News beat is drumming heavily on claim that Company Extends Alkaline Battery Life With Voltage Booster. Batteriser is making its media debut, with features in all the tech blogs, an astonishing amount of print outlets, and spouted from the gaping maws of easily impressed rubes the world over: Batteriser is a $2.50 gadget that promises to extend disposable battery life by 800 percent. It is pretty hard for me to buy this kind of claims.
I could buy claim of some some improvement (maybe up to 2 times or so) on this method, but 8 times is pretty hard to swallow. Sounds like some kind of scam to me. Sounds like complete hogwash, right? That’s because it is. Dave Jones from EEVBlog has put together a great video on the how comes and why nots of the Batteriser, and while doing so gives a great tutorial for debunking a product.
There seems to be some piece of truth on the operation principle of the device, but in the end everything does not match. It is possible to boost battery voltage with simple tiny electronic circuit. It is true that a completely new alkaline battery is rated to generate 1.5 volts. The next claim that “once its output drops below 1.35 or even 1.4 volts, it effectively becomes useless to many devices”, is harder to swallow. There are some devices that fail to work when voltage drops a little, but those are snall minority of devices.
There are very many devices (most devices) that can work well at lower voltages well. For example some wireless mouses can operate at batteries that have barely one volt in them without problems, probably designed so that they can claim long battery life.
Batteriser is essentially a voltage booster that sucks every last drop of useable energy from ostensibly spent batteries. It promises: Batteriser uses micro-circuitry that lets you instantly tap into the 80% energy that is usually thrown away. I think that it might be able in good case to recover 80% of the energy still in the battery when it is normally trown way, maybe less.
If 1.5v battery is trown out at around 1.3v voltage, there is still some energy left on the battery, maybe same amount as already used, or somewhat more or somewhat less, depending on battery type how heavily the battery is loaded (web page Discharge tests of AA Batteries, Alkaline and NiMH has test results). The end result is that if the Batteriser device works well, I would expet that it could at best case around double the alkaline batery life if the device stops working when battery drops to 1.3V (there are some devices that do that, but many can work well on lower voltage).
It turns out every battery-powered device [Dave] could find worked perfectly until around 1.1V, that means 80% of the power from battery is already being used up. The premise of the Batteriser seems to be invalid. Only independent testing could prove out all of Batteriser’s claims – and I don’t expect to see such tests that prove that. So my verdict is that Batteriser can extend barrery life, but nowhere near the amout it is clamed to do, and not enought that I could see it worthwhile in anything else than maybe some very special applications.
I could say that the headline “Batteriser is a $2.50 gadget that extends disposable battery life by 800 percent” is completely invalid. Who we can blame for this kind of dis-information on media: slick marketers and lazy journalist
If this gadget was the gateway to battery heaven, si what can you do to make your batteries last longer. Four easy tips to make your batteries last longer and Four Easy Ways To Make Batteries Last Longer articles gives some ideas how to make batteries to last longer. Selecting the right batteries for the application is one thing. Are Expensive Batteries Worth the Extra Cost? Yes they are sometimes and sometimes they are not worth of extra cost. Of maybe consider powering devices with something else then disposale batteries: Alkalines have an energy density around 590 kiloJoules per kg. Burning wood has about 16 MEGA Joules per kg.
8 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Batteriser Explained
http://www.eevblog.com/2015/06/07/the-batteriser-explained/
I have a 40 minute video on the recent media claims about the Batteriser, a device that claims up to 800% improvement in battery life with primary Alkaline batteries.
Many people have asked for a much shorter explanation of the claims, so here we go, for those who can’t afford the 40 minutes
The big banner headline is up to 8 times or 800% increase in battery life, this is what the product is sold on, and what the media frenzy and headlines have been about.
Notice on the website they claim “many” device stop working around 1.3V, this is very important to note.
In their promo video they claim: “Every battery you’ve ever thrown away had only used up to 20% of it’s battery life” (my emphasis).
In the case here of course “battery life” means “battery capacity”, the term we’ll be talking about here.
