuds if they didn't have a phone in the first place.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 69d
something tells me they don't just evaporate, never to be used used again, but resold.
hard to resell a single earbud.
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca · 133 pts · 70d
"it was actually a PY32F002B, powered by a 24 MHz Arm Cortex M0+ processor. The chip also carried 24KB of flash storage and 3KB of static RAM"
To process a single button.
stardreamer@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 56 pts · 70d
Because an existing SoC at scale is cheaper than a custom ASIC.
You see this all the time, custom keyboard running ARM+Linux, SmartNICs using RISC-V cores/FPGAs instead of ASIC accelerators. Even Microsoft refuses to commit to ASICs for network processing in their DCs and use FPGAs instead.
wewbull@feddit.uk · 34 pts · 70d
A vape is a battery connected to a button connected to a heating coil. You might want a single transistor. You don't need a software platform.
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world · 30 pts · 70d
Sure, if you weren't competing with every other vape out there that has things like variable voltage settings (at least 3), a pre-heat feature, the ability to turn on/off with 5 presses, or to turn off automatically after 5-10 minutes without use, a low battery indicator, a charging indicator, a broken coil indicator...
Hmm, seems like you need a lot more than a battery, heating coil, button, and single transistor.
QueriesQueried@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 70d
With the major caveat that dispos dont offer more than 2 of those features at best. Almost all those features you specify are on reusable devices. There are going to be some that do have those additional features, but at a price point that makes them nearly as or more costly than a reusable device.
The only IC you need for a disposable really, is a BMS, and a temp sensor (technically a timer so it also doesnt over draw, but timer ICs are built into everything) so it doesn't willfully light itself on fire in unusual circumstances.
All that to say: there is effectively 0 difference between most disposables released today and reusables, with the sole exception that you cant refill or recharge them. There should be no device with a battery deliberately intended to be thrown away, for anything, save for medical uses.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 70d
You’re sooooo right, check my response to that guy. I was into vaping years ago and loved mechanical vaoes, which were legit just a battery, heating coil mounted to a platform, button, and conductive tube. Super simple devices, so easy!
Except they’re INSANELY DANGEROUS! I loved them but I’ve had friends treat them carelessly and they WILL start on fire or even explode if not vented. You need a thorough understanding of Ohm’s law, batteries’ amperage limits, how to rewrap batteries with nicks in the wrap, and to never leave them unattended even with manual locking rings.
The person you replied to mentions adding a transistor which would do nothing. Add some more bits and just like you said, you’re competing with fully functional vapes with all those features and they’re cheap as hell. The chips cost nearly nothing, so that’s the route they go. Those vapes aren’t impervious to blowing up, but they’re much safer than simple mechanical vapes.
Croquette@sh.itjust.works · 29 pts · 70d
There is also a battery management system as well.
M0 processors are dirt cheap, especially in bulk.
They probably have a BMS library that takes a few Kb of flash.
The time it would take to make the design cost effective wouldn't be worth it.
Slap a less than a dollar mcu and be done with it.
stardreamer@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 70d
Disclaimer: I don't smoke anything, so I don't know any details.
Wouldn't a button connected to a heating coil be a fire hazard? Is there no automatic shut-off based on temperature? If you add enough safety features, it might end up costing about the same as an embedded SoC.
lyralycan@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 70d
All it would need is a thermal fuse/cutoff, like those in portable heating appliances (air fryers, grills etc.). I wonder what's needed to include a 10 second on & 30 seconds disabled timer, maybe it's cheaper
nyan@lemmy.cafe · 6 pts · 70d
555 timer and a transistor or two, I think?
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 70d
Digipart is showing me price for PY32F002B with a minimum purchase of 5000 as less that $0.10 (not the factory price, just the cheapest store).
The price for the cheapest NE555 (random manufacturer implementation of a 555) variant in Digipart is $0.13
(Granted, you also need at least a crystal and 2 caps, plus 1 power filtering cap per power line for the microcontroller, but those are all cheap)
It's ridiculous how modern microcontrollers are so stupidly cheap that even though they can run a lot more digital logic (in the form of software running in them) they almost always beat using older and much simpler digital parts even for something as simple as this.
