Device uses movement of ions to generate airflow without any moving parts like in iPads and MacBook Air.
Counterpoint: stop trying to make laptops thinner and implement realistic and functional air cooling
Passive cooling is generally better for reliability if you can make it work, since all active airflow systems will degrade as dust and hair works into the airflow paths.
They already do. My thinkpad T14s is incredibly thin, and it can dissipate 400 40 watts of power. My P1 dissipates 160+ watts and it’s also very thin.
Speaking from experience here, and limited information from the company, this looks like a polished version of a high-voltage grid accelerator.
https://ventiva.com/how-it-works/
What can be an expected concern is that besides ionizing air and imparting motion to neutral air molecules as the ionized ones rush from one plate to the other, that same effect can and will charge dust particles. That “collector plate” will need to be easily accessible.
Appreciate the link. I’ve got a hand-me-down Ionic in my house, and knowing that I can skip running it for basically the same effect means I can save a couple of cents on my electricity bill.
Gonna take another look at those IKEA tables with the HEPA filters built in. Those seem handy to avoid having to dust so often.
They do have a solution for the ozone and dust problems. See this video at about the 9 minute mark:
https://youtu.be/fyai_kUYhLs?t=539
tl;dw: they’re using a cataylist to convert the ozone. There’s a lack of specifics on the dust issue, but they apparently have thought about it and have something there.
One other issue is that the static pressure is abysmal. You can work around that, but it’s not a drop in thing.
Ionic acceleration of air needs high voltages and the air gets ionized (the reason people recommend against vacuuming a PC). I’m surprised that it works at all in close proximity to sensible tech.
Edit: right, low static pressure, meaning: lower voltages. But still not low.
They use a grounded faraday cage around it. Video on it where he touched on that https://youtu.be/fyai_kUYhLs
He just mentions they have a solution but it’s patented so they wouldn’t talk about it. Take that as you will of course
the reason people recommend against vacuuming a PC
A regular vacuum isn’t doing anything with ions or high voltages. Moving air can generate potentially harmful static electricity, but usually the reason people recommend against vacuuming a PC is because if you spin the fans doing that, the motors inside turn into generators and drive current back into your PC parts that could damage them.
Moving air can generate potentially harmful static
Well, and what do you think creates that static electricity? Ionization.
Feeding back electricity, that’s why motors usually have a diode or something.
The difference between a vacuum and this fanless cooling device is that a vacuum happens to generate a small amount of static, and usually has grounding wires in the hose to prevent it shocking things, while this fanless device is intentionally ionizing as much air as possible to get it to move.
Not a fan
I think Dave2D made a video about those. He was cautiously optimistic.
