this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2026
806 points (99.3% liked)

Technology

85333 readers
4110 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] kevinsky@feddit.nl 24 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There also has already been someone that made a home battery from batteries harvested from disposable vapes.

It is absolutely insane that these "disposable" vapes are legal.

[–] dil@lemmy.zip 1 points 19 hours ago

they made it harder to get pods and liquid for normal vapes compared to these, and because most ppl by these they primarily stock them

[–] amelia@feddit.org 242 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (13 children)

This further illustrates how absolutely crazy it is to produce these devices for a single use and then just throw them away, not even making sure they can be recycled properly. It's complete madness. I hope they'll be banned soon, I think the EU is working on it.

[–] terranoid@lemmy.cafe 80 points 3 days ago (9 children)

They should absolutely ban disposable but as long as they're smart about it and don't try and make it a general vape ban. Anything with a microcontroller and OLED display should need regulation to be "disposable". So fucking wasteful.

Vapes can and have always been something you can pop a battery and cartridge and custom juice in. There's zero reason to make it disposable. Make the coil/cotton/juice cartridge disposable... Like a juul was last I checked? That's reasonable.

And then next regulate how much nicotine can be in per ml. 60mg/ml is fucking insane. That is heart issue level of nicotine. I got buzzed off 12 mg/ml, used 3 or 6mg/ml regularly, and quit at 1.5mg/ml. There's no fucking reason other than harm and addiction to provide 60mg/ml.

load more comments (9 replies)
[–] michael_palmer@lemmy.sdf.org 24 points 3 days ago (1 children)

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/07/10/council-adopts-new-regulation-on-batteries-and-waste-batteries/

The regulation provides that by 2027 portable batteries incorporated into appliances should be removable and replaceable by the end-user

Coming soon...

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (11 replies)
[–] onnekas@sopuli.xyz 81 points 3 days ago (15 children)

Reusing them, even in small experimental projects, underscores a broader sustainability opportunity.

Bigger opportunity would be banning this shit.

load more comments (15 replies)
[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 129 points 3 days ago (11 children)

"it was actually a PY32F002B, powered by a 24 MHz Arm Cortex M0+ processor. The chip also carried 24KB of flash storage and 3KB of static RAM"

To process a single button.

[–] stardreamer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 54 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Because an existing SoC at scale is cheaper than a custom ASIC.

You see this all the time, custom keyboard running ARM+Linux, SmartNICs using RISC-V cores/FPGAs instead of ASIC accelerators. Even Microsoft refuses to commit to ASICs for network processing in their DCs and use FPGAs instead.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 33 points 3 days ago (15 children)

A vape is a battery connected to a button connected to a heating coil. You might want a single transistor. You don't need a software platform.

[–] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 30 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Sure, if you weren't competing with every other vape out there that has things like variable voltage settings (at least 3), a pre-heat feature, the ability to turn on/off with 5 presses, or to turn off automatically after 5-10 minutes without use, a low battery indicator, a charging indicator, a broken coil indicator...

Hmm, seems like you need a lot more than a battery, heating coil, button, and single transistor.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Croquette@sh.itjust.works 29 points 3 days ago

There is also a battery management system as well.

M0 processors are dirt cheap, especially in bulk.

They probably have a BMS library that takes a few Kb of flash.

The time it would take to make the design cost effective wouldn't be worth it.

Slap a less than a dollar mcu and be done with it.

load more comments (13 replies)
[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Well the PY32F002B (costing a few cents) even though it has a 32-bit (entry level) ARM core @ 24MHz is literally cheaper than older and less powerful microcontrollers.

Granted, if you don't do anything else than react to a push button it's still cheaper to use discrete electronic components than a microcontroller, but given that this device has a LiPo battery (meaning there's battery control involved) and judging by the picture a USB-C connector, there's probably a bit more digital logic in it, by which point a 3 cent microcontroller plus a cheap SMD crystal and some caps is cheaper than using discrete components.

The domain of embedded systems has evolved to the point that it's the best option for almost everything in consumer electronics, mainly because at the lower end there are so many stupidly cheap and easy to use choices were you don't run an OS in it but instead just a single block of single-threaded code directly on the bare metal accessing registers directly.