Even microprocessors are getting stupidly cheap: somebody recently pointed me out the Allwinner F1C100s, which is about the smallest microprocessor that can run Linux, and it costs $2 in bulk to the point that some embedded engineer has made a business card with one running Linux which he just gives away.
nyan@lemmy.cafe · 1 pts · 69d
Economies of scale have been doing really funky things to chip prices, then. Yet another demonstration that the universe Does Not Make Sense.
Ithral@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 70d
They also do some BMS stuff, and some support limited graphics and UI. Depedns on the moddle
wewbull@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 69d
An RC circuit charging up to some threshold voltage. You can even make it adjustable with a variable resistor.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 70d
You’re 100% correct. I have mechanical vapes—no safety cutoff, just an 18650 in a conductive tube with wire coils attached to posts. They’re amazing, and they’re extremely dangerous. Turning one into a protected vape with basic features like wattage adjustment? Way cheaper and easier to go SoC!
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 70d
I used to be into vaping and a big mechanical vape fan. I still have all of my old mech vapes! Those were what you’re thinking of—a button, a conducive body, and a coil or two mounted to a post. You pop an 18650 in, no transistor or resistors needed. You adjust your wattage by changing the way you wrap your coils, and your wire gauge. Generally I’d like to run around .2 ohms, which pushes about 18-20 amps out of the 18650s.
These are NOT devices you want in the hands of regular people lawl. I’ve had friends in years past love how my setup was and get similar vapes for themselves. I’ve seen a burned-down backpack (RIP, all of his adderall XR), a table almost catch fire, and burnt carpet. No explosions because I told people “don’t get one of these, but if you’re not going to listen to me, for the love of glob make sure it’s vented.”
Anyway, yeah no way anyone should have these except electronics enthusiasts. Even with locking rings, they can just start firing if the person using it isn’t super careful. Nice batteries rated for 30a pulse are 2USD more than the garbage batteries that love to vent or explode.
You add in a transistor, that’s not gonna do anything. You add in a couple more things for protection and your cost is higher than it would have been by getting one of the chips in OP’s article, and you don’t have a nice interface for adjusting wattage and checking battery level and charging via USB and all that fun shit.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 70d
i disagree with the single transistor. overcharge prevention requires something more (i am not a batteriologist don't ask me what. i'd do it with a tesla coil because that'd look cooler)
wewbull@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 69d
I was assuming it was disposable (as so many are) and therefore no charging circuit.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 69d
Huh. The disposables I am occasionally "forced" to get (put it in a 510 thread gramma) have charging ports. I usually have to charge once or twice to get through the full gram.
That being said, the good local dispo just rebranded and gave me a bunch of 510 batteries with the old name on them. These batteries are fantastic and look about the same size as the server in the article
teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 70d
There is a little more to it, pressing the button 5 times turns it on and off. Three times often lets one cycle through power settings. But yeah, anything more than a very minimal programming is frankly suspicious.
It could be a lot is used to get the charge right idk.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 20 pts · 70d
Well the PY32F002B (costing a few cents) even though it has a 32-bit (entry level) ARM core @ 24MHz is literally cheaper than older and less powerful microcontrollers.
Granted, if you don't do anything else than react to a push button it's still cheaper to use discrete electronic components than a microcontroller, but given that this device has a LiPo battery (meaning there's battery control involved) and judging by the picture a USB-C connector, there's probably a bit more digital logic in it, by which point a 3 cent microcontroller plus a cheap SMD crystal and some caps is cheaper than using discrete components.
The domain of embedded systems has evolved to the point that it's the best option for almost everything in consumer electronics, mainly because at the lower end there are so many stupidly cheap and easy to use choices were you don't run an OS in it but instead just a single block of single-threaded code directly on the bare metal accessing registers directly.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 11 pts · 70d
Temperature control, likely something to keep track of how much is left in the device, and I’m betting I’m forgetting something.
