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Why are people still using alkaline batteries? I have a bunch of Enloops which I pop into everything. Mice, keyboards, game controllers, TV remotes, soap dispe

Why are people still using alkaline batteries? I have a bunch of Enloops which I pop into everything. Mice, keyboards, game controllers, TV remotes, soap dispensers, etc etc. I also have a bunch sitting in chargers, so I can quickly swap an empty battery with a full one whenever I need to. As far as I can tell, the ones I first bought in ~2015 are still going strong. I do explicitly seek out products which take AAs as opposed to using internal rechargeable batteries, because I can swap out my Enloops in less than a minute, versus plugging the product in and waiting hours for it to finish charging!

elliottkember 3y ago
People see batteries as "cheap and disposable". The price tag of $15 for 4 batteries is a one-time hit that most people in the US* don't want to take. You and I both know they will save money over time, and yes, it's much better for the environment to reuse, but that is why. *I come from a non-US country, and was brought up using rechargeable batteries. I have lived here for 10 years and I have not seen a single rechargeable AA at any point.
- sgtnoodle 3y ago
  Last time I looked into it end-to-end, it seemed like a NiMH cell would need to be reused like 500 times in order for it to actually be an improvement for the environment over one-time-use alkaline. NiMH is better than NiCd but still relatively nasty.
_joel 3y ago
Because I'm pretty certain most people don't even realise they exist and it's easier to grab some from the local shop when your remote dies.
zzzeek 3y ago
we have dozens and dozens of AA batteries here, like everyone else. and your suggestion "why aren't you using rechargables" is compelling, buying a ton of these and just having them in a charger seems like a good idea. So what are the little things in my mind making me hesitate? 1. how long they will continue to remain rechargable; and if they begin to hold less and less of a charge. if they are still recharging fine for you after 8 years, that seems pretty good. 2. what happens if the rechargable battery is left inside a forgotten toy or device for 7 years? if I find it 7 years later, is it a leaky mess or still viable? this is a big reason "AA's are disposable anyway, who cares" is appealing - we have forgotten batteries all the time. if we forget about a toy and our $3.50/each batteries are ruined we could be buying a lot of these pricey batteries 3. how long do they last on a full charge? if use them for camp lights are we going to run out of light after a day ?
- frabert 3y ago
  For point 2, NiMH cells are _way_ less prone to leakage than alkalines. In fact, I've never seen a leaky NiMH cell (that hadn't completely vented due to severe overcharge, anyway)
  - zzzeek 3y ago
    good to know thanks! im going to try these out
  - milesvp 3y ago
    Yeah, at one point big clive mentioned this about NiMH, and that they have really good slow discharge variants now. I now make sure that any of my expensive gear has NiMH so that I don’t have to worry about battery acid.
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  > 1. how long they will continue to remain rechargable; and if they begin to hold less and less of a charge. if they are still recharging fine for you after 8 years, that seems pretty good. > 3. how long do they last on a full charge? if use them for camp lights are we going to run out of light after a day ? The batteries last long enough that I can't answer these questions. I will say I don't own any devices like camp lights where battery life is a significant problem. The batteries in e.g. my Apple Bluetooth Keyboard last for months. One thing to be aware of is that the voltage curve is different than for alkaline batteries†, so devices like my keyboard will start giving low-battery warnings when they are still mostly charged. This is legitimately annoying on e.g. macOS where you can't disable the warning. Why I would ever want to replace the batteries before they're actually dead is beyond me. † I don't really know what I'm talking about, this is the explanation I found when I looked up the problem online years ago. > 2. what happens if the rechargable battery is left inside a forgotten toy or device for 7 years? if I find it 7 years later, is it a leaky mess or still viable? this is a big reason "AA's are disposable anyway, who cares" is appealing - we have forgotten batteries all the time. if we forget about a toy and our $3.50/each batteries are ruined we could be buying a lot of these pricey batteries I've been using the batteries continuously for that long and they haven't leaked. I'm not even sure these types of batteries can leak? I'd love for someone who knows more about battery chemistry to chime in here.
patricklorio 3y ago
I think avalanche transceivers need alkaline batteries because they work better in the cold and have a more reliable voltage drop as the energy is drained. But beyond niche applications, rechargeable all the way :).
- sixothree 3y ago
  But lipo AA exist now.
purpleflame1257 3y ago
One thing I have noticed is that devices with built in voltage sensors will oftentimes read even fully charged rechargeables as low battery, which can be annoying. This has happened with devices as new as a Roku remote and as old as a Game Boy Advance. It may vary from battery brand to brand, but I just use the AmazonBasics.
- p0w3n3d 3y ago
  it's because rechargable AA is not a proper AA (standard) battery. It's an "all-what-we-could-fit-in-such-a-small-compartment" battery.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- singron 3y ago
