I think rechargeable is overall better than needing a thousand batteries that you just throw away to sit in a landfill, but agree they desperately need to 1) Normalize and standardize batteries and 2) Not use shitty ones that need charging every 2 day. We have standardized rechargeable AA and AAA batteries, if anything just encourage using those.
this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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Mildly Infuriating
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All the batteries in my house are double A and Triple A rechargeable. Use them for the Xbox and the remotes.
But I agree with OP sick of batteries that last one to two days. And cables today suck. Back in the old days the charger got with my phone lasted for years. Now it seems the cables lucky they last 6 months.
WTH do people do with their cables? I haven't had one fray/fail on me... ever, and I pay zero attention to them.
Yeah this. Last cable had fray was nearly 20 years ago and it was cheap junk, known to buckle under use. But these days, even $5 cables from 7/11 are quite decent.
I guess stop trying to hang elephants with them? 🤷♂️
This is how I do it too, we just got a second charger so we could keep more than 4 charged, mostly for remotes and controllers. Agree with cables, I've had shit luck with anything from Amazon, it's about a 50/50 shot if the cable will last more than a month, I'd be happy to hear where people buy quality cables.
Yeah that's the thing, battery sizes already have standards. We need to force the industry to use them though instead of the wild west diarrhea that is current LIon and LiPo batteries.
Buying shit tier stuff is gonna give your a shit tier experience. Have more discretion in your shopping, which could mean holding out for quite awhile, and you'll eventually find a USB-C option.
It has been my experience that electronics are the only thing where "you get what you pay for" actually applies. If you're getting tired of your cheap shit falling apart, spend more money to get not cheap shit.
For sure with electronics development equipment.
You can get by with a 10€ logic analyzer, 20€ soldering iron, and 80€ oscilloscope, but the experience of a 280€ Salae, a high end Weller, and a 3000€ Keysight scope is a whole other experience.
I'm of much the same opinion, and I refuse to buy certain categories of gadget if the battery is not replaceable with a commodity type. This is becoming increasingly difficult.
Note that this doesn't have to be AAA/AA batteries, either. The reason so many little gizmos use lithium-whatever rechargeable batteries is because the energy density of lithium is way better than consumer alkaline batteries (with some exceptions that I'll get to; keep your shirt on) and because they're available in a lot of form factors -- particularly flat ones -- that are easy to jam into the product.
For instance, I have quite a few flashlights that take rechargeable lithium chemistry 18650 cells. Some of these allow for charging the battery in the light with a USB cable or whatever, but the important point is if the battery takes a shit I can just take it out and replace it with another one easily and cheaply. I cringe every time I see the backpacking dudebros recommending "slim" USB-rechargeable-only lights to each other like they're all the best thing ever, but which will inevitably be landfill in a year or two when their little nonreplaceable batteries give up the ghost. Hikers look at me like I have a fish for a head when I mention I use an 18650 light. "But it's so heavy!" Sure, and it gets 4 times the battery life of your little stupid light, and it will last forever. I also still have a digital camera that runs off of AA's, and several other oldschool odds and ends of that ilk.
If you are using a gadget that takes consumer AA or AAA cells, by the way, you can now get lithium rechargeable versions of these which are in most cases superior to both disposable alkalines and rechargeable NiMH cells. Whatever you do, don't run everything you own off of disposable alkalines. That's just stupid.
Well, I still go for eneloop for aa/aaa uses personally, but that's a big hell yeah on this comment :)
I've got a black diamond headlamp that I've been using for 20 years. Cost me less than $40, runs in triples, has seen some serious shit, been banged, stomped, and submerged. It's still going strong (I assume. It's been in a box for a year, but the last time I left it in a box for two years, it just needed new batteries).
I used to. I had a Black Diamond ReVolt that mysteriously took a shit one day after almost precisely 1 year of ownership. I replaced it with another one, the new "updated" model, and it did the same thing. So I gave up, and now I have a Shenzen Express no-brand 18650 headlamp that's been serving me well for about three years. It also cost like a quarter as much. I give up on Black Diamond lights. (I also hope my Black Diamond ATC doesn't have a hidden built in expiration date, either...)