I doubt discreet electronics can cut it at that point.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 70d
Yeah, as per the analysis I did in another post, even a 555 and a couple of transistors to just blink an LED is more expensive than putting a microcontroller like this one there.
merdaverse@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 69d
It's crazy to think that this is basically more powerful than the Apollo Guidance Computer that got people onto the moon. It costs 3 cents, and we use it for shit like this and then throw it away. What spectacular waste.
Sabata11792@ani.social · 15 pts · 70d
It's so you can have a spinny animation when you hit the button.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 70d
that's more powerful than my first computer
can it play Grover Teaches Typing?
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 68d
Yeah, ZX81, 1k RAM lol
Hiro8811@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 70d
You don't need a CPU at all for this trash
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 69d
Yes, where "process" means measuring instantaneous changes in airflow as the user inhales (or doesn't), and regulating a heating coil accordingly by running actual program code - which requires a controller to run it and memory to store it in. I mean when you click "Reply" on this page all it has to do is process one button, but that involves a lot.
kevinsky@feddit.nl · 1 pts · 69d
All that logic is still a choice though. You could also just instruct the user to not press the button unless they're inhaling and just actually have it be an on and of button. That's how vapes used to work. Worst thing that could happen there is that you burn the wick, which is only a problem because it's not serviceable.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 69d
Some of them have games like snake you can play in class on them. I mean that's what I assume its for, any adult would use their phone.
Melobol@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 69d
There were couple series of: full lcd screen, bt connected to smartphone for notifications and a speaker versions. Plus the rechargeable battery and usb c charging port (obviously).
It was selling about 35 bucks.
Forgot the game one: had controller buttons and 3 games: pacman, tetris and a lying shooter inbuilt. With full lcd and speaker. (Thus wasnt bt connected tho) Price was similar.
Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 69d
Forgot the phone one too. Or was it a phone "case" ?
onnekas@sopuli.xyz · 81 pts · 70d
Bigger opportunity would be banning this shit.
queueBenSis@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 70d
outright bans just allow black markets to flourish. harm reduction and public safety campaigns would go much further
Joelk111@lemmy.world · 57 pts · 69d
We wouldn't be banning vaping, we'd be banning disposable vapes.
new_world_odor@lemmy.world · 40 pts · 69d
As someone who vapes quite a bit, I would genuinely love to see this. Disposables are an absolute shitshow and never should have existed in the first place.
Squirrelanna@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 11 pts · 69d
Seriously. I struggle to fathom how running out for disposables is even slightly more convenient than refilling a proper tank every so often and replacing the coil. It tastes better, lasts longer and makes much less waste.
new_world_odor@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 69d
I think it's the marketing of it. A decent amount of people I've talked to genuinely don't know that there's a reusable option. This also changed when the tobacco industry got involved. Vaping used to have more of a culture of cessation. It was talked about how you could transition from cigs at a higher nicotine level, then bring it down until you're vaping zero nic, then quit that. I barely hear anyone talk about the quitting pipeline anymore. I don't think it's an accident, I think it's intentional.
Edit: I also think it's the fact that you only have to buy one thing, and the 3 things (device, coils, juice) aren't available in every gas station like disposables are. And the user experience - open the box and it starts right up, no refills, all it needs is a charge once in a while. People are really fucking lazy, by nature. But the cost of all those conveniences is indebted tenfold upon the environment, as destruction and waste.
Squirrelanna@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 69d
I can't argue with that. I started to preemptively keep myself OFF of cigs (entire family smokes and I knew I would eventually pick up the habit). For a while now, most of the talk around it I've heard is just whether or not it's cool or cringe rather than how it can be used to quit smoking.
Maybe the disposables wouldn't be so egregious if you could keep the battery like you used to be able to and just replace the disposable tanks. I think that's what bothers me the most. We had an okay system before that wasn't really complicated and wasn't NEARLY as wasteful.
hanrahan@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 69d
you've not met humans before ?