  The common rechargeable battery chemistries are 1.2 V (NiCd, NiMH), but a normal alkaline battery is 1.5 V. It usually works OK because the alkalines drop voltage quickly and devices are designed to operate in a lower range. If you can fit it in somehow, it something makes sense to add an extra battery. E.g. 5 rechargeables has the same voltage as 4 alkalines (6V).
  - edrxty 3y ago
    Yeah the ideal replacement would be a 14500 or 18650 but they run at 3.7v so they would break a lot of electronics meant for alkalines. There are also CR123A batteries which are lithium primary cells and are much better for low temp applications or for long storage times. They also have a matching 16340 rechargable type which has a similar voltage. The problem is, the average consumer is too dumb to be able to understand the difference, even the enthusiast flashlight/dive light/firearm light people have some holdouts who insist everything should just be alkalyne because they don't understand any of this.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
mattmaroon 3y ago
I use plenty of rechargeable batteries, but I also use disposables. Disposable batteries hold significantly more charge and sometimes that matters. For instance my smart lock if I fill with rechargeables I find myself having to call a locksmith. I think that might be not only due to the lower capacity but that it holds closer to voltage until completely drained so it prevents the lock from giving me adequate warning. I also have a property that’s an AirBnB and I’m sure those tenants are animals, so I leave the disposables for things like remotes. They would just dispose of rechargeables if I let them.
- cogman10 3y ago
  > Disposable batteries hold significantly more charge and sometimes that matters. Not really true but also not wrong. Disposable batteries tend to be on par with rechargeable when it comes to charge. Disposable AA 2850mAh [1] Rechargeable 2000mAh [2] What you are (likely) experiencing is that rechargeable batteries tend to have much higher self discharge rates than disposables. The end result is the rechargeable feel like they have less capacity as they seem to last for a shorter period of time. Further, the lower voltage tends to also push you to need to recharge them because your devices fail to work at the lower voltages. The dastardly part of rechargeable is you can get like 3500mAh AA but you shouldn't because those tend to have absurdly high self discharge rates. (AFAIK) The enloop batteries tend to be the best when it comes to self discharge, but at the cost of lower total capacity. [1] https://www.supplyhog.com/c/electrical/batteries-flashlights/household-batteries/p/duracell-coppertop-alkaline-battery-12 https://www.supplyhog.com/c/electrical/batteries-flashlights... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-BK-3MCCA4BA-eneloop-Pre-Charged-Rechargeable/dp/B00JHKSN76 https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-BK-3MCCA4BA-eneloop-Pre-Cha...
  - mattmaroon 3y ago
    Ummm 2850 is significantly higher than 2000. 40% is significant.
kgermino 3y ago
I is rechargeable a for almost everything, but I have some devices which don’t tolerate the lower voltage of NiMH
p0w3n3d 3y ago
eneloop battery is not a proper AA battery. Proper alkaline battery does 1.7V when charged, while eneloop does max. 1.5V (usually 1.45V and deteriorate over time). Some electronics which depend on this, will malfunction or work very shortly on rechargable eneloop or similar. this chart https://www.prosoundweb.com/images/uploads/Fig1CTA_BatteryGraph_Burned.jpg https://www.prosoundweb.com/images/uploads/Fig1CTA_BatteryGr... shows max 1.6 but I witnessed 1.7 on full alkaline and 1.45V on eneloop
- tzs 3y ago
  > Some electronics which depend on this, will malfunction or work very shortly on rechargable eneloop or similar. Take a closer look at the graph you linked to. Those devices will also stop working very shortly on alkaline batteries. The voltage as a function of discharge capacity curve for alkaline falls below Eneloop about 1/3 of the way in. That means that if the device can work at alkaline voltage after it has used about 1/3 of the alkaline capacity it will also work as long or longer with an Eneloop of the same total capacity. The alkaline curve voltages falls below max Eneloop voltage after about 10% discharge. That means a device that actually needs a voltage above Eneloop voltage was poorly designed. It is either going to be ridiculously wasteful on alkaline batteries (unless the user realizes that when the device conks out due to low batter the batteries actually still have 90% capacity remaining and uses those batteries in some other device designed by a competent engineer instead of throwing them out as dead) or should have been using something other than AA batteries such as CR123A that will be above 1.4 V throughout most of its discharge curve. The only problem you should see in a well designed device that was designed for AA but for which the designers did not take into account rechargeable vs primary is that the battery indicator might not be as accurate on rechargeable. That's because simple batter indicators use the voltage to estimate where they are on discharge curve. If this assumes an alkaline discharge curve then with a rechargeable it will think fresh batteries are at about 90%, which will rapidly fall to around 75%, and then think it is barely declining for a long time until the batteries are actually at about 10%, and then it will rapidly go down.
  - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
