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Comment by xvedejas

3 years ago

The author mentions power use being a factor. Last I did some research into this, smartphones are by far the most power-efficient general-purpose computers broadly available, using several times less power than something like a raspberry pi. I wonder if running an open-source OS on smartphones was considered for their sailboat permacomputing?

100r also is experimenting in hardware that can survive being thrashed around at sea. Or that is a key constraint of theirs. And I think a lot of smartphones fail this criteria.

Also when your powersource is solar powered batteries, the small differences probably don’t matter a whole lot.

  • Cell phones seem pretty well suited, might have to add a ziplock bag to be water proof. What failure modes do you think would be common?