Huh, I didn't know about those previous attempts.

A decade is a lot of time for the consumer electronics industry, so I don't think attempts from 10-20 years ago mean all that much for a project today, not to mention the importance of marketing, timing, and industry relationships in stuff like this. "Past performance is not a predictor of future results."

That said, I won't claim to have any idea how this particular product will turn out. So yeah, we'll see.

On a side note, I like the more technical information in those sources. I read through the GE one and the idea of alternating intake/exhaust through one hole makes more sense to me than somehow puling the air in one direction through a plate, but an arrangement like that seems like it would lose some performance to heat building up at the intake... I'd be very interested to see how a fully developed commercial version works in a laptop.

I mean, any new product has that hurdle. The big thing right now isn't how much they have in place, it's how big their potential market is. Those fans LTT covered are made for highly specialized applications with near-nonexistent markets, but these are targeting a wide variety of consumer electronics.

On top of that, if I remember correctly, the article has quotes from Intel reps saying they're very excited to work with them to use these new coolers. If they have the attention of Intel they should be able to expect a certain level of initial adoption right off the bat.

It happens with lots of things, when there's almost no market for it it's insanely expensive and you have very few choices but the moment that market opens up the choices grow and the cost plummets. They usually get a lot better too just due to sheer R&D investment.

Are you saying Peltier coolers remove heat by generating electricity? Because they absolutely can if you apply a temperature difference across them, but to force the heat to move they actually have to convert some electricity into heat in the process.

That's the difference between thermoelectric coolers and thermoelectric generators, one uses electrical energy to move heat and the other turns the movement of heat into electrical energy.

I actually wasn't aware LTT did a video on Peltier coolers.

Just to clarify: Peltier coolers are heat pumps, they move heat from one side of the plate to the other. This means that like any other cooling system they don't generate cold, they remove heat. That must then be dissipated into the air by a more traditional cooler.

They're more interesting I think for power generation. The same principle is used to power the Mars rovers using a brick of plutonium (called a "radio-thermal generator"). It's really cool.

LTT more recently did a video on a piezoelectric fan. If you haven't seen it you should check it out, it's also cool.

Hmm. Looks like it might work on a similar principle to those piezoelectric fans LTT did a video on a while back. I'd be very interested in seeing how they arranged the oscillators to pull air through like that.

Really there's a lot of technical information about the design that the article really doesn't go into. I'm also interested in the heat exchanger, since I would imagine they're generating comparatively lower airflow but also making everything very compact.

Kind of excited to see if thia goes anywhere.