    > If this assumes an alkaline discharge curve then with a rechargeable it will think fresh batteries are at about 90%, which will rapidly fall to around 75%, and then think it is barely declining for a long time until the batteries are actually at about 10%, and then it will rapidly go down. It's a bit worse than that in my experience. Devices with low-battery warnings seem to basically show the warnings perpetually, never on truly fresh batteries but reasonably soon afterwards. In actuality, the batteries will last for months past that point. If the curve was like you describe, I'd expect to see low battery warnings less, not more, frequently with rechargeables than disposables. Still not worth switching away from rechargeable, although I wish I could silence the warnings.
petee 3y ago
Enloops low voltage causes a few of my devices to freak out, and my guitar tuner will go into 'boot loops'. Not sure why they even sell them when they don't match the characteristics of the AA form. I only have them for tv remotes/mice. Alkaline are also reliable for headlamps when I'm in the mountains.
jandrese 3y ago
I mostly agree, except for TV remotes. My experience is that the cheap off brand batteries that came with the remote will likely last for the entire lifetime of the device, a decade or more. Replacing them with rechargeables is a waste and a hassle since even Eneloops have a self discharge curve that means you have to pop the batteries out and top them off every few years.
- spookthesunset 3y ago
  It's crazy how to batteries that come with electronics seem to last forever isn't it?
  - debian3 3y ago
    I would like someone to explain this. They are often not even alkaline. Once you replace them, they never last as long as the original.
copperx 3y ago
Why Eneloops instead of rechargeable batteries? Is there an advantage?
- ianburrell 3y ago
  Eneloops are rechargeable batteries. They have low self-discharge which means they don't lose their charge quickly like normal NiMH batteries, and can store them charged and devices don't need to be charged frequently. There are now other similar brands but Eneloops are most popular and maybe even generic name.
  - fomine3 3y ago
    Just curious are there still "normal" NiMH batteries sold now? It was the normal when eneloop was debut, but I think every NiMH batteries I can find now are switched to eneloop style less self discharging (though some aren't good as eneloop).
alanbernstein 3y ago
I started making the transition, and then I realized that it makes me think of each eneloop as a device that I need to think about and maintain. How much life does it have left in it? How can I measure that? How can I remember which is which? It's been a few years, so I couldn't tell you exactly what happened that made me think this way. But some devices worked with brand new eneloops but not as well with older ones. Also, my camera flash dies (e.g. drops from usable to unusable) much more rapidly with eneloops. I missed a few one-of-a-kind photo ops and then decided the flash only uses alkalines now.
nuancebydefault 3y ago
My reasoning is, AAA or smaller use alkaline, they start off 1.5 volts and last a very long time. (if you use nimh, they are only 1.2V). AA or higher: use nimh or li ion instead, those are generally more power hungry devices.
tzs 3y ago
I think part of it is that most people probably think that the cost of the useable energy in a battery is a significant amount of the cost of the battery. And so they expect that the cost to recharge a rechargeable battery is going to be about the same cost as buying a new disposable battery (or more...the disposable battery maker will be getting their electricity at industrial rates which are usually quite a bit lower than residential rates). And so they think that what you are paying for when you spend 6x as much to buy a rechargeable battery is mostly the convenience of not having to go the store to buy new batteries. But since batteries are sold at the grocery store and at convenience stores and have something like a 10 year shelf life it isn't actually inconvenient to just keep a small stock on hand and replenish them as needed when buying groceries, except maybe for the exceptionally forgetful or disorganized. In fact batteries are a very expensive way to buy energy. Take a 2800 mAh AA alkaline battery. At a nominal 1.5 V that's 4200 mWh of energy, or 0.0042 kWh. If you live in someplace with very high residential electricity rates such as Denmark or Germany that's about $0.0023 worth of electricity. In the US, where electricity is a bit cheaper, for the average consumer it would be about $0.0007. It would take 1400 of those batteries to get the same amount of electricity that would cost you $1 when taken from a wall socket. The result is that for most people they will save money with rechargeable batteries. The exceptions will mostly be people who have very few devices that use AA or AAA batteries. They might go through batteries at a low enough rate that the savings each time they need to change batteries isn't enough to overcome the upfront cost of the rechargeable batteries and a charger.
eternityforest 3y ago
The only good reason for a disposable battery is if the power draw is somehow that a rechargeable would have expired from calendar aging by the time the disposable is dead. Very high efficiency RTCs, emergency backups never expected to be used, highly specialized devices used for only a few minutes a year, etc. I do really think that we need a better rechargeable battery standard though. If something is big enough for it, 18650s are close to perfect, but not much is. There's enough devices like GoPros which have swappable batteries and third-party availability, and so are de facto standards, why don't people just design their stuff to use one of those?