Let’s look at the problems with the claims made here, as the 800% improvement in battery life is simply extraordinary to any experienced electronics design engineer. And as Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Can This thing Actually Work?
Yes, of course. There is nothing new here at all, it is simply a boost converter circuit
Batteroo are right!
They are quite right in their broad claim, most batteries used in today’s products do not have the full amount of energy extracted from then, some energy is wasted and thrown away. How much energy is used from a battery in a given product is determined, essentially, from the “cutout” or “low battery” voltage level designed into the product. i.e. the voltage at which the product stops working or tells you to replace the battery.
The interesting thing to note here is that for Batteroo’s claimed 1.3V cutout, around 45% of the energy remains (the green line). Not 80% as they claim.
at a certain higher current, depending upon the cell type, you will certainly reach a point were you will be wasting 80% of the capacity of the battery. But once again, they leave out this important detail! Indeed, in their promo video they claim every battery wastes 80%, and once again this is demonstrably untrue.
On lower power products, like for example a wireless keyboard that they use as an example, it’s not going to be anywhere near the 80% energy lost they claim, it wouldn’t even be half that.
So depending upon which quote you take from them “some”, “many”, or “every” (said in the promo video) products stops working when the battery voltage hits either 1.4V, 1.35V, or 1.3V, and hence the rest of the energy in the battery (available down to 0.8V) is wasted.
So which one is it? From a battery discharge capacity point of view, 1.3V is a lot different from 1.35V, which is a lot different from 1.4V. They can’t even make up their minds on the typical dropout voltage they are working with.
an average value of the 13 products of 1V per cell, a far cry from their claim of 1.3V
Now if you look at both curves you can see that any product designer worth their salt that wants to support both Alkaline and NiMH batteries, is going to design the product to have a cutoff voltage of about 1V, or 1.1V worst case. This means about 5-20% of the capacity of an Alkaline will be wasted, but having that cutoff voltage prevents NiMH batteries being damaged by being over discharged.
This is why you saw in my test of a dozen products, a cutoff voltage of 1V is typical. If you were designing a product to only work with Alkaline, then you’d design it to work down the 0.8V if possible to use the most energy from the battery. This is all industry standard stuff that has been practiced since the dawn of battery powered products.
Sure there might be a small percentage of really crap products out there with a very high cutoff voltage, but to base your entire product around this and market it like it apply to almost everything is just folly.
No More Battery Gauge!
One of the many things they don’t tell you, is that because it’s a boost converter, giving a constant 1.5V output for the entire life of the battery capacity, any battery gauge within any product will no longer work! Battery gauges work on the battery voltage, so your product will always show a 100% full battery until it suddenly stops working without warning.
So they claim “up to” only 20% of the battery capacity is used, yet you can get an 8 times increase? That x8 increase is even in their logo!
Something doesn’t add up here! If 20% is used as they tout then it’s a 4 times increase to get to 100%, not 8 times.
To get the 8 times increase they claim you’d have to have only used 11.1% of your battery.
BTW, an 800% increase is not x8, it’s x9!
They don’t state their maximum output current, nor any efficiency curve for their DC-DC converter. Look at any efficiency curve for any DC-DC converter and there is always some sweet spot range of current it works over. Too small a current and the efficiency drops. Too high a current and the efficiency drops.
If your product can get double the life with the Batteriser (possible), but it’s efficiency is only 50% at that current, then you don’t get any increase at all. It’s useless.
Shorting Risk!
The negative terminal of the Batteriser is connected to the metal strip that goes all the way along the battery. Most Alkalaine batteries (I’e checked Energiser, Duracell, Varta, and Maxell) have the metal body of the battery connected to the positive terminal. The only thing preventing shorting out your battery is the plastic sleeve around the battery. This has to be a potential accident waiting to happen.
To use the Batteriser with rechargeables could very well damage them due to excess discharge down the 0.6V. Any well designed product will cutout around 1V with rechargeables for this reason.
Many people will argue that the Batterier is only designed for use on “dead” batteries.
And then bingo, it brings them back to life and you get extra capacity out of an otherwise dead battery.
