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AirJet makes a MacBook Air perform like a MacBook Pro
- lbourdages 3y ago> if Apple were to use AirJet instead of the fans it uses in the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro, it could free up space that the company can use for, say, a bigger battery. No, they can't put a bigger battery. The 16" MBPs already have a 100 Wh battery, which is the maximum size allowed by the TSA [1]. [1] https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/all?combine=batteries&page=1#:~:text=Lithium%20metal%20(non%2Drechargeable),person%20in%20their%20electronic%20devices https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/....
- asalahli 3y agoThat link is for spare batteries. I believe regulations differ for "installed" batteries.
- rgrmrts 3y agoI’ve been following Frore Systems (https://www.froresystems.com/ https://www.froresystems.com/) for a while and have wondered if Apple might consider acquisitions of next-gen components like theirs. Presumably Apple wants to wait for them to be proven in production first, but can you imagine an even more power efficient and silent cooling system on MacBook Pros? That would get you current M3 laptop performance in a form factor closer to the last Intel generation MacBook Pro (slimmer).
- Workaccount2 3y agoI would feel physical pain if apple locked in tech like this. So dumb and annoying that we have to cripple so many potential applications just so apple can exclusively put it in a couple high-end laptops.
- sgjohnson 3y ago> So dumb and annoying that we have to cripple so many potential applications just so My brother in christ, have you heard of the patent system in general? Try starting a new phone or laptop company. Your step 1 will be to acquire a patent war chest, so if someone sues you for patent infringement (and they will), you can sue them right back for the same. In this world, if that company is for sale, someone much bigger is going to buy it, and make their technology their own exclusive. Be it Apple or Samsung or whatever. Getting hands on this tech _so your competitors don’t_ would also be a valid reason for acqusition.
- smoldesu 3y agoShh, any louder and you'll rouse the Butterfly keyboard or the Touch Bar from their graves!
- wnoise 3y agoWhat about the FingerWorks TouchStream? sigh
- orik 3y agoI think if the tech does not get acquired by someone big you probably will never see it come to market in any meaningful way. AirJet should just let people buy these for DIY to start and build hype and start partnering with OEM’s for preconfigured options.
- dangus 3y agoDIY is probably the worst option from the business perspective or AirJet. The market for that is minuscule, and they likely can't make a solution that works universally for every laptop.
- Sabinus 3y ago>I think if the tech does not get acquired by someone big you probably will never see it come to market in any meaningful way. Why? They should be able to acquire purchase agreements and startup investment on the strength of the product.
- londons_explore 3y agoIf the product was any good, Apple would have already signed an exclusivity deal and NDA. If they didn't, another manufacturer would have. The fact that hasn't happened, either means the product has a big downside (eg. stops working after 1 hour use as it blocks with dust), or because the manufacturer is offering silly terms.
- MBCook 3y agoIt’s brand new, it was shown at CES. I think they’ve worked with one PC OEM but their devices are designed for much lower heat output at the moment than what a MBP generates. I suspect it’s more of a “does it work, how does it hold up, and can they scale to our volumes/heat levels” question. The fact they could hack this is still interesting. Fun to watch.
- pier25 3y agoI still haven't heard the fans of my 14'' M2 MBP. And it's the thinnest laptop I've ever owned.
- rgrmrts 3y agoI currently have the 2019 16” MacBook Pro and it’s thinner than the new chassis. I like the form factor better, though I’ll likely upgrade soon happily for better performance and power efficiency.
- Someone 3y agoThey’re moving air through a channel that’s about a mm high, yet claim “dustproof” on that page. Is that realistic? Also, could a hacker build something like this (but likely much less efficient) at home by taking apart a DLP video projector and playing a carefully constructed video loop on its micromirror (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_micromirror_device https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_micromirror_device)?
- nomel 3y agoAccording to LTT video, the 10x static pressure allows for dust filters.
- acomar 3y agosuch claims without tests to validate are kind of useless. they're just taking the company at their word.
- MBCook 3y agoThey’re already in a commercial product: https://www.zotac.com/us/page/zbox-pico-PI430AJ-airjet https://www.zotac.com/us/page/zbox-pico-PI430AJ-airjet
- acomar 3y agoyou've misunderstood my point -- I'm saying manufacturer claims need to be verified. 10x doesn't mean all that much to begin with and, moreover, fan static pressure claims from manufacturers get verified by virtually no one. a shady manufacturer could straight up make up these numbers and no one would be the wiser because of that lack of independent verification. it's like if a CPU GHz figure was taken at face value, without testing.
- orik 3y agowhere can I buy this?
- xenonite 3y agoBeing spared a fan with its noise is the exact reason that I use an MBA. I surely do not want to retrofit a fan. But nice idea anyways to look after your cooling approach.
