Since Granola’s release on Earth Day 2010 we have had a massive influx of new users eager to try it out. Many of the questions we’ve received boil down to a wary “Are you for real? How does this work?” We understand your skepticism. After all, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, right?

Well yes and no. Granola uses a technology called “dynamic voltage and frequency scaling” or DVFS that’s been built into most computers for about five years. DVFS allows software to regulate the speed and power use of the CPU in real-time, without rebooting.

A bright idea

Basically, it’s a dimmer switch for your computer’s processor. When you’re doing your taxes or writing a letter you want bright light to see what’s going on and get done as fast as possible. When you’ve finished working you can relax, pop open a bottle of wine, and dim the lights again because your productivity needs have changed.

That’s how this works. Granola uses fancy algorithms to model your power needs and “brighten” or “dim” your CPU automatically. You could actually do this yourself if you wanted to – but Granola can do it hundreds of times per second, and that’s where the free lunch comes into play.

Lunch is on us

Because Granola can respond so quickly, you can have top speed as soon as you need it and drop back to maximum savings as soon as you’re done with your task – or even in the few seconds the CPU is waiting on your disk drive or internet connection. In fact, Granola is so fast that you will save energy without ever seeing a drop in performance.

We guarantee it.