As demonstrated, a majority of modern products already drop out at around 1V. Take my 100mA graph above, how much capacity is wasted at 1V dropout? about 5% of the battery! What’s the point extracting an extra 5%? or even 10% or 20%? Why carry this thing around instead of a new battery? Don’t forget to subtract the efficiency!
Summary:
The Batteriser is a really neatly designed product (apart from the shorting issue), I love the miniturisation technology in it, and I’ll be buying some once it goes on sale to check out how they have done it. And yes, it can and certainly will work on some, perhaps many products and get some extra life out of it. But the 800% claims are demonstrably untrue, and unfortunately this is what every media outlet ran with. They took a blue sky marketing estimate and ran with it because it made a great story. There was no basic fact checking. All the electronics engineers who immediately questioned the claims were right in doing so, it’s trivial to prove there are issues with even the most basic of engineering due-diligence. There are just way too many downsides and unanswered questions on this product.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Batteriser: scam or savior?
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4440136/The-Batteriser–scam-or-savior-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150819&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150819&elq=ccfbff5cca934d46b7db97e5c65a40e6&elqCampaignId=24438&elqaid=27614&elqat=1&elqTrackId=146b3228c5ec43248f075d82eca5c678
Founding company Batteroo’s pitch is rich with intrigue and compelling claims:
Industrial espionage,
Up to 8x longer battery life
Products that “pay for themselves with the first set of revived batteries”
And at minimum, the Batteriser, “crafted from stainless steel at 0.1 mm thin,” represents an impressive Moore’s Law case study of the now-possible extreme miniaturization of today’s DC voltage boost and regulation capabilities. But what, if any, reality is there behind founder Bob Roohparvar’s boasts? Plenty of detractors exist; see, for example, the commentary at Hackaday and Slashdot. Here are my thoughts.
In his pitch to PC World’s Jon Phillips, Roohparvar reportedly showed via a “power meter” that adding the Batteriser to an AA battery that had been drained to 1.3V restored the battery’s like-new 1.5V output capabilities. I’ve no doubt that this is possible, but the “power meter” likely put a scant current demand on the setup. The Batteriser-boosted battery might not have fared nearly as well under more typical applications (“wireless keyboards, game console controllers, TV remotes, digital scales, blood pressure monitors, toys, and (of course) the ubiquitous flashlight”), especially when drained all the way down to 0.6V as Roohparvar suggests is feasible.
Secondly, why couldn’t the requisite boost and regulation circuitry alternatively be located within the powered device itself? In fact, as you likely already realize, it frequently is
What about Batteroo’s cost-savings claims? Each AA-sized Batteriser is forecast to cost $2.50; that’s $10 for a four-pack, plus the prices of the batteries themselves. But I recently came across a 100-pack of alkaline AAs for $15. Even if you buy into Roohparvar’s pitch that a single Batteriser-enhanced AA can replace eight conventional counterparts, the comparative math just doesn’t add up … especially if, as Dave Jones claims, use of the Batteriser might lead to a short circuit-induced system fire.
And what about Batteroo’s advocacy about keeping an excessive drained-battery count out of landfills, which would normally resonate strongly with an avowed environmentalist such as me? Thankfully, batteries are no longer mercury-filled
At the end of the day, although I commend Batteroo on its miniaturization achievement, I struggle to find a strong commercialization market opportunity for it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printed Battery Forms
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/19/3d-printed-battery-forms/
What’s the worst thing that can happen when you are trying to show off a project? Dead batteries might not be the absolute worst thing, but it is pretty close to the top of the list. [KermMartian] has this problem every year at World Maker Faire with demos based around calculators. At first, he tried wedging power supply wires into the calculator using dead batteries to hold the wires in place. However, it didn’t take much wear and tear before the wires would pull out.
The solution? A 3D printed battery form that accepts metal hardware that can connect to the external power supply. The AAA-sized plastic batteries insert into the calculator’s battery compartment and the small machine screws and washers form the connection points.
