Comment by toyg
6 years ago
I moved my desk outside in the last couple of years when the British weather obliged. A few notes:
- temperature. if the temperature is right for you, chances are that it's a bit too warm for your electronics. Chips get hotter, which can result in all sorts of problems (particularly with big screens and graphics-intensive apps, but modern storage as well is often at risk by poor cooling).
- cables. Even if you are in a mostly-covered space, chances are that your cables would get wet when raining, so you are constantly taking them in and out of the house every day.
- insects. Yes yes, nature is good and we need bees and everything, but... they are really distracting.
- environmental noise. Compared to a home office, even a quiet residential street can sound like hell on earth when you are trying to concentrate.
So uhm, yeah, fun for a couple of days, but not long-term.
Hey, that's rad that you gave this a try!
Temperature hasn't been a problem for me. My computer works fine in 35C.
There's a section in my post about dealing with rain. I used tarps. Power was provided via a weather proof extension cable.
Insects can be troublesome, I had a lot of wasps die in my coffee. Only two stings in the whole summer of working out side! As long as you don't swat them they are pretty benign. I think this is really a regional thing, there are not many bugs where I am in Colorado, nor in Eastern Washington.
I haven't had a problem with environmental noise, but I also often listen to music while I work.
The first few days I experimented with outdoor computing I was a bit distracted by the novelty of it. Takes a while to ease into it, but that starting overhead is well worth it imho
> if the temperature is right for you, chances are that it's a bit too warm for your electronics
I don't understand: we normally keep our houses at our preferred temperatures, and our electronics do fine.
Between dogs barking, new construction, and lawn mowers I would need noise cancelling headphones.
> temperature. if the temperature is right for you, chances are that it's a bit too warm for your electronics. Chips get hotter, which can result in all sorts of problems (particularly with big screens and graphics-intensive apps, but modern storage as well is often at risk by poor cooling).
This is a very AC-centric mindset. I make it a game to hold off on the AC in the summer. I have experienced graphics card overheating, but only when gaming.
A sun reflector, an extra 120mm fan, and maybe a better case should combat any temperature differences.
> This is a very AC-centric mindset
This is probably a very US-based mindset. Parent mentioned British weather - Over here it's almost unheard of to have AC at home, most homes just don't get warm enough for it to be worth the cost vs shading, regular fans, other management techniques.
FWIW I've found that my electronics tend to get overly warm also when sitting outside in nice weather.
> This is a very AC-centric mindset.
That’s extremely doubtful since they’re British.
Nobody has A/C in their home in Britain. It’s not hot enough.
> Chips get hotter, which can result in all sorts of problems (particularly with big screens and graphics-intensive apps, but modern storage as well is often at risk by poor cooling).
Why would you want to run non-trivial compute and storage in a non-temp-controlled environment anyway? That's an obvious use case for a thin-client setup. I'd surmise that some products intended for industrial, rugged etc. use can be a bit more resilient to extreme environments than your average laptop, and performance would be a non-issue.
Our office (NZ) has no aircon and in summer (ie now) my passively cooled 2015 MacBook is constantly throwing up thermal warnings imploring me to quit apps to maintain performance.