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> 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 tha

by 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.
  - Zak 8y ago
    > You impliy that it's trivial to add rechargeables to the existing engineering for multiple chemistries with actually similar voltage profiles, without showing how. Even if NiMH did not exist, not being able to operate with batteries below 1.2V wastes the majority of the capacity of an alkaline. I think that's a valid criticism of almost anything in consumer electronics. It requires a very good excuse before it should be considered acceptable. Furthermore, anything relatively recent should be able to use NiMH as a matter of compatibility with batteries a significant minority of consumers have, and for environmental responsibility. > Is that a forum where commenters tend to report such experiences with full data Of course not. I suspect data like that about consumer products is not available to the public at all, though there are some scientific studies on alkaline battery leakage as a phenomenon (the first one I found was paywalled). > Are they representative of the average consumer's usage patterns? Probably. Regulars almost never use alkaline batteries, so when people post about that, it's usually their first post. They're not collectors, hobbyists or heavy users, but people who encountered a problem and thought "I bet there's a subreddit for that". (We have 35K subscribers)

by mmt 8y ago

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.
- Zak 8y ago
  > You impliy that it's trivial to add rechargeables to the existing engineering for multiple chemistries with actually similar voltage profiles, without showing how. Even if NiMH did not exist, not being able to operate with batteries below 1.2V wastes the majority of the capacity of an alkaline. I think that's a valid criticism of almost anything in consumer electronics. It requires a very good excuse before it should be considered acceptable. Furthermore, anything relatively recent should be able to use NiMH as a matter of compatibility with batteries a significant minority of consumers have, and for environmental responsibility. > Is that a forum where commenters tend to report such experiences with full data Of course not. I suspect data like that about consumer products is not available to the public at all, though there are some scientific studies on alkaline battery leakage as a phenomenon (the first one I found was paywalled). > Are they representative of the average consumer's usage patterns? Probably. Regulars almost never use alkaline batteries, so when people post about that, it's usually their first post. They're not collectors, hobbyists or heavy users, but people who encountered a problem and thought "I bet there's a subreddit for that". (We have 35K subscribers)