elliottkember 3y ago

People see batteries as "cheap and disposable". The price tag of $15 for 4 batteries is a one-time hit that most people in the US* don't want to take. You and I both know they will save money over time, and yes, it's much better for the environment to reuse, but that is why. *I come from a non-US country, and was brought up using rechargeable batteries. I have lived here for 10 years and I have not seen a single rechargeable AA at any point.

sgtnoodle 3y ago
Last time I looked into it end-to-end, it seemed like a NiMH cell would need to be reused like 500 times in order for it to actually be an improvement for the environment over one-time-use alkaline. NiMH is better than NiCd but still relatively nasty.

_joel 3y ago

Because I'm pretty certain most people don't even realise they exist and it's easier to grab some from the local shop when your remote dies.

zzzeek 3y ago

we have dozens and dozens of AA batteries here, like everyone else. and your suggestion "why aren't you using rechargables" is compelling, buying a ton of these and just having them in a charger seems like a good idea. So what are the little things in my mind making me hesitate? 1. how long they will continue to remain rechargable; and if they begin to hold less and less of a charge. if they are still recharging fine for you after 8 years, that seems pretty good. 2. what happens if the rechargable battery is left inside a forgotten toy or device for 7 years? if I find it 7 years later, is it a leaky mess or still viable? this is a big reason "AA's are disposable anyway, who cares" is appealing - we have forgotten batteries all the time. if we forget about a toy and our $3.50/each batteries are ruined we could be buying a lot of these pricey batteries 3. how long do they last on a full charge? if use them for camp lights are we going to run out of light after a day ?

frabert 3y ago
For point 2, NiMH cells are _way_ less prone to leakage than alkalines. In fact, I've never seen a leaky NiMH cell (that hadn't completely vented due to severe overcharge, anyway)
- zzzeek 3y ago
  good to know thanks! im going to try these out
- milesvp 3y ago
  Yeah, at one point big clive mentioned this about NiMH, and that they have really good slow discharge variants now. I now make sure that any of my expensive gear has NiMH so that I don’t have to worry about battery acid.
Wowfunhappy 3y ago
> 1. how long they will continue to remain rechargable; and if they begin to hold less and less of a charge. if they are still recharging fine for you after 8 years, that seems pretty good. > 3. how long do they last on a full charge? if use them for camp lights are we going to run out of light after a day ? The batteries last long enough that I can't answer these questions. I will say I don't own any devices like camp lights where battery life is a significant problem. The batteries in e.g. my Apple Bluetooth Keyboard last for months. One thing to be aware of is that the voltage curve is different than for alkaline batteries†, so devices like my keyboard will start giving low-battery warnings when they are still mostly charged. This is legitimately annoying on e.g. macOS where you can't disable the warning. Why I would ever want to replace the batteries before they're actually dead is beyond me. † I don't really know what I'm talking about, this is the explanation I found when I looked up the problem online years ago. > 2. what happens if the rechargable battery is left inside a forgotten toy or device for 7 years? if I find it 7 years later, is it a leaky mess or still viable? this is a big reason "AA's are disposable anyway, who cares" is appealing - we have forgotten batteries all the time. if we forget about a toy and our $3.50/each batteries are ruined we could be buying a lot of these pricey batteries I've been using the batteries continuously for that long and they haven't leaked. I'm not even sure these types of batteries can leak? I'd love for someone who knows more about battery chemistry to chime in here.