YeahToast@aussie.zone · -2 pts · 69d
Vapes should never have existed? Smoking rates and nicotine addiction were finally going down... Then the good old invention of the vape brings it rocketing back again.
magic_smoke@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 69d
This, cartridges make me feel dirty, let alone wasting a entire li-ion cell too.
new_world_odor@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 69d
There are some shops that will actually collect the vapes and send them back to the manufacturer for recycling. But it's less common than it used to be, which frustrates me to no end, it should be the reverse if anything.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 69d
It makes you feel dirty, but the question is do you still do it anyway - and if the answer is yes, that's the problem. because that's what drives the whole industry.
new_world_odor@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 67d
Individuals having desires is not "the problem". That would be corporations having free reign to behave however the fuck they want, so long as they can pay the fed.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 67d
There's more than one problem. Even if politicians weren't bribey and Citizens United didn't give corps a license to bribe them, we would still have pollution and other problems because individuals choose convenience over doing the right thing - which is "the" problem I meant.
protogen420@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 0 pts · 69d
we should ban all forms of smoking
Joelk111@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 68d
I'm sure that'd go over well.
rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz · 69 pts · 70d
why does a glorified heater connected to a battery need any silicon attached to it?
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 88 pts · 70d
To control the amount of voltage used in making the heat and not immediately burst into flames, for one.
stoy@lemmy.zip · 70 pts · 70d
It is interesting to see old tech having clever solutions for stuff like this, these days the answer is 98% of the time is to slap a CPU on it.
It's boring!
ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com · 28 pts · 70d
Wait til you hear about all the different technologies we use to generate electricity
stoy@lemmy.zip · 29 pts · 70d
99% spinning a generator and 1% direct solar panels
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 70d
Hey, hasn't that panel number been going up lately?
Rhaedas@fedia.io · 5 pts · 70d
The amount of panels has been. Unfortunately as always our demand also keep increasing.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 70d
Kardashev level 1 here we goo!
Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org · 4 pts · 70d
I am still giddy when I think about the way solar panels work. Still feels futuristic to me :3
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 70d
rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 70d
it's not all steam
ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com · 16 pts · 70d
You're right! Sometimes we let the kinetic energy of the liquid water itself spin the turbine, when we're feeling freaky.
rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 70d
all of these, and gas turbines too, are synchronous. some wind turbines are almost-synchronous and some use giant inverters which is probably one of bigger mass uses of power electronics today
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 70d
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 70d
It's just turning water into steam again, isn't it
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz · 7 pts · 70d
Doesn't that just need a voltage regulator? It's disposable so you don't never need to concern yourself with charging.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 11 pts · 70d
A lot of them have selectable voltage/power levels as a "feature", which is easier to do via a mcu PWM controll than discrete electronics.
rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz · 7 pts · 70d
yeah it's more efficient this way but all you need is ne555 + mosfet tho? still no need for it to be turing complete
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 11 pts · 70d
Yes, but think about it like you're a Chinese manufacturing engineer with only basic electronics education. You COULD do that design, build out the pcb, custom tool it to fit your plastic housing, etc etc.... Or you could go to the manufacturer down the street who already makes pre designed voltage reg MCU's on a board and spend like, 20 minutes in an IDE to code the specific voltage levels and button presses.
When production volume and turnaround time is the only things that matter in this shovel waste crap, "wasting" silicon is less expensive financially than building out the optimal solution.
rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz · 6 pts · 70d
my guess would be it's a parts commonality thing, it's not hard to make it the old way, there are datasheets for it too. sure you could probably make tiny and cheaper (30x10mm? maybe smaller) analog board with two chips and mosfet working as pwm controller and current limiter, but it'll have different passives for different battery sizes and heater powers. or you could make one design with optional usb port that you might just not solder on, and depending on model you just put different firmware inside
Hitchie_Rawtin@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 70d
The old way is actually the analog style you've mentioned, but that was the very early days of ecigs well before they became mass market, the cottage industry modding scene had no hope of creating sophisticated microcontrollers and the charger wasn't even USB, it was a DC jack & plug. Lavatube was the first time we had that kind of microcontroller regulation & then the DNA15 and DNA20 came out, got cloned by China and that changed the game forever.