My 18650 light has just under 4 times the available battery capacity as my old ReVolt. I run a 3600 mAh cell in it, versus the 950 mAh or so AAA's I could put in the old Black Diamond. And if push comes to shove I can always just pop the cell out of it and swap in another while the first one is charging.
I will point out for any existing ReVolt owners, as well, that the batteries Black Diamond include with the thing are absolute trash. Mine came with 750 mAh cells in it which were far behind state of the art even back when I bought my first one. If you want to put higher capacity cells in it, note that Black Diamond saved a nickel by not including any chemistry sensing hardware in the headlamp; it "detects" their NiMH cells by way of a set of contacts in the battery compartment that touch an unwrapped section of their cells. If contact is made it assumes you have rechargeables in there and if it isn't it assumes you loaded disposable cells and won't charge them. If you want to use aftermarket batteries with it and allow them to charge in the headlamp, you'll have to either peel some of the wrapping off of your cells or apply some foil tape or something. (This is surely to prevent imbeciles from putting alkalines in there and plugging it in, causing them to go off bang.)
I think single-use batteries should be banned. Whenever I go to the weed store and I see them selling/advertising disposable vapes I can't help but feel a hint of rage. All my AA and AAA batteries are rechargeable now. Hopefully soon everything will use USB-C and graphene batteries and supercapacitors will be common.
I think single-use batteries should be banned.
Unfortunately, some devices simply don't work unless you have the voltage curve of an alkaline/lithium battery, or they'll show a "low battery" even with a relatively fresh NiMh rechargeable batteries.
If devices could all accept lithium rechargeable batteries, or something else better than NiMh, then there'd be very little reason why you'd need to use single-use batteries.
I'd love to take advantage of super capacitors if they became more readily available. Many dashcams use them instead of internal batteries, and they make a HUGE difference when using them in the cold, and they are safer than using lithium batteries in the summer heat, too.
Could try nickel zinc batteries in those maybe.
Interesting. I hate AAA batteries and only buy things that I can charge with USB cables. I hate having to replace and throw away batteries all the time.
I assume op was talking about rechargeable AAA batteries. At least then they're hot swappable.
Even better would be if more devices used the lithium ion cylindrical cells. Higher power and energy density, while also being a standardized form factor that can be switched out as needed.
Key is standardisation, we should all move to li-ion but not at the cost of random shapes and non-swappable. Everything should have similar 3-4 form factor batteries and easily replaceable. Also the charging connector, everything should have USB c, barrel connector should be banned or be forced to just use one single size
Maybe in buying the wrong AAA batteries but I'm struggling to make them last longer than a few cycles
That sounds like you need better brand. when the inventor got 500 cycles on their patented design 60 years ago... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel%E2%80%93metal_hydride_battery
Sanyo Eneloops are great. I have some really old ones with a lot of cycles from my Xbox controller.
The “USB C” charger laws in the EU should help with this. As should the “right to repair” laws that are emerging.
Consider all the dinky appliances that end up in the garbage when their non-replaceable battery fails (like electric toothbrushes and razors). This is specially bad when the manufacturer chooses to use a lithium ion battery. Great way to start a fire in the garbage truck.
USB-C makes things kinda worse, in a way.
In the past you could slap together an adapter by chopping up some old cable and slapping it to a new power supply. And things would work, even if voltage or power ratings didn't match exactly, or even at all (although, things would usually work much worse then).
I've jury rigged an adapter for my laptop, which uses a 65w, 20v power brick, to run off a 45w, 16v one, when mine died and I needed to access the files. It worked, as long as I wasn't using doing anything too computationally intensive on the thing.
If the laptops used USB-C, that is very likely would not have worked at all. Chances are, the manufacturer of the smaller laptop would've bundled the cheapest power brick that covers the needs of the machine, so it would've most likely been 45w, 15v over power delivery. And mine would've been 65w, 20v over power delivery. And since everything in USB-C world has to talk to each other and agree beforehand, chances are, nothing would even try to work, even if it, realistically, can.
