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posted by CoolHand on Friday June 05 2015, @04:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the coming-to-a-store-near-you-within-5-years dept.

From the article:

A completely new alkaline battery is rated to generate 1.5 volts, but once its output drops below 1.35 or even 1.4 volts, it effectively becomes useless to many devices. The battery's chemical cocktail is still loaded with juice, but the circuitry in many gadgets (especially more sophisticated ones, like Bluetooth keyboards and bathroom scales) considers the battery dead.

This is where Batteriser comes in. It's essentially a voltage booster that sucks every last drop of useable energy from ostensibly spent batteries. So, instead of using just 20 percent of all the power hidden inside of your Duracells and Energizers, Batteriser makes effective use of the remaining 80 percent.

Voltage boosters are nothing new, but Batteriser scales down the technology to the point where it can fit inside a stainless steel sleeve less than 0.1 mm thick. Roohparvar says the sleeves are thin enough to fit inside almost every battery compartment imaginable, and the combined package can extend battery life between 4.9x for devices like remote controls and 9.1x for various electronic toys.

"The Batteriser has boost circuitry that will boost the voltage from 0.6 volts to 1.5 volts and will maintain voltage at 1.5—which is a brand new battery," Roohparvar says. "There's actually no IP [intellectual property] in the boost circuitry. Our technology is really a miniaturization technique that allows us to build the sleeve. We have some IP in some of the IC circuits that are in there, but the key is we've been able to miniaturize the boost circuit to a point that no one else has been able to achieve. "

This seems like a great piece of tech, right? Almost too good to be true... When that happens alarm bells ring and it's time to investigate further. Here are articles from theness.com and EEVblog.com that say, "not so fast."

From theness.com article:

But can, then, the Batteriser extract 500% more life out of those AAs? I don't think so, and here's why. While it is true that the voltage of an alkaline battery (and all batteries) drops off as capacity drops, the big drop off doesn't occur until around 82% of the capacity has been drained, and therefore only about 18% remains.

So, can this nifty little device, when released, live up to it's claims? It seems doubtful, but if it's only at $2.50, it might be worth a shot.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by gallondr00nk on Friday June 05 2015, @05:35PM

    by gallondr00nk (392) on Friday June 05 2015, @05:35PM (#192598)

    A completely new alkaline battery is rated to generate 1.5 volts, but once its output drops below 1.35 or even 1.4 volts, it effectively becomes useless to many devices.

    Perhaps for a few devices (digital cameras come to mind), but most battery powered things can live comfortably on a lower voltage.

    Since alkaline batteries tend to drop voltage quite quickly, a lot of battery powered devices can function completely normally on a lower voltage. Ni-Cad and Ni-MH batteries are nearly always 1.2v, and function perfectly in most devices, as the voltage drop in them is very gradual.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Friday June 05 2015, @07:56PM

    by frojack (1554) on Friday June 05 2015, @07:56PM (#192656) Journal

    The whole claim is based on the Lie you point out.

    Yes, many things are becoming more sensitive to voltage these days, but that sensitivity rarely kicks in at 1.4 volts.

    It used to be that a wireless mouse would just about drain a battery completely before throwing in a towel. Newer ones do cut out
    while the battery voltage is much higher. But not 1.4, and probably not 1.35.

    I noticed that in their latest marketing stuff they changed their claim that the point a battery is "dead" is 1.3 instead of 1.4 volts (the original claim - still not true in most cases) and now they say they it's got 80% of its capacity unused. Which amounts to 400% more power, not 800% as originally claimed in the PC World article.

    But 400% is still BS if you look at the battery capacity curve and the actual dropoff point of most devices.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.