News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
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Re:SpareOne: Emergency mobile phone powered by AA batteries by userbinator on Sunday May 15, 2016 @12:24PM (#11701493)
If you've ever seen those shakelights you'd know that this product's claims are completely unfeasible. The laws of physics simply cannot be fooled.

http://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/ampy-move...

http://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/the-ampy-...

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Re:SpareOne: Emergency mobile phone powered by AA batteries by userbinator on Sunday May 15, 2016 @01:18PM (#11701748)
In one of the links I posted is an article where someone takes one apart, measures the actual power extracted, and calculates that there is no way the claims are true. Whatever "new and proprietary" technology cannot change the laws of physics. Look up "The Batteriser" for another example of a (presumably) well-educated (one of the team is supposedly a university instructor), well-funded team with plenty of media hype attempting to build an impossible product:

https://www.eevblog.com/2015/06/07/the-batteriser-explained/

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/batteriser-cool...

http://hackaday.com/2015/06/06/crowdfunding-follies-debunkin...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9644931

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9677900

This all makes me wonder... are you associated with them?

Re:SpareOne: Emergency mobile phone powered by AA batteries by bubuga on Sunday May 15, 2016 @12:21PM (#11701476)
> Or you can just purchase an Ampy Move (www.getampy), an external battery pack powered by kinetic motion.

That gadget is way expensive for what it does (around $90) and the reviews are less than stellar. Furthermore, some reviews state that it takes around 60 hours of running to get the ampy move to store a measly 1800mAh.

For $1 you can purchase cell phone chargers that take standard AA batteries. For a bit more, but still a fraction of the cost of a Ampy move, you can purchase a rechargable cell phone charger.

I don't see a single category or use case that the ampy move works better than the alternatives, which cost a small fraction of its cost.

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Re:SpareOne: Emergency mobile phone powered by AA batteries by NickNameNick on Sunday May 15, 2016 @03:53PM (#11702446)
You'll find remarkably few complaints from people who purchase homeopathic remedies. Doesn't mean that homeopathy works.
Re:SpareOne: Emergency mobile phone powered by AA batteries by bubuga on Sunday May 15, 2016 @04:28PM (#11702585)
> I think the reviews don't paint the full picture. According to the Ampy team less than 2% of customers have any complaints. [1]

You've brushed over the fact that the article mentions deceitful marketing practices that involves product descriptions specifically crafter to paint a fictitious idea of what the product's true capabilities are while being intentionally vague "so that nothing that they’ve said is strictly lying per se".

Furthermore, in spite of all the marketing effort, the company only managed to move 6k units worldwide.

This is a clear telltale sign that the product clearly doesn't serve its purposes, and its sales are attained mostly due to goodwill from people who fall into the green energy scam.