Their power needs must be absurdly strict, considering they didn’t want the 12v -> 220v -> 12v loss for an M1 chip.

ectoloph 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

The idle cost of inverters can be quite high.

EcoFlow power stations draw somewhere around 30w with the inverter switched on with no load.

The idle power of a Mac Mini at the wall is a few watts total.

turtlebits 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes it seems absurd optimizing to keep on 12v to save on the inverter overhead, but at the same time are running sealed lead acid batteries.

Switching to LFP would give them 5-6x the capacity for the same weight. Current rate for LFP is around $100/kWh.

I inferred it was primarily a psychological need

	▲	qazxcvbnmlp 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Felt like a case of controlling what is visible to avoid some unconscious fear. The relative tradeoffs (hacking together monitors, sketchy battery power, etc) don't seem to coherently add up to the stated goals. Interesting read tho.