I look forward to purchasing several of the ANC fans when they are released. Far from "wildly impractical", I can see this tech being used from consumer laptops and desktops all the way to server rooms. An insane amount of noise is generated by fans and anything that can be done to reduce that, should be. As the tech proves itself, I imagine it will find its way into more and more spaces.
The part that is wildly impractical, at least from what I saw so far, is that there is an external box required for processing, and it's not small, and a boom microphone was on the demo unit. I cannot possibly conceive of a way this would fit in a laptop right now.
Ah, that makes much more sense. Perhaps the external box will be solidified into a fan controller that can be slotted into "floppy" or 5.25" bay. Laptop is much trickier, certainly. I didn't know about all the external needs.
I'm currently working on several products with ANC at work and I wouldn't worry about the boom mic. I'm sure they will shrink it given the size of the ANC mics I have on the car currently in production and what other companies have. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if there was a calibration procedure for the fan when installed in a case given the multiple places it could be located (The fan and the mic).
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Might have to get one of these new A series fans for my home rig (with no window).
When people see it in your case, they know you're rolling with the best