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A comment on Junkyard computing – repurposing discarded smartphones to minimize pollution. Parent comment

Re:Junkyard computing – repurposing discarded smartphones to... by mackrevinack on Saturday February 11, 2023 @07:44AM (#34751856)
most of the use cases i can think of would have the phone plugged in somewhere permanently, digital photo frame, home assistant controller etc, so whether the battery is worn out wouldnt matter so much
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Re:Junkyard computing – repurposing discarded smartphones to... by the_snooze on Saturday February 11, 2023 @08:50AM (#34752279)
>whether the battery is worn out wouldnt matter so much

Old phone batteries bloat up and become fire hazards. Ideally, phones could run permanentaly plugged in with the battery removed, but from my experience, they won't even power on without a battery present.

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Re:Junkyard computing – repurposing discarded smartphones to... by kgwxd on Saturday February 11, 2023 @09:32AM (#34752597)
Some laptops too, it’s infuriating.
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Re:Junkyard computing – repurposing discarded smartphones to... by jessekv on Saturday February 11, 2023 @10:44AM (#34753320)
Isn't this because the charger cannot provide the same peak power that the battery can? I don't know how laptop power supplies work.
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Re:Junkyard computing – repurposing discarded smartphones to... by convolvatron on Saturday February 11, 2023 @12:32PM (#34754336)
were that true the charge time would be longer than the run time (not strictly true, if the load is bursty what you say could conceivably be true)

its somewhat difficult and fussy to do power management in the way you would expect - that the input power is used to power the computer, and whatever is 'left over' is used to charge the battery.

this is just skimping on engineering bandwidth and a few extra components

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