Sam D'Amico Profile picture
founder/ceo of impulse @impulselabs_
3 subscribers
Jul 1 6 tweets 2 min read
We have a giant announcement at @ImpulseLabs_ — we're partnering with Zephyr to launch our technology in showrooms nationwide, starting this year.

Zephyr is a leader in ventilation, refrigeration, and microwaves — and soon will have the highest performance cooking technology. Image
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This is a GIANT deal in the appliance space — distribution is the whole ballgame. Market leaders like Zephyr have global showroom footprints and operate sophisticated logistics networks for distribution and repair.

We can stay lean and tech-focused — but everywhere. initial showroom drop (stay tuned for more)
Nov 25, 2024 4 tweets 2 min read
If you or one of your friends want an @ImpulseLabs_ stove ... it's a good time to order.

We're in the last day of a sale (and new orders ship pretty soon -- Q1)

Also have a bit of an engineering update... Image We've spent a ton of effort across hardware and software to deliver active temperature sensing to stoves for the first time -- and this means the top surface of your pan, not some indirect measurement.

What does that mean in practice?
- oil doesn't smoke
- food doesn't burnImage
Oct 14, 2024 4 tweets 2 min read
We’re cooking — and I genuinely think we made something super special @ImpulseLabs_

And we mean it — at scale. The team has brought up an incredibly impressive supply chain that let us completely supersede the legacy power electronics suppliers that everyone else uses, enabling our active temperature sensing technology and even our knobs. Image
Aug 22, 2024 9 tweets 4 min read
Doing a quick thread on the backstory here @ImpulseLabs_

We realized that putting battery packs in appliances made it possible to greatly exceed the available power you'd get from the wall -- and could crush other stoves at boiling water, getting pans up to temp, etc.

BUT Let's imagine you put a dry pan on the stove, or let all the available water boil off. At 10,000 watts -- you would quickly have a glowing red pan (image approximate).

We had to figure out a solution that could track the pan's temperature as it quickly rises. Image
Jul 3, 2024 9 tweets 3 min read
Why no one has home storage — YET

Battery pack prices have totally collapsed — at high volumes, this means that enough batteries to *totally flatten* a home’s peak electricity demand cost no more than about $1,500. That means never paying for electricity from 4-9PM. Image Likewise, inverters (how you connect a battery (DC device) to the AC grid, have also been going down in costs (dollars per peak watt), driven by manufacturing volumes and power electronics innovations. Image
Jul 1, 2024 4 tweets 2 min read
FOUR key things in the past 20-30 years are causing the physical world to electrify:
1) magnets got way better, enabling high torque permanent magnet motors. Image 2) power transistors (what’s needed to power electric motors and convert DC <> AC power) got more power dense and more efficient. Silicon is being displaced by Silicon Carbide and Gallium Nitride.
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Jan 8, 2024 7 tweets 2 min read
So we (@ImpulseLabs_ ) made the highest performing ... stove.
- 3x the performance of induction and ~5x gas (equiv. of ~72,000 BTU/h!).
- A nontrivial advance in temperature sensing, transforming cooking.
- And it ships this year (taking deposits starting ... today). Image This is enabled via a custom, high-discharge 3 kWh LFP battery pack, which we've co-developed with an industry leading partner. We've also developed fully custom power electronics and controls software that are a step above the rest of the industry.
Nov 15, 2022 6 tweets 4 min read
We’ve raised a $20M Series A from @Lux_Capital @fifthwallvc @lachygroom @constructcap and many others to accelerate decarbonization in the home.

This is in addition to a $5M seed round last year from @Lux_Capital, @constructcap, and @lachygroom.

techcrunch.com/2022/11/15/imp… Our first product is something that’s been in the climate zeitgeist for a while, and the sole reason many homes keep gas lines at all — the stove.

We figured out a huge trick to make the best one.
Feb 23, 2021 5 tweets 2 min read
SF should wait on indoor dining for at least a few more weeks, we literally don’t have enough immunity from prior infection+vaccines to make this work safely yet.

We have the opportunity, by keeping stuff closed a bit longer, to durably crash cases to 0.

sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/02/22/cov… Note to skeptics here:
Miami is probably like 55-60% immune between infections and vaccines
LA is probably 40-45% immune
SF is maybe like 25%
(See COVID19-projections.com)
Feb 21, 2021 9 tweets 3 min read
The sort of pop science view of "spooky aerospace" involves UFOs and Area 51 and stealth planes, but I've been thinking about a different sort of theory of what's plausible with some new evidence: 1. Elon Musk's comments on "structural batteries" for future vehicles, where the cell casings serve the same purpose as hexagonal core materials used in composite construction. This then allows some "dual use" of batteries as structural materials, lessening battery mass impact.
Jan 18, 2021 6 tweets 1 min read
Prediction: vaccine distribution sluggishness in CA will be mostly resolved in about 2 weeks SF dashboard is now up, looks like there was a definite acceleration in vaccination rates over the past 2 weeks data.sfgov.org/stories/s/COVI…
Nov 23, 2020 25 tweets 7 min read
In the theme of this thread, here’s been my experience with going to Taiwan. I’m currently in quarantine for another 14 hours so...

First: how do you go to Taiwan? Aren’t their borders closed?

The government set up a pretty slick digital nomad visa called the gold card. 1/ This is equivalent to a residence permit and work permit among other things and allows you to effectively move to Taiwan for up to 3 years without renewal. Fairly sweet program - doesn’t require you to change your job and doesn’t automatically have tax implications.
Nov 20, 2020 5 tweets 1 min read
Mandalorian really feels like a Star Wars reboot precisely aimed at fans from the old expanded universe and done in a way that’s similar to how Marvel pulled off the MCU vs. the comics. To be honest this is how they should handle past material, vs the JJ Star Trek reboot method. And I’m not getting into particular decisions with the sequels beyond having a “saga continuation” framing vs a “sandbox” framing seems to be the key to actually being able to be creative. The controversial tradeoffs for the sequel trilogy were in many ways a false choice.
Nov 17, 2020 4 tweets 2 min read
This dude being unambiguously pro mass death, plus the super discredited Santa Clara antibody studies seeding the first wave of arguments against containment means @stanford needs to do some soul searching here. If they keep the Hoover institute they should flush the cranks. There’s an entire intellectual history of what I can best describe as “highbrow covid denial” that uses the discredited antibody studies and that much hyped but totally garbage google doc on hydroxychloroquine as articles of faith to claim the virus wasn’t deadly/there was a cure