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posted by janrinok on Wednesday May 30 2018, @07:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-man's-greatest-contribution dept.

HP gaming headset cools you down using thermoelectrics

One of the worst things about over-the-ear and on-ear headsets is that they tend to feel hot and uncomfortable after a few hours, especially if you live in a muggy environment. HP has just announced a pair of headphones that can keep you cool even during whole-day gaming sessions -- unlike other similar options, though, they don't use fans or cooling gels. At the HP Gaming Festival in Beijing, the tech giant has launched a number of new devices under its Omen gaming line, including the Mindframe headset that uses a patented thermoelectric cooling technique.

The headphones have a thermoelectric device inside their earcups that conducts heat from the acoustic chamber and directs it outside. Engadget Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar got to hold a sample of the device, and he said it was like having an AC pressed against the palm of his hand.

Soon we can spend 16 straight hours in VR without sweating all over the headset/phones.


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:24PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:24PM (#686460)

    Hope they did something about the horrible carnot efficiency of thermoelectric cooling, or it will have to come with a very large battery.

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/100W-TEC-Thermoelectric-Cooler-Peltier-12V-LW-SZUS/181947419256?epid=1349414239&hash=item2a5ce94a78:g:Pj8AAOSwbdpWXLmI [ebay.com]

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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:34PM (5 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:34PM (#686467)

    I think you're probably OK, AC. Figure my ears are a fraction of 1 percent of my body surface and my basal metabolic rate is a cool tenth of a kilowatt, even if the COP of a peltier device is much less than 1 (unless something shocking has changed since the late 80s, which I suspect it has not...) then a watt or so of peltier input power will give a couple milliwatts of cooling which is probably adequate.

    Two problems, now you're dumping heat right next to your head, and all the heat transfer in the world won'y help with the summary mentioned "swampy" so you'll have condensation problems on the electronics which is probably a value engineering feature to get you to buy new gear on a regular basis.

    Probably a cheaper way to get better head cooling is a nice shave. I don't hang with the FPS sequel crowd enough to know if shaved heads would be cool, are cool, or would not be tolerated. Or a nice short buzz cut, at least.

    Sweat is likely a big issue for VR pr0n applications or VR exercise applications. I would not want to participate in either using the PS4-VR I got to use for a couple hours.

    If would be an interesting engineering challenge to build a space suit like VR helmet that blows nice cool air on your head without blowing air on your eyes. Insert usual BS about the dangers of Korean Fan Death Syndrome of course.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:43PM (2 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:43PM (#686472) Journal

      I don't hang with the FPS sequel crowd enough to know if shaved heads would be cool, are cool, or would not be tolerated. Or a nice short buzz cut, at least.

      Online, and in the virtual world, nobody knows you are a bald head girl.

      If would be an interesting engineering challenge to build a space suit like VR helmet that blows nice cool air on your head without blowing air on your eyes. Insert usual BS about the dangers of Korean Fan Death Syndrome of course.

      Westerners don't have the myth and the target audience in South Korea probably does not care:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death [wikipedia.org]

      Ken Jennings, writing for Slate, says that based on "a recent email survey of contacts in Korea", opinion seems to be shifting among younger Koreans: "A decade of Internet skepticism seems to have accomplished what the preceding 75 years could not: convinced a nation that Korean fan death is probably hot air."

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      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:52PM (1 child)

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:52PM (#686476)

        A decade of Internet skepticism seems to have accomplished

        Whos getting the better deal out of internet culture? The west gets the "red pill" to modernize, rationalize, and reality (re)base politics and gender relations, the Koreans get the "kimchi pill" which merely mythbusts the dreaded fan death syndrome.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @01:18AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @01:18AM (#686554)

          Well we are subjected to your red piller crap, so I'm going with native English speakers are getting the short end of the stick. Thankfully the short stick fits on the short bus we have to ride with you.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:57PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:57PM (#686481)

      I've played around with these a bit in order to do what these earphones are proposing to do and it's still an energy hog. Either that or mostly useless. Sounds me like a gimmick to me dreampt up by the marketing department.

      http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/coobod.html [gsu.edu]

    • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:51PM

      by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:51PM (#686504) Homepage Journal

      I got such a short buzz cut, then Stephanie told me how much she liked it and that I should always have a nice short buzz cut.

      Then Stephanie and I did it like crazed weasels.

      To my great dismay I now have Grandpa Crawford's eyebrows. While not as full and Leonid Brezhnev's they are quite long and unkempt. Thus I will get a hair cut this Saturday morning.

      O who am I kidding? In reality, I'm going to get all of them cut.

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