Then again, you don’t have to get this fancy. We’ve seen people do the same with a piece of wood
Wall-Powering Devices With 3D-Printed AAA Batteries
https://www.cemetech.net/news.php?id=760
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home> Community > Blogs > Brian’s Brain
The Batteriser: defenders and detractors
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4440366/The-Batteriser–defenders-and-detractors?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_consumerelectronics_20150923&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_consumerelectronics_20150923&elq=d07f37fdef3c4ad984043f962359f59a&elqCampaignId=24896&elqaid=28243&elqat=1&elqTrackId=a6394d42bf294b889e8e08119dc9796f
The bulk of the commenters’ observations were skeptical of Batteroo and its pending product, and otherwise negative in tone. Some of the comments were from Batteroo itself; unfortunately, in my opinion, the company frequently chose to engage in personal attacks on the detractors themselves (their underlying motives, their backers, their technical competence, etc), versus focusing on addressing the issues raised.
1) Why couldn’t the requisite boost and regulation circuitry alternatively be located within the powered device itself? In fact, as you likely already realize, it frequently is.
Putting boost circuitry inside a device would work. The reality, however, is that there are 5.4 billion devices already made vast majority of which do not have boost circuitry inside—which is what Batteriser was designed for.
Device makers are incredibly cost-conscience, and hesitant to add in additional parts that effect their bottom line. In my own experience dealing with fortune 500 companies, I remember that my colleagues would spend days negotiating a fraction of a penny in cost for expensive devices.
Furthermore, many electronic devices have very limited space and power envelopes. The addition of the boost circuitry adds time to the design cycle, more space, and more power—all of which are opposite of what manufacturers prefer to incur.
there are very few available boost circuitry in the market that work down to low voltage ranges such as Batteriser
2) How does Battteroo come to the conclusion that most devices have a cut off voltage of 1.3V? Dave Jones couldn’t find any.
Based on Dave’s argument, there should only be 10% of energy left in the battery with 1.1V cut off voltage. Additionally he says that since boost circuitry uses energy to boost, the overall gain is even less than 10% and perhaps even a total negative impact on performance. In the same video, he mentions that “most electronic devices have boost circuitry” making Batteriser useless. One cannot have it both ways.
We are shortly releasing a technical video that will explain in detail how a device with a cut off voltage of 1.1V has only used less than 20% of the battery’s energy, which corresponds to the charge left in a battery with around 1.3V steady state current load condition
This study shows that 10% of the batteries thrown away have roughly enough energy left in them to be considered unused, and 20% of the perceived “dead” batteries have, on average, 93% of their energy still left in them. This study further shows that if you take an average of 30% of the “least dead” batteries, 84% of energy is still left inside.
Furthermore, OfficialDuracellUK uploaded a video on YouTube that shows how they were able to light up a Duracell Bunny LED light sculpture using 192 perceived dead batteries. The video states that based on a sample from a UK recycling center, one third of batteries thrown away have up to 67% of “usable” power left inside.
3) How do you explain Batteroo’s cost-savings claims?
We absolutely acknowledge that batteries vary tremendously in price depending on where they are bought
A much more separate debate is whether very inexpensive “generic” batteries are equivalent in performance and superior in value to regular name-brand offerings.
“If I used the cheaper DG, I would just have to replace the batteries more often.”
These were the numbers he calculated for stored energies of the three batteries:
DG (Dollar Store) = 2983 Joules (0.829 Watt*hours)
Energizer = 10,798 Joules (3.00 Watt*hours)
“With this in mind, you may not save much, or any money at all, by buying cheaper batteries vs premium Duracell or Energizer batteries.”
4) Is this product really benefitting the environment in any meaningful way?
Every year, more than 15 billion batteries end up in landfills.
Based on the study done by the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, “Single-Use Alkaline Battery Case Study,” steel, zinc, and manganese are not the only materials found in batteries. Batteries also contain potassium, graphite, copper, nickel, PVC, nylon, and paper. Current recycling processes can only recover steel, zinc, and manganese, with recycling technologies that vary depending on location affecting the percentage of material that is recoverable.
