this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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While looking for uses for old disposable AA batteries, I ran across the Batteriser from 2015. Clearly, it was a flop of some sort, as I am posting in 2024. What happened? Are there any iterations that do work?

https://money.cnn.com/2015/06/02/technology/make-battery-last-longer-batteriser/index.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batteroo_Boost

Also, are there any uses for old batteries?

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[–] Ep1cFac3pa1m 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I use rechargeable AAs and AAAs in all of my remotes, controllers, mice, etc, and the kids’ toys are so chaotic that I wouldn’t put anything in them I wasn’t willing to lose, so the batteriser has literally no value to me. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

And I've heard rechargeable batteries don't even leak, that would be another plus.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Not leaking would be huge. I forgot about that. Lithium are great for not leaking, but crazy expensive.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Why don’t we have lithium ion AA batteries yet? I’ve seen lithium iron phosphate.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think it has the wrong voltage. 4.2V instead of 1.5V.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I know nothing, but I am surprised the voltage issue cannot be efficiently fixed with a circuit.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

@ripe_[email protected] posted a link to such a product, it's possible. The question is: is it viable...

The chemicals in NiMH rechargeable batteries aren't that rare/expensive and it works.

Adding a circuit needs additional space in that small form-factor that takes away from the space the actual battery could occupy. And the circuit needs power itself. And the chips costs additional money, and it's more complicated to manufacture which costs yet more money. I can only imagine you end up with a product that's about on the same level with the regular batteries, just more expensive.

And I'm not sure about the market for AA batteries. Nowadays lots of products have batteries soldered inside of them. And the next step in tech is probably not a backwards-compatible AA battery, but something like the 18650, which is already widely adopted. And they come in the size of AA batteries as well, called: 14500 Lithium Batteries.

[–] ripe_banana 2 points 10 months ago

Random duckduckgo search brought me to this product. Maybe they are not comercially viable yet?

[–] hinterlufer 1 points 10 months ago

There are, but to use them as a replacement for NiMH/Alkaline cells, they need voltage conversion and typically have a built in charging circuit so you can charge then via USB-C for example. Theyre expensive, have a similar capacity compared to NiMH and can't be charged in a regular battery charger.

On an other note, there are 1.5V lithium batteries (non-rechargable). They supposedly have a higher capacity and last longer.

And then there are 14500 Li-Ion cells that are about the size of an AA cell but run at 3.6V.