The problem with the older way is consumers understand watts alone as a relatively consistent measurement of power much better than they would the relation between voltage, resistance & current draw. They didn't want to learn Ohm 's Law back then and wouldn't want to know about it now. Microcontrollers simplified that massively.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 70d
Designing a board to run a microcontroller like that is actually pretty simple.
I've done it for fun with a couple similar microcontrollers, and whilst I'm an EE by training I don't do it professionally plus my training is from before embedded system, so I count as a Junior EE for that.
I'm pretty sure that even a freshly graduate Chinese EE can even on their own figure out the general recipe for integrating something this (following the datasheet, add crystal + load caps, plus about 1 caps each power pin for power filtering plus 1 global power filtering cap, plus possibly a pull-down/up resistor on the RESET pin) in a week or two and then for subsequent projects it will be feasible to do it in a few days.
Really, there's other shit in there (say, battery management) that's more work to figure out than how to add and place the parts for an entry level ARM microcontroller to work.
raldone01@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 70d
There are really cheap mcus that need maybe one capacitor if even that. It is cheaper, easier and more flexible than the multiple components required to configure an NE555.
terranoid@lemmy.cafe · 9 pts · 70d
With the economy of scale, it is probably cheaper to just drop a microcontroller in products
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 70d
I was just thinking that yeah again all it needs is some basic components. Like how a light bulb or fan might have multiple power settings but I don't expect them to be able to run doom.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 70d
A search in Digipart shows the cheapest price of this microcontroller as $0.10 whilst the cheapest price of the NE555 is $0.13
It really is THAT ridiculous.
rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 69d
not what i have expected tbh
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 69d
Yeah, it doesn't make much since if you think in terms of how many transistors are needed to implement each of them as the microcontroller probably uses hundreds of thousands more transistors than a 555.
That said, given reasonably recent processes die size for both are probably pretty close (I reckon most of the size of a modern 555 die would be the points to place the wires to the package) and with pretty similar yields (pretty close to 100%)
I wouldn't be surprised if the reason has something to do with economies of scale since a cheap microcontroller can pretty much be used for the same things as a 555 and a whole lot more than that, so it makes sense more of the former are manufactured than of the latter, plus I bet the process generation used in making the microcontroller is probably more recent and hence one where there are more fabs operating. This latter reason would also explain why this more recent 32-bit microcontroller is actually cheaper than older 8-bit ones with less built-in memory and fewer peripherals (such as the ATTiny ones).
tetris11@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 70d
Thanks for the interesting read. Real nifty little timing/switching circuit!
rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 70d
it's kinda dogshit but for this application it (cmos version) would be good enough. or better than that, there are dedicated pwm signal generators. i meant this thing in terms of complexity needed
tetris11@feddit.uk · 3 pts · 70d
It was a good insight into how the lightbulb dimming tech of the 80s/90s worked. Also why the dimmer switches back then were so dangerous with the capacitor likely just a few mm's away from the light switch which might not have been properly wired because UK homes back then didn't run a neutral back from the switch, but daisy-chained the switch and the bulb together and then ran the neutral back from the bulb
khannie@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 70d
Some of the larger disposables do have a charging port. I guess it allows them ship a smaller battery which is good
rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz · 5 pts · 70d
then you have to interface with charger anyway so ig this makes some more sophisticated chip make sense
rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 70d
ok fine i'd put there a current limiter which you can make with 2 transistors and a diode. no need for an entire microcontroller. it's often included with batteries these days anyway
terranoid@lemmy.cafe · 5 pts · 70d
I believe lithium ion batteries need custom chips just to charge and discharge smartly
Shit, even connecting to modern USB c to negotiate voltage you need a controller
rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 70d
i think you can get away with resistors when you can work with 5V, up to 1.5A. lithium batteries need current limiter in series with voltage limiter, and this alone can be made in a very simple way, unless you want to know when battery is charged, or if you want extra efficiency that smps gives you, but this only makes sense for larger batteries (phone-sized and up) or when you want to handle everything to charger and connect battery to charger directly. then i think you need controller
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 13 pts · 70d
It's probably cheaper and simpler to modify (say you suddenly want it to turn on when you click 3 times) to use a 0.1€ chip than to figure out how to do it and build it with discrete components.
