Back in 2001 I was designing mp3 players with boost converters in them that could start switching from a battery as low as 0.9V. It was hard to find boost conv

Back in 2001 I was designing mp3 players with boost converters in them that could start switching from a battery as low as 0.9V. It was hard to find boost converters in 2001 that worked down to 0.9V. It's obviously not hard to find them in 2015. Any product that is evaluated on it's battery life already has very efficient boost converters built into it. Battery life is priority #1 for any battery powered product design team. It's agonized over in every design decision from the very 1st schematic. About the only products that don't seem to give a shit about battery life are toys. Toy designers know that you are not making buy/don't-buy decisions based on battery life, when you're looking at a toy in the store. Toy designers cost optimize their circuits aggressively, at the expense of battery life. They deserve a special place in hell for that. This product would benefit many toys. Not much else, though.