- rswskg 3y agoit doesn't use a fan
- unsupp0rted 3y agoVideo says it expels air, generating sound at about 25 db, so not much "air noise".
- rowanG077 3y agoFrore systems claims 21 dBA. That's about the level in a quiet area in nature without wind. Much less then even a whisper. Unless you are sitting in an extremely quiet room you won't hear it.
- torginus 3y agoGenerally it won't spare you of the noise, as the exit velocity of the stream will be quite a bit higher, which will result in a higher pitch, which is quite a bit more noticeable due to the quirks of human hearing.
- simbolit 3y agoFYI: This is a proof of concept, not a product, not a product announcement.
- LunarAurora 3y agoIf I understand correctly, CPU clock speed is really relevant only for bursts in CPU use. Any meaningful steadying of processing speed at that peak,or near it, seems to be a question of power efficiency and cooling in tandem. So now if Apple is well ahead of the competition in power efficiency, and if, on top of that, the Aijet is really a revolution in (silent?) cooling, then we have here a maximization of the value of all those Ghz. As an amateur computer musician, this is exactly what I need: a continuous silent performance at a "budget" price.
- toast0 3y agoThere's a couple wrinkles here. For one, power efficiency varies with temperature, keeping chips cool, increases their efficiency, although you'd need a lot of data to determine if watts spent on cooling were comparable to watts saved by being cool at a given performance level. The other is Apple chips target a lower clock rate than Intel and AMD do for laptop chips, this is a tradeoff. You get better perf/watt at lower clock rates, and a lower targer design can be smaller[1] and lower power. OTOH, you miss out on the top end of performance for those willing to power and cool the beast. It's a good tradeoff for Apple, who never provided ample cooling for their Intel based laptops, but it's hard to market for Intel and AMD when PC laptop makers do want to sell some devices that can clock to the moon all day if users want it. AMD is expirementing with their compact cores as power efficient cores in some laptop skus, so we'll see something there; Intel is going with the BIG.little approach of less capable little cores, rather than just clock limited little cores. [1] see AMD's Zen4c which is about half the size as a regular Zen4 for the core+L1+L2, L3 cache footprint remains the same for a given size
- jeroenhd 3y agoOn many laptops you can disable boosting speeds and lock down the frequency (thermals permitting). I don't know if Apple's devices allow for such measures, but close-to-constant performance without fan noise can be a matter of configuration. You can try running these chips at their boost clock all the time by attaching coolers, but the hardware wasn't designed for that and neither was the software. It's easier (and more power efficient) to clock down if you care about maintaining a set speed. With a battery capacity designed for short bursts, you'll also lose out on battery life if you decide to crank the hardware. The Macbook Air and its competition (MS Surface etc.) are completely silent because they are fanless, and I don't expect their performance to be inadequate for anything but the most CPU intensive tasks. The Airjet will add some airflow, so while the difference may be minjmal, it'll always end up louder than before.
- huijzer 3y agoFor people interested in the Frore system, Linus Tech Tips did a video on it: https://youtu.be/vdD0yMS40a0?si=UwAeqbTxxnDRf1_V https://youtu.be/vdD0yMS40a0?si=UwAeqbTxxnDRf1_V.
- miffe 3y agoThey just released a new video about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5kZ3VdFDY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5kZ3VdFDY
- Kirby64 3y agoAs cool as this tech is, I question the efficiency. They claim '10.5W of heat removal using 1.75W of power' in their press release. I'm not entirely sure how this compares to regular fans, but data points I can find suggests that regular fans use much less power (even the tiny laptop ones) for similar amounts of cooling performance. Could possibly be very cool for a tethered application (mac mini, mac studio?), but increasing power draw seems like it'd be a bad thing for battery life.
- brundolf 3y agoIt seems like the kind of thing a company like Apple could acquire, tightly integrate, and squeeze out a small margin above existing tech on a couple axes (eg. maybe it draws more power but makes room for a bigger battery, or maybe software can hyper-optimize when and how it's turned on) Seems like a harder sell as an off-the-shelf component. I wonder if they're angling for an acquisition (by apple or otherwise)
- oddevan 3y agoThis smells _exactly_ like a move to drum up acquisition talks.
- RajT88 3y agoExactly my read as well: > AirJet isn’t a consumer product–consumers can’t buy it and modify their own MacBook Air, nor does Frore plan to create a kit for consumer sale. This is aimed at Apple, and he doesn't want to offer it for sale? Acquisition.
- alt227 3y agoApple have already shown from their crippled Intel Macbook Pros that they care nothing for good cooling systems, and are more than happy to accept sub par performance as long as the design of the product is right. I cant see them jumping at the chance to aquire a cooling device company.