20 years ago I was all "computer (chips) can do everything! We can use them everywhere! Replaceable, reprogrammable, fantastic!"
And no one cared.
Now they are everywhere and it's just a fucking mess 😔
Maybe 20 years from now the EU will have forced standards onto everything and you can (again) fix your dishwasher (and start it from work!!1!).
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 68d
probably more expensive to make different mechanical components when a simple chip does it all for cheaper. how ev are cheaper than ice cars,
SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz · 0 pts · 70d
PieMePlenty@lemmy.world · 35 pts · 70d
In my mind, nothing with a circuit board is disposable. Pains me to see it.
kevinsky@feddit.nl · 25 pts · 69d
There also has already been someone that made a home battery from batteries harvested from disposable vapes.
It is absolutely insane that these "disposable" vapes are legal.
dil@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 67d
they made it harder to get pods and liquid for normal vapes compared to these, and because most ppl by these they primarily stock them
SabinStargem@lemmy.today · 22 pts · 69d
But can it run DOOM?
Alvaro@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 69d
Probably
GutterRat42@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 69d
You can run Doom on a literal potato
Float@startrek.website · 4 pts · 69d
But not on a Neo Geo!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f1-7c6WX10
TL;DW - the Neo Geo has a uniquely bad architecture for FPS games making them nearly impossible to get working on the console.
lechekaflan@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 69d
That's being changed, however, as a bunch of determined devs are using raycasting to go around the console's limitations, being heavily optimized to run SNK's arcade titles.
Float@startrek.website · 1 pts · 69d
I hope someone accomplishes it, even if it's single digit framerate.
Wispy2891@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 69d
He updated the video a few hours ago saying that some genius accomplished that
Disclaimer: I didn't actually watch the video, only saw the thumbnail on my feed
GutterRat42@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 67d
I have seen people run Doom on a pregnancy test, and you are telling me that the Neo Geo can't run it!?
Float@startrek.website · 1 pts · 67d
That video is a hoax. It's a small screen inserted into a pregnancy test, cables run out the side which is never brought into frame.
It seems since I have made this post that a huge amount of progress has been made in getting FPS games running on the neogeo.
GutterRat42@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 66d
The positive pregnancy test still runs Doom if you are a teenager or a dude with a mistress
YeahToast@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 69d
I'm curious who your sole downvoter was. Was it a potato producer that dislikes gaming ? Perhaps a lemon farmer who feels their fruit could run doom on 4k. Was it someone who purchased a $5000 dollar rig only to find out they could have bought a singular potato? I guess we'll never know
turbodad@feddit.org · 20 pts · 70d
I don't get those pieces of crap. There were these fancy electric cigarettes years ago, using those 3.7V rechargeable batteries. Custom designs (saw lightsaber designs), custom liquids, repairable, no e-waste. What is wrong with people to use those crapsticks? And why do those dumbnuts don't get that these things are e-waste not residual waste?
Melobol@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 69d
They are too lazy to refill a pod, and replace a pod - not even a coil.
They dont want to bother, and that's too complicated and they would just loose it anyway - better to buy those throwaway ones.
These are the most common excuses.
cookiecoookie@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 70d
Instead of asking why people are buying disposables, ask why nobody is buying those reusable vapes. These disposable companies must be doing quite a few things better if people are willing to throw away money and tech.
JustEnoughDucks@slrpnk.net · 6 pts · 70d
Price.
That is what they do better.
Many many MANY people would sooner buy something for 5 dollars 20 times then something for $100 once whether financial necessity or not feeling guilty for buying the super expensive thing.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 70d
Not to mention people being too lazy to want to do even basic maintenance. Also companies that prefer to sell something people need to keep buying over and over might not offer a longer term version.
