Mazda has a super interesting way of doing this.
When paired with an electric motor/generator, they can speed up/slow down specific parts of the combustion cycle to essentially get vvt.
I think they can only really do this as a range extender due to the fact it makes power delivery a little bit weird.
It can sound significantly better but there’s a couple hoops you have to jump through - and even then it’s decent, but not the same as Siri.
You need the user to download ‘enhanced’ or ‘premium’ voices in the settings app.
(Settings -> Accessibility-> Spoken Content -> Voices -> [Language of choice] -> [Voice of choice] -> Enhanced or Premium)
In the app you have to search for the enhanced or premium voices when doing TTS.
Yeah, I use a premium voice but was still disappointed when we added the feature to my reader app. I decided to leave it in the app since we'd already built it at that point, but it's kind of a bummer since obviously they could use Siri-level TTS if they wanted to.
And yet there's a large light festival that was allowed to run whilst telling people to turn off their lights.
Granted lights are not the highest usage items, the sheer volume of bright outdoor projectors probably uses a fair amount more than people's house lighting.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/costs/sydneysiders-sla...
Not really relevant to cordless ones but I know Dyson removed their pre-motor filter on their latest corded vacuums. If the dust chamber is too full excess dust is blown through the motor and then stopped from coming out into the air by a post motor filter. This will lead to premature motor failure over time.
The Dyson 'bagless' idea is a bit of a sham. Yes they work, but they don't work that well. They don't make as much suction as their bagged competitors so they cheat and use smaller orifices to increase suction instead of by having a larger motor or alternative design. Then in order to have 'like new' performance all the time you have to continually wash (which doesn't really clean well enough) or replace filters.
Some people love them but they don't make sense to me. If I'm emptying my vacuum I'm going to empty it into a bag anyway so I may as well use a bagged vacuum that works more consistently and doesn't throw dust everywhere.
I love bagless, it is perfect for my use case. I have Huskies and fill up the canister multiple times per vacuuming of the house. The majority of my vacuuming is just picking up hair, not dirt. I'd fill bags up so quickly, and I've yet to find one that is replaceable as quick as a bagless canister can be emptied.
It's not a sham, different use cases call for different things.
Most keyless start systems have a backup physical key[1] hidden inside the remote fob and will use very short range RFID [2] similar to older physical turn keys and their immobiliser chips to authenticate with the car ECU and allow the engine to start.
I'm aware of this as I have owned cars with this feature. Modern cars do not use the physical key to "start". It's mostly only to open the driver side door.
I've got a Zallus reflow controller off an old kickstarter - finally installed it this weekend into an old oven but haven't had a chance to try it properly. They seem quite a bit cheaper than the whizoo controller although it's much more limited. Mine doesn't control the door or heating elements independently.
Apparently a popular use case for these is roasting your own coffee beans.
https://carbuzz.com/news/mazdas-new-rotary-engine-variable-v...