- criddell 3y ago
- duped 3y agoIs it audible to animals?
- megraf 3y agoLikely edible as well
- dghughes 3y agoHumans are animals.
- dghughes 3y agoDomain: Eukaryota Kingdom: Animalia <----- you are here Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Primates Suborder: Haplorhini Infraorder: Simiiformes Family: Hominidae Subfamily: Homininae Tribe: Hominini Genus: Homo Species: H. sapiens
- MBCook 3y agoIn the video interview on the page they said that it’s something like 25 dB. So technically it’s audible to humans too, it’s just low enough that no one really cares.
- duped 3y agoIn the product page they mention it's 25dBa, but if that's measured using a reference microphone for the human spectrum it's not going to reflect if the ultrasonic frequencies its running at are audible to say, a dog. The reason I asked is because this is sick, unless it makes my dog cry.
- baz00 3y agoMy "original out of box" OCD couldn't stare at a machine modded like that.
- unsupp0rted 3y agoMy 2015 13" MacBook Pro spins up fans hard just to check email. Maybe it's the aftermarket OWC Aura Pro SD I've got in it? As soon as I run VS Code with a Firebase emulator it starts throttling down. I'd love to get this Airjet thing installed in it to see if it makes a difference.
- washadjeffmad 3y agoYou can roll back to a pre-mitigation, pre-apfs build of MacOS (≤10.13.2) to restore performance. https://support.apple.com/en-us/103239 https://support.apple.com/en-us/103239 Or, switch to Linux and use mitigations=off.
- iscrewyou 3y agoI have the 2015 15" Retina MacBook Pro. I've loved this thing and it's worked great while letting me play a couple of the Mac supported steam games ever since I purchased it. But man I empathize with you about the fans turning on almost immediately after turning on. Lightroom finally became unusable because the slider changes would lag for every single photo and Xcode no longer supports iOS 17. I jumped to a 16" M1 Max that I found at a pretty decent sale price. You won't regret it if you can swing the cash. The fans have only turned on when I've played Civ 6. I think they maayyy have turned on during Lightroom use but I'm not so positive. It's said because my old 15" still operates, hardware wise, without any issues. I plan to turn it into a linux or a windows machine to play other old computer games.
- pornel 3y agoGet an Apple Silicon Mac. The latest Sonoma beta has a bug that makes every WebView use 99% CPU all the time, and the fans don't even spin :)
- jeroenhd 3y agoThe Intel Macbooks had woefully underdesigned cooling solutions. They're also less efficient than the model demonstrated here. This "airjet" is a kind of almost solid state fan using membranes to generate airflow. They may be able to perform similarly to normal fans with less noise and a smaller physical footprint, but they still need to get that air moving through a heatsink somehow. I don't think it'll work for laptops that are designed to thermal throttle after a few seconds.
- gcr 3y agoWhen they write about putting this chip in the MacBook, do they mean physically cracking the device open and putting the chip inside? If so, where does the space come from? doesn't that void the warranty?
- runjake 3y agoWhile the article itself answers all your questions, the article links to more details at https://www.froresystems.com/blog/how-do-you-cool-ultra-thin-devices https://www.froresystems.com/blog/how-do-you-cool-ultra-thin...
- andrei_says_ 3y agoWould placing the air on top of an ice pack temporarily improve performance? For example when needing to render a video? Don’t judge if this is a very stupid question - about to buy a MacBook Air to substitute an M1 Max for travel.
- mrweiner 3y agoIirc, an issue with this and e.g putting it in the fridge is potential for condensation. Probably worth looking into before putting your machine on ice.
- Turj48tj 3y agoNot really, thermal conductivity between CPU and outer layer is not best. M1 is OKish, M2 are really bad.
- MBCook 3y agoI think I saw that they added little standoffs on the M3 between the case and the cooling mechanism to help prevent the case from coming into contact and getting too hot.
- droopyEyelids 3y agoSort of. The problem is that the chip is what needs to be cooled, and that is separated from the ice pack by a thermal pad and the laptop case. both of those are way less efficient than something that cools the chip directly
- smodo 3y agoYes. The aluminum chassis is basically a heat sink. The underside of the M1 Air heats up when the soc is under load. Cooling that spot will help cool the soc.
- rhinoceraptor 3y agoIf the chassis were a heat sink, it would be a serious burn risk.
- crazygringo 3y agoCan anyone explain how "tiny membranes that vibrate at an ultrasonic frequency" is able to produce "AirJet’s 1750 pascals of backpressure" which is "more than 10 times the suction force of a high-end notebook fan"? I understand how you could have a bunch of membranes that vibrate ultrasonically -- it's basically an array of miniaturized audio speakers. What I don't understand is how any localized oscillation of air gets transformed into massive, consistent air suction in a single direction.