Not vaping or even disposable, but my manscaped face trimmer, which is supposedly a higher end one, was the first electric trimmer I've gotten that didn't come with a little bottle of lube and the instructions even said "you don't need to lube this!" Knowing that they hadn't changed the laws of physics, I lubed it anyways and I'm convinced that's the only reason it hasn't permanently seized up by now because even with the lube and a full charge, there have been times where it didn't want to start going without a good tap after turning it on.
cookiecoookie@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 70d
IMO it's quality for the price more than just price, I've bought and used so many brands of refillable pods/tank mods and they always have quality problems that just don't happen with the disposables. For anyone that's experienced them, all I have to say is e-juice leakage.
Dremor@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 70d
Ads and influencers pushing them.
Armand1@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 70d
Wild that you can serve anything with that hardware. Granted, static websites are basically just sending files over the wire.
BCsven@lemmy.ca · 17 pts · 70d
The 10 year old phone OS probably is slowing all of that. If they flashed phone as a dedicated webserver it would probably be fine
disorderly@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 70d
We can infer that on every request, the whole static page needs to be spooled out of flash onto RAM (in chunks no larger than 3k), then sent out over Ethernet.
That's an awful lot of work for the chip. I'm not surprised at all that it errors out under heavy load. The request queue probably grows until it collides with the buffer that bucket brigades the web page to the network.
I'm afraid to look up what optimizations were necessary to get that level of performance. It's damned impressive work.
Lumisal@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 70d
Ah, but what if you string together 100 of these as a cluster? Now u get a whole 2Mb of flash storage!
nyan@lemmy.cafe · 2 pts · 70d
The overall hardware package is in the same ballpark as an Arduino (25% less storage, but better processor and RAM), and people put servers on those . . . well, I won't say "all the time", but it isn't an uncommon project, either.
I wonder if anyone's ever bootstrapped Forth on one of these vapes—given that there are implementations <512b for other arches, it should fit—and then you could program on it directly rather than flashing machine code compiled elsewhere.
(The issue with 10-year-old phones on Google is that Google isn't designed for low-end hardware anymore. It's overloaded with scripts, styles, and other things that aren't necessary for doing its job. Present a ten-year-old phone with a page with no client-side script and restrained styling, and I'd bet it would do fine.)
Adderbox76@lemmy.ca · 18 pts · 69d
Skyrim port for it when?
Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de · 4 pts · 69d
Right after porting Doom.
Pollo_Jack@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 69d
As a manufacturer/seller of disposable vapes, literally everyone wants refillable tanks.
Obviously the customer does too but we're vertically integrated. We grow, extract, flavor, fill, and sell. Managing the logistics from China sucks and requires a decent amount of overbuying to ensure we have a steady stream. You never know when some orange retard will close up the border to x country that makes your stuff.
I'd love to just have a CoA of the distillate, flavor mixer like a coke machine, and a fill nozzle for the customer to hand to the cashier to fill.
kevinsky@feddit.nl · 10 pts · 69d
What happened to vaping?
I specifically remember refillable vaping was exactly what you had when you vaped. You had the battery unit or a "mod" as it was called, on top of that you screwed a tank that had the coils, cotton and liquid, all that shit could be individually replaced and everybody had their own frankensteins combination of mod tank and other peripherals they liked to use.
Why did that stop being a thing in favor of these absurdly wasteful disposable pens?
Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 69d
Not sure what they're implying about being forced to sell non refillable vapes. I bought a Centaurus kit (refillable) two years ago and they're still selling. Though the same brand also has lines of disposables...
In reality the people buying disposables don't want to deal with the hassle that is e-juice (and changing coils). But the modern refillables are pretty good at not leaking every time you look at them wrong, though in my experience the big ones still don't like being upside down.
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 68d
Yeah I've still got some of mine somewhere. I think the main reason the disposables took the market was partly that they are much cheaper, and partly that many people think they taste better. In my country the government has mandated that they be rechargable and have the flavour thingies replaceable, so they are, but they still seem to get thrown away a lot.
