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Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

When all plane seats seem to have power these days, is the battery in a plane really a limitation? Can’t it charge while being used?

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Those outlets are usually low amp, slow charge. I mean a majority are still USB-A, and now you have to take an adapter with you. The whole thing is ludacris for a majority of people, they have other priorities for what they pack and how the hassle they are willing to accept for a movie. Parents are a non-starter, AVP is a selfish device for disappearing into your own world, parents have kids to keep an eye on. I personally would not want to be completely closed off from the cabin, first it's fucked up for the cabin crew to interact with, second I am now partially blind AND deaf to my surroundings. FOV is limited, and I doubt those cameras are very capable at low light.

Doesn’t it have some weird and Very Apple design flaw where it’s hard to charge and use at the same time?

I don’t know, which is why I’m asking. I can see it not charging as fast as it’s being used.

It's basically a laptop on your head, so a meaty 60w charger could be needed to power and charge it.

Then I guess that is fine, since airlines are typically providing 75 watts per seat.

A couple watts of heat dissipating into your face and head the entire flight is.... Not optimal. Heat is a rather important issue for VR hardware. You can't really positively ventilate the actual part that goes over your face, or else you dry out your eyes and that's pretty unenjoyable.

The battery is not located near your face, it’s lower on your waste. I’ve never experienced heat up on my quest 2, and I’m using it for mostly sweaty things. I just can’t see Apple making something that gets hotter than a quest.

This is news to me, I've always had low amp USB-A slow chargers in economy. Those old cigarette outlets can deliver 75 watt, but no idea about the amperage.

I am sure USB-C with PD will be available at some point, but it's not a majority of economy today AFAIK

cries in magic mouse

That'd be fitting. Maybe the charging port is inside of it right between your eyes so you have to charge it like their old mouse you had to flip over dead.

> charge it like their old mouse you had to flip over dead

That's not "their old mouse", it's the current mouse. We're still on the 2015 design with the charging port at the bottom. (I have one and I don't mind/care, I just chuckle once a month when I remember to charge it)

Oh wow I didn't know they even still sold that. If you're still on an actual 2015 that's an impressive mouse life. I've got a 2-3 year old Logitech MX3 (I own 4-5 MXs) and this one is starting to act up bad.

Mine is around 4 years old, but it's the 2015 design (Magic Mouse 2nd gen).

The battery is external, i.e. already next to you anyway, so plugging in power is rather simple. You could also have multiple batteries with you, though I don't know the price of an additional battery.

It's $200 for an extra battery, all of the accessories have a steep early adopter tax. Besides, has anyone confirmed whether or not the AVP has an internal backup battery so you can hotswap the external battery without rebooting it?

According to the linked review, hot-swapping is not possible - disconnecting the battery powers down the device.

In that case if you want to use it for many hours without access to wall power you're better off buying a generic USB power bank and plugging that into the Apple battery. Very elegant.

No. When it's plugged in it just passes the power through.

The annoying Apple limitation is that you can't hot-swap the battery.

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