Uh no. USB C means you can grab a duck head or cable from any other USB C device and plug it in without having to worry about the correct connector or voltage. It’s part of the design, and it’s why the EU mandates all cell phones switch to it. Some duck heads may charge more slowly than others, but it should still work.
USB-C is an interface that can be used for a variety of different things. There are different "levels" of power delivery, there's thunderbolt, there's DisplayPort-over-USB-C, etc. And for things to work, the devices on both ends of the cable and the cable itself must comply with any given standard.
For example, on some laptops you can't use a USB-C port with thunderbolt for charging the device, nor the port that supports power delivery to connect thunderbolt devices. While using the same physical interface, the ports are not interchangeable. Even if you're connecting everything right, nothing is going to work if the cable you're using isn't specced properly (and trying to figure out the spec of a cable you have, considering they rarely have any labeling, is, definitely, fun).
If anything, USB-C makes everything harder and more convoluted, because instead of using different ports and plugs for different standards, it's now one port for nigh everything under the sun. If you want things to work, nowadays, you have to hunt down cable and port specs to ensure everything is mutually compatible.
Sad thing is, it's not entirely true: I have a baby night light that charges with usb-c. But only if you have some old usb-a brick on the other side of the cable. Nut a single usb-c to usb-c cable and charger combination I tried worked neither does the charger ofy ThinkPad work.
Another thing I hate is that those usb-c phone ports always suck up lint, and at some point refuse to work. Which makes cleaning needed and might break your charging port.
And yeah, I still think it's the best option available.
Did you try flipping the cable over? Some of the ports or cables that use USB C are super cheaply made and get rid of the flippability.
Which is part of the problem...
You're gonna want a room full of AAA batts if you want your phone to last a year, not to mention that you have to set the date and time every time you reboot your device since it's got no charging port and you have to replace the batts which contain date and time information.
Rechargable AAA batts are not very easy to find where I'm from. I'm probably guessing that's not the case where you live.
And don't even think about playing graphically intensive video games on that thing, the batt is gonna die within 3 minutes due to the insane power consumption.
And your phone better have a DC input incase you DON'T wanna use the batt, but then you have to leave it plugged into the wall when you wanna use it, so it basically becomes a house phone (but it's smrt).
The only solution is to wait until the EU enforces replaceable batts on everyone, then move to an EU country. I recommend Belgium if you lack self-love like I do.
Also, did you notice that I never called them "batteries" until this point. Because I also hate them. But they're super important nowadays.
but even with new eu regularities, phones most probably won't be forced to have swappable batteries
Oh well
For sure. When I get something new, regardless of what it is, I tend to look for whether it takes regular batteries or not.
Take bike lights, for example. So many use non-removable batteries. Why? If you run out of power with one, you're SOL. The best ones I own take 18650 batteries, you can swap them, upgrade them, and carry as many as you need as spares.
I hate, absolutely HATE the fact that phones don't have swappable batteries like they used to. Right now, the only reason I'd have to replace my perfectly good phone is because of battery degradation. Previously, I'd just buy a replacement, pop it in, and I'm good to go for another few years at least.
But even back then, every phone model had a different battery. Now it would just be worse with how specialized those have become.
I’d buy it as the use case if you want to carry a spare battery (like you could currently carry a portable charger), so obviously a replaceable battery makes or breaks that. However, you’re giving the use case of replacing your battery when it goes bad, but phone batteries easily last 2+ years and are not that expensive to replace. This seems a lot to go through just to be able to save a little on the cost of replacing your battery once in the lifetime of your phone
And that's just the cars.
slightly different but there is a product im debating called tromataz toothbrush. its first iteration had a replaceable head but it has a bunch of its electronics in it. Its obvious it should have some sort of plastic brush snap on for the top but not only have they not improved it. It looks like they are going the other way and you have to change your toothbrush every 3 months or so. its nuts. whats wrong with their engineers!!!!
Sounds like the engineers listened to their bosses who told them to make it a subscription without making it a subscription.
Yep. As an engineer you have a sense of good design, but if you're getting paid to make a stupid design, you make a stupid design so long it complies with code.
Having the ability to refuse public-harming requests like that is why engineers are supposed to be licensed.
That's by design. They want you to throw your money away through them.