7101334@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 69d
...commodified cannabis is garbage and distillate is hotdog water, though
Schlemmy@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 68d
At the early days we had just that. I bought vegetable glycerine, nicotine and some flavour we were set.
IratePirate@feddit.org · 15 pts · 70d
OK, but can it run Doom?
AbidanYre@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 70d
x86 at 25MHz could barely run it. This is ARM at 24.
8oow3291d@feddit.dk · 7 pts · 70d
Also 3KB of RAM. That has to be too little.
AbidanYre@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 70d
Yeah, I think I had 2-4MB, but it was a long time ago, so I could be mistaken.
It also had an FPU addon, which I don't think the M0 has.
Omgpwnies@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 70d
When I was a kid we had a 386-33MHz with 4MB RAM, it ran Doom at about 1-2FPS. Upgraded to a 486 DX (66MHz I think?) and 8MB RAM and it ran great on that. It's possible that the 386 would have been fine if we put more RAM in though, I think the biggest issue was swapping.
AbidanYre@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 69d
Set it to low quality and hit Ctrl+Minus until the window is the size of a postage stamp and it's buttery smooth.
kiagam@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 70d
People got it running on a pregnancy test once, so...
KingKong33@lemmy.ml · 11 pts · 70d
To clarify, it wasn't running on the pregnancy test, it was just outputting to one.
Cypher@aussie.zone · 14 pts · 70d
And the screen had been replaced… so it was truly pointless.
KingKong33@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 69d
Lmao, I didn't know that part. Yeah, at that point who fucking cares. 😂
ErrorCode@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 70d
Came here looking for this question
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 69d
Ok here's my billion dollar idea: vapes that already are web servers!
pirat@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 69d
Ok here's my trillion dollar idea:
SmartVape CloudBar. A range of premium smart home vaping devices that connect to (and depend on) the cloud so you can smartvape remotely (e.g. in the bed, on the job, or even when travelling).
Vaping, even locally, always works, unless your subscription has expired, there's no internet connection available, or any of the necessary cloud service are down.
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 69d
ಠ__ಠ
jumjummy@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 69d
Next up, turning these into AI web scraper bots!
/pleasedon’tdothis
Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 69d
Will it run OG Doom?
Mountainaire@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 68d
This is the new, "Will it blend?" question.
teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 70d
What can I do with my samsung smartphone whose screen is broken?
Jason2357@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 70d
Hardware isn't the limitation, its willingness to fight locked down hardware and the power management of android. You might be able use ADB to control it, install termux and then with that, SSH server and then a server of some sort.
In my experience, most phones don't seem to boot sans battery, so its just a matter of time until the battery goes poof and your system goes down. Some manage it though - you do get a decent amount of hardware for the power consumption.
TimeNaan@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 70d
How broken is it? Touch still works? Display visible?
TimeNaan@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 69d
Probably only replacing the screen would work at this point. Android is quite flexible but you need some touch input to operate it.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 69d
Android can take keyboard and mouse input actually
TimeNaan@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 69d
You're right, I haven't thought of that. Maybe connecting it to a monitor through an HDMI enabled USB-C hub could work.
teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 70d
It just got dramatically worse, screen jumps up and down, unusable I won't even be able to take phone calls. I can't even restart it.
dandu3@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 69d
If it's an OLED and it's cracked you have only a couple hours to get your shit off of it before it goes completely blank. LCDs are usually somewhat fine depending on how they're broken. They don't get worse
teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 69d
It took a day to go from partially fucked to unusable, the entire screen is like seizuring. There was no actual crack though, must have hit a rock or something getting lobbed onto the ground.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 69d
Depending on how security is, you can plug a USB-c hub and connect it to a KBM and run it that way...
Squirrelanna@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 69d
I had to read your comment several times before I realized you didn't type USB-chub.
W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 70d
http://archive.today/uBJGg
mecen@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 70d
Interesting video about it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srdP33GQTcI
Maroon@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 70d
Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 68d
But does it run doom?
DarkSideOfTheMoon@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 69d
But does it run DOOM?
goodboyjojo@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 68d
Interesting stuff