10 ms·

> it will only run for 4.5 hours That seems plenty long for something like a TV remote, if "run" includes the amount of time that buttons are depressed. > It

• Zak 8y ago
  I was surprised by the consumer behavior until I learned that it's motivated by a common design flaw. I am not surprised that such a design flaw exists, but I did not anticipate it specifically. Clear and consistent now? TV remotes are pretty low-drain, to the point that most people probably wouldn't notice their battery runtime unless asked to observe it. A more compelling argument for NiMH in devices like that would be that alkalines often leak electrolyte that can corrode and damage a device wile NiMH is nearly immune to that kind of problem. None of which matters if the device won't actually run on NiMH.
  • mmt 8y ago
    > I was surprised by the consumer behavior until I learned I guess the history is relatively tough to research these without having lived through it, since that's before the popularization of the web. An interesting more modern use case is Apple's wireless keyboards when they used AAs. I'd suggest you check that out. > I am not surprised that such a design flaw exists I'd strongly suggest you consider the complexity, cost, and efficiency tradeoffs involved in RF (and other analog) silicon design, especially in miniaturized consumer products, before characterizing certain decisions as flaws. Sometimes, worse is better. > TV remotes are pretty low-drain, to the point that most people probably wouldn't notice their battery runtime unless asked to observe it. That's my point. What they notice is how often they have to change (or recharge) the batteries. Historically, with rechargeables, that's been way too often. To be fair, anecdotally, I've noticed this with some cheaper/off-brand alkalines, as well. > A more compelling argument for NiMH in devices like that would be that alkalines often leak electrolyte that can corrode and damage a device wile NiMH is nearly immune to that kind of problem. I think "often" is, at best, an exaggeration. Do you have published numbers to back that up? My impression based on personal experience is that during the normal, useful life, it is vanishingly rare. I've only ever had leakage damage occur from fully-discharged (usually through self-discharge after over a year of disuse), and that was replaced by the battery manufacter, one of the advantages of paying more for brand-name.
    • Zak 8y ago
      > I'd strongly suggest you consider the complexity, cost, and efficiency tradeoffs... before characterizing certain decisions as flaws. I will almost always characterize a tradeoff that renders a device incompatible with rechargeable batteries that are commonly used in the appropriate form factor, or that causes the device to turn off before the majority of the energy in the battery has been used to be a flaw. I'll stipulate that it's probably usually a business decision rather than an engineering failure. Incompatibility with rechargeable batteries is a hard no-buy from me as a consumer for almost any portable electronics. > Do you have published numbers to back that up?* I don't. I suspect people who have numbers about this (battery makers) really don't want to disclose them. My perception that alkalines leak often comes from moderating /r/flashlight. I've also seen it in person quite a few times, mostly with devices belonging to friends or family that aren't used often.
      • mmt 8y ago
        > a tradeoff that renders a device incompatible with rechargeable batteries that are commonly used in the appropriate form factor I still think you're ignoring history as well as exaggerating "commonly". Even alkaline wasn't the first primary cell chemistry type. You impliy that it's trivial to add rechargeables to the existing engineering for multiple chemistries with actually similar voltage profiles, without showing how. > a business decision rather than an engineering failure A distinction without a difference. The engineers are there to support the business, not a future armchair critic's ideal of excellence. > I suspect people who have numbers about this (battery makers) really don't want to disclose them. Certainly the manufactuers don't want to disclose numbers for consumer products. However, if it were as often as you suggest, I would expect there to be numbers, after all these decades, from someone like Consumer Reports. Also, there's a reasonable chance that industrial versions have published numbers. > My perception that alkalines leak often comes from moderating /r/flashlight. Is that a forum where commenters tend to report such experiences with full data (numerator and denominator, including when the numerator is zero), or are they more likely only to complain at failure? Are they representative of the average consumer's usage patterns? > I've also seen it in person quite a few times, mostly with devices belonging to friends or family that aren't used often. As I mentioned, this is consistent with my own personal experience. However, because this is subject to (a weird backwards version of) Survivorship Bias, I come to the opposite conclusion. Put another way, it's likely that some huge proportion, if not all, of alkaline batteries will leak (perhaps even catastrophically) if left sitting around long enough. The key here is "long enough". Since the vast majority of users actually remove and discard way before that point, it's too rare in practice.