We’re actually big fans of rechargeable batteries
Amazing Duracell Bunny LED Light Sculpture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JglYXZgP740
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teardown: Is the Mighty Charger a good investment?
http://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4440681/Teardown–Is-the-Mighty-Charger-a-good-investment-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_consumerelectronics_20151028&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_consumerelectronics_20151028&elq=e48d7137db544ae5bfb81620a6473423&elqCampaignId=25421&elqaid=28914&elqat=1&elqTrackId=86f0f404c3fb4f6e9838ae31f2fc6fd9
In a recent blog post, I called into question the market viability (not to mention the fundamental functionality) of Batteriser, a circuitry-housing metal sleeve that purports to extend the usable life of alkaline disposable batteries. At the core of my skepticism were several points, among them the fundamental cost-effectiveness of alkalines, coupled with the plummeting prices of alternative hundreds- to thousands-of-times rechargeable NiMH batteries. And ironically, one day after submitting that earlier writeup, yet another option arrived in my inbox.
Online deals site Meh had a one-day sale on a product I’d never heard of before, the Mighty Charger: two chargers for $12 (plus $5 for shipping), to be exact. Admittedly, my skepticism meter spiked immediately upon learning that the products were promoted by a company called (I kid you not) “As Seen On TV”.
But unlike all other chargers I’ve ever come across, the Mighty Charger purports to handle not only NiCd and NiMH rechargable batteries but also normally-disposable alkaline cells.
I’d always thought that attempting to recharge alkalines was a fundamentally bad idea, but the Mighty Charger developers claim to have the problem licked. User reviews were mixed but contained enough positive comments to pique my interest. And then there was the rock-bottom two-for-$12 experiment cost to consider. So I took the plunge.
Does it work?
My so-far experiences are mixed at best. Thankfully, unlike some folks, it hasn’t (yet, at least) shot exploding batteries across the room.
The Mighty Charger flat-out refused to recharge the latter, which wasn’t a surprise; both the product documentation and user reviews had indicated that this would likely be the case. Two of the four Sony batteries supposedly completed their charge cycles in four hours, but were left in a barely “good” state
It’s been nearly 13 hours as I write these words, and the other two Sony batteries are still charging. Bafflingly, so too are the two Duracells that started out in a nearly-fully-charged condition. This extended delay is in stark contrast to the 2-6 hour alkaline charge cycle estimate in the product literature. And it’s an important factor to consider in reference to the supplier’s cost savings claims
After considering the non-zero premises electric bill impact, along with the diminutive-but-not-nonexistent charger price tag, the longer-than-documented charge cycles, the weak-at-best resultant recharged-battery state, and the apparent possibility of an explosion, is the Mighty Charger a worthwhile investment? Perhaps, if your dominant motivation is to (quoting the product literature) “lower the amount of batteries entering landfills and their impact on our environment”
Tomi Engdahl says:
True or false? Battery myths that need to die
http://www.cnet.com/how-to/true-or-false-battery-myths-that-need-to-die/
Battery technology may not have changed much in the last couple decades, but common knowledge is even worse.
Many people believe the limitations of nickel-based batteries that were prevalent in the early ’90s still apply to the more modern lithium ion and lithium polymer technologies we use today.
Myth: Leaving your devices plugged will “overcharge” them
False. This simply isn’t true — not anymore, at least. Most smartphone, laptop, accessory and AA or AAA chargers are smart enough to momentarily stop charging once the device is fully charged.
Myth: You should always let the battery drain completely
False. Today, most batteries never truly fully discharge.
Myth: Always fully charge a device before its first use
False. To be fair, it doesn’t hurt anything to fully charge a device’s battery before using it. It doesn’t hurt anything if you skip this step, either.
Myth: Store batteries in the refrigerator
False. Storing a battery in the refrigerator or freezer is not only bad, but can be dangerous. Extreme temperatures – hot or cold and especially for long periods of time – are not good for any type of battery.
To maximize shelf life, Energizer suggests storing “batteries at normal room temperatures (68 degrees F to 78 degrees F or 20 degrees C to 25 degrees C) with moderate humidity levels (35 to 65 percent RH).”
Global Imports, Inc. says:
Great blog! Many thanks for writing some helpful tips to make batteries last longer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.tatusuosittelee.fi/tatun-paristo-opas/