- evntdrvn 3y agoThe answer, as you might expect, is "valves" as part of the integrated MEMS :) https://patents.google.com/?assignee=frore+systems https://patents.google.com/?assignee=frore+systems
- pavedwalden 3y ago"valves" is a good short answer. If you want a long explanation, this video gets into a lot of details. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdD0yMS40a0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdD0yMS40a0
- crazygringo 3y agoThanks, but the video doesn't actually explain it. It explains a lot around it, but it just says that the chip uses a "piezoelectric fan" and shows the intake slits and the outtake jets, but I'm still not finding an explanation of the mechanism itself. I can vaguely imagine how valves might work, but I'm still curious how they do. I looked at the linked patent applications but the descriptions seem way too complex and abstract to get any kind of intuitive sense of the mechanism without already being an expert. There's a related video they link to: https://youtu.be/NY-gA_zA_os?si=9ULOds_TqUO56MGs https://youtu.be/NY-gA_zA_os?si=9ULOds_TqUO56MGs which demonstrates one type of piezoelectric fan, but it seems to be operating on totally different principles -- one end is freely swinging, rather than a membrane with fixed edges oscillating. And there are definitely no valves involved in that one. Is there anywhere else that explains how oscillating membranes generate smooth airflow?
- mannyv 3y agoThere was a hack (using the most liberal idea of a hack) a few years ago that was even simpler: just put a thermal pad into your MBA. Apparently it still works. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/m1-air-with-thermal-pad-mod.2272939/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/m1-air-with-thermal-pad...
- zuhsetaqi 3y agoWhile this benefits performance it does hurt the battery because the battery suffers from the heat of the chassis. And of course like others already mentioned you can’t comfortably touch the bottom of the laptop.
- Reason077 3y agoYep, can confirm this works great in the M1 Air. I've been running mine this way since I got it way back in 2020. Greatly lengthens the time you can play graphics-intensive games before thermal throttling starts to occur and your frame rate goes choppy.
- germinalphrase 3y agoHow do you find surface temps under non-gaming loads, i.e. does this limit your use of the MacBook to desk only?
- Reason077 3y agoIf I'm gaming I do usually use it plugged in to my external monitor with a mouse and keyboard, and the lid closed. And it certainly does get quite warm during extended sessions, but not blazing hot like my previous Intel MacBook Pro did. Under non gaming loads (for me, that's mostly web, iOS development in Xcode, and streaming movies/TV) the M1 Air barely ever gets even slightly warm.
- germinalphrase 3y agoThat’s great. Thank you.
- Spunkie 3y agoI've been pretty excited for the airjet to start making it into products but also I hope they open up D2C orders for tinkerers soon. As a normal consumer I can buy every other part of my laptop or desktop all the way down to most individual electrical components. I get that it's a new product that requires good engineered integration to really show off how amazing it is, so they want to start with some flagship products... But if Frore Systems starts treating the airjet like it's a secret sauce to be slowly doled out to manufactures it'll just make me suspicious of their claims and the airjets real world usability.
- killjoywashere 3y agopiezoelectric cooling has left a history of ruins because it doesn't account for condensation, particularly in small, consumer-grade applications where drainage paths are hard to design for. You need one drop of water in the wrong spot. Not a game I'd play with a metal-cased laptop, personally.
- digitalPhonix 3y agoAre you thinking of thermoelectric/Pelletier cooling? Piezoelectric cooling doesn’t cool air so there’s no chance of condensation.
- chasing 3y agoI used to set my MacBook Pro on ice packs when working on certain processor-intensive tasks... Seemed to help!
- aeyes 3y agoDoesn't this cause condensation?
- Alifatisk 3y agoWhat if I put something inbetween, like a cloth. So only the cold temperature radiates through?
- aeyes 3y agoThe problem is the condensation of the humidity of the cold air inside of the device, not the humidity of the condensation on the cooling pack itself.
- _lvbh 3y agoYes. I broke my Mac a few years back this way
- bastawhiz 3y agoTheir business model to try to get Apple to license their tech seems kind of misguided. Why wouldn't Apple simply design their own system? It's one thing to get licensed or acquired by a company worth $100M. It's another to try to do the same with a company worth 10,000x times that much.
- alt227 3y agoIf they dont have a patent on this thing then I would be very surprised that they are shouting this loudly about it.
- bastawhiz 3y agoEven if they do have a patent, it seems like Apple has enough lawyers that they could simply build around it. It's a trillion dollar company. They can do what they want, really.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mustaflex 3y agoI don't know how it will pan out in commercial products, but it has been a long time that I've been this excited about hardware, it does feel like real innovation for cooling and especially for mobile devices.