Archive: https://archive.today/SUWaO From the post: >>[Bogdan Micea] uses a laptop cooler, but was a bit annoyed that his cooler would run at the same power no matter how hard the laptop was working. Rather than keep adjusting the cooler’s power manually, he automated it by installing an Arduino Pro Micro as a controller in the cooler and writing a Rust controller application for his computer. [Bogdan]’s cooler is controlled by four buttons, which can have different functions depending on how long they’re pressed. After mapping out their functionality and minor quirks, [Bogdan] soldered four transistors in parallel with the buttons to let the Arduino simulate button presses; another four Arduino pins accept input from the buttons to monitor their state. The Arduino USB port connects to the cooler’s original USB power input, so the cooler looks superficially unchanged. When the cooler starts up, the Arduino sets it to a known state, then monitors the buttons. Since it can both monitor and control the buttons, it can notify the computer when the cooler’s state changes, or change the state when the computer sends a command.