Except 60 Watts of power is roughly the power-usage of a Lasko box-fan. A PC, even 10 years old, barely uses any power in the scope of things that are in our houses.
The 5W of a Rasp. Pi is extremely awkward in practice. Its "a lot smaller" than a PC for sure, but not small enough to make AA-batteries usable or otherwise a portable computer. And if you're using 18650 Li-ion cells, well... that's called a laptop / typical computer in the 30W to 60W range anyway.
There's something to be said about ESP32 / ESP8266 which actually gets you to that sub-1W level where AA batteries are viable. Its just a new set of opportunities. As it is, Rasp. Pi4 really doesn't feel much different to me (from a power-usage perspective) compared to laptops, or even PCs.
The 5W of a Rasp. Pi is extremely awkward in practice. Its "a lot smaller" than a PC for sure, but not small enough to make AA-batteries usable or otherwise a portable computer. And if you're using 18650 Li-ion cells, well... that's called a laptop / typical computer in the 30W to 60W range anyway.
There's something to be said about ESP32 / ESP8266 which actually gets you to that sub-1W level where AA batteries are viable. Its just a new set of opportunities. As it is, Rasp. Pi4 really doesn't feel much different to me (from a power-usage perspective) compared to laptops, or even PCs.