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Temperature control, likely something to keep track of how much is left in the device, and I’m betting I’m forgetting something.

I doubt discreet electronics can cut it at that point.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 15 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

It's so you can have a spinny animation when you hit the button.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] Mountainaire@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

This is the new, "Will it blend?" question.

[–] rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz 70 points 3 days ago (4 children)

why does a glorified heater connected to a battery need any silicon attached to it?

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 88 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (22 children)

To control the amount of voltage used in making the heat and not immediately burst into flames, for one.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 70 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It is interesting to see old tech having clever solutions for stuff like this, these days the answer is 98% of the time is to slap a CPU on it.

It's boring!

[–] ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com 28 points 3 days ago (7 children)

Wait til you hear about all the different technologies we use to generate electricity

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 29 points 3 days ago (5 children)

99% spinning a generator and 1% direct solar panels

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments (21 replies)
[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago

probably more expensive to make different mechanical components when a simple chip does it all for cheaper. how ev are cheaper than ice cars,

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Pollo_Jack@lemmy.world 17 points 3 days ago (3 children)

As a manufacturer/seller of disposable vapes, literally everyone wants refillable tanks.

Obviously the customer does too but we're vertically integrated. We grow, extract, flavor, fill, and sell. Managing the logistics from China sucks and requires a decent amount of overbuying to ensure we have a steady stream. You never know when some orange retard will close up the border to x country that makes your stuff.

I'd love to just have a CoA of the distillate, flavor mixer like a coke machine, and a fill nozzle for the customer to hand to the cashier to fill.

[–] kevinsky@feddit.nl 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

What happened to vaping?

I specifically remember refillable vaping was exactly what you had when you vaped. You had the battery unit or a "mod" as it was called, on top of that you screwed a tank that had the coils, cotton and liquid, all that shit could be individually replaced and everybody had their own frankensteins combination of mod tank and other peripherals they liked to use.

Why did that stop being a thing in favor of these absurdly wasteful disposable pens?

Yeah I've still got some of mine somewhere. I think the main reason the disposables took the market was partly that they are much cheaper, and partly that many people think they taste better. In my country the government has mandated that they be rechargable and have the flavour thingies replaceable, so they are, but they still seem to get thrown away a lot.

[–] Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Not sure what they're implying about being forced to sell non refillable vapes. I bought a Centaurus kit (refillable) two years ago and they're still selling. Though the same brand also has lines of disposables...

In reality the people buying disposables don't want to deal with the hassle that is e-juice (and changing coils). But the modern refillables are pretty good at not leaking every time you look at them wrong, though in my experience the big ones still don't like being upside down.

[–] Schlemmy@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 days ago

At the early days we had just that. I bought vegetable glycerine, nicotine and some flavour we were set.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago

But does it run doom?

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 22 points 3 days ago (9 children)
load more comments (9 replies)
[–] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 days ago

Right after porting Doom.

[–] PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 35 points 3 days ago

In my mind, nothing with a circuit board is disposable. Pains me to see it.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 13 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Ok here's my billion dollar idea: vapes that already are web servers!

[–] pirat@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Ok here's my trillion dollar idea:

SmartVape CloudBar. A range of premium smart home vaping devices that connect to (and depend on) the cloud so you can smartvape remotely (e.g. in the bed, on the job, or even when travelling).

Vaping, even locally, always works, unless your subscription has expired, there's no internet connection available, or any of the necessary cloud service are down.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] jumjummy@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago

Next up, turning these into AI web scraper bots!

/pleasedon’tdothis

[–] turbodad@feddit.org 20 points 3 days ago (6 children)

I don't get those pieces of crap. There were these fancy electric cigarettes years ago, using those 3.7V rechargeable batteries. Custom designs (saw lightsaber designs), custom liquids, repairable, no e-waste. What is wrong with people to use those crapsticks? And why do those dumbnuts don't get that these things are e-waste not residual waste?

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] goodboyjojo@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Interesting stuff

load more comments
view more: next ›