Frore Systems is a startup with $116 million in funding, and I’ve shown you its first product before: the AirJet Mini is a piezoelectric cooling chip that weighs just nine grams and is thinner than two US quarters stacked together. Each nominally consumes one watt and can remove 4.25 additional watts of heat. Here’s the question: what would happen if Frore used those AirJets to cool a laptop that normally doesn’t have a fan at all?
What the company discovered — and I saw firsthand — is that Apple’s M2 chip can run faster, for longer, with Frore’s tech on board. Without it, a 15-inch M2 MacBook Air was like a runner that can’t sprint indefinitely without running out of breath. But with three AirJet Minis, the same laptop got a permanent second wind.
Frore’s AirJet coolers have been featured on YouTube channels like LTT as well, and there’s no doubt in my mind these will be the future of laptop cooling, especially in the thinner segment of the laptop market. At least in thin laptops, AirJets are better in virtually every way than fans, and provide far superior cooling compared to fanless designs without adding bulk or noise. The only thing that sucks as an enthusiast is that you can’t really modify an existing laptop yourself.
Either this company gets gobbled up by an OEM, or their products will make their way in almost every thin laptop.
> AirJets are better in virtually every way than fans, and provide far superior cooling compared to fanless designs without adding bulk or noise.
I rather doubt they will be any better at handling dust.
You can see in the photos, that they are already clogging up.
And the probably only ran for one or two hours for this demonstration.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention it’s for use in cleanroom only.
I’d also be underwhelmed with those numbers. A user would barely notice the change. I guess the merit here will be how well it can replace a standard fan. Ideally they’d try replacing standard fans in the same form factor to make much more direct comparisons. Thinner is good, but if it drops cooling performance then I think it could struggle to find a place in the market.
I’d like to see a fuller write-up comparing cost, size, heat transfer efficiency, electrical efficiency, noise, lifespan.
“piezoelectric” suggests constant vibration. I would have some severe doubts the components on the main board designed with static engineering principles could withstand a dynamic load for months and years of use.