patricklorio 3y ago

I think avalanche transceivers need alkaline batteries because they work better in the cold and have a more reliable voltage drop as the energy is drained. But beyond niche applications, rechargeable all the way :).

sixothree 3y ago
But lipo AA exist now.

purpleflame1257 3y ago

One thing I have noticed is that devices with built in voltage sensors will oftentimes read even fully charged rechargeables as low battery, which can be annoying. This has happened with devices as new as a Roku remote and as old as a Game Boy Advance. It may vary from battery brand to brand, but I just use the AmazonBasics.

p0w3n3d 3y ago
it's because rechargable AA is not a proper AA (standard) battery. It's an "all-what-we-could-fit-in-such-a-small-compartment" battery.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
singron 3y ago
The common rechargeable battery chemistries are 1.2 V (NiCd, NiMH), but a normal alkaline battery is 1.5 V. It usually works OK because the alkalines drop voltage quickly and devices are designed to operate in a lower range. If you can fit it in somehow, it something makes sense to add an extra battery. E.g. 5 rechargeables has the same voltage as 4 alkalines (6V).
- edrxty 3y ago
  Yeah the ideal replacement would be a 14500 or 18650 but they run at 3.7v so they would break a lot of electronics meant for alkalines. There are also CR123A batteries which are lithium primary cells and are much better for low temp applications or for long storage times. They also have a matching 16340 rechargable type which has a similar voltage. The problem is, the average consumer is too dumb to be able to understand the difference, even the enthusiast flashlight/dive light/firearm light people have some holdouts who insist everything should just be alkalyne because they don't understand any of this.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago

mattmaroon 3y ago

I use plenty of rechargeable batteries, but I also use disposables. Disposable batteries hold significantly more charge and sometimes that matters. For instance my smart lock if I fill with rechargeables I find myself having to call a locksmith. I think that might be not only due to the lower capacity but that it holds closer to voltage until completely drained so it prevents the lock from giving me adequate warning. I also have a property that’s an AirBnB and I’m sure those tenants are animals, so I leave the disposables for things like remotes. They would just dispose of rechargeables if I let them.

cogman10 3y ago
> Disposable batteries hold significantly more charge and sometimes that matters. Not really true but also not wrong. Disposable batteries tend to be on par with rechargeable when it comes to charge. Disposable AA 2850mAh [1] Rechargeable 2000mAh [2] What you are (likely) experiencing is that rechargeable batteries tend to have much higher self discharge rates than disposables. The end result is the rechargeable feel like they have less capacity as they seem to last for a shorter period of time. Further, the lower voltage tends to also push you to need to recharge them because your devices fail to work at the lower voltages. The dastardly part of rechargeable is you can get like 3500mAh AA but you shouldn't because those tend to have absurdly high self discharge rates. (AFAIK) The enloop batteries tend to be the best when it comes to self discharge, but at the cost of lower total capacity. [1] https://www.supplyhog.com/c/electrical/batteries-flashlights/household-batteries/p/duracell-coppertop-alkaline-battery-12 https://www.supplyhog.com/c/electrical/batteries-flashlights... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-BK-3MCCA4BA-eneloop-Pre-Charged-Rechargeable/dp/B00JHKSN76 https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-BK-3MCCA4BA-eneloop-Pre-Cha...
- mattmaroon 3y ago
  Ummm 2850 is significantly higher than 2000. 40% is significant.

kgermino 3y ago

I is rechargeable a for almost everything, but I have some devices which don’t tolerate the lower voltage of NiMH

p0w3n3d 3y ago

eneloop battery is not a proper AA battery. Proper alkaline battery does 1.7V when charged, while eneloop does max. 1.5V (usually 1.45V and deteriorate over time). Some electronics which depend on this, will malfunction or work very shortly on rechargable eneloop or similar. this chart https://www.prosoundweb.com/images/uploads/Fig1CTA_BatteryGraph_Burned.jpg https://www.prosoundweb.com/images/uploads/Fig1CTA_BatteryGr... shows max 1.6 but I witnessed 1.7 on full alkaline and 1.45V on eneloop

tzs 3y ago
> Some electronics which depend on this, will malfunction or work very shortly on rechargable eneloop or similar. Take a closer look at the graph you linked to. Those devices will also stop working very shortly on alkaline batteries. The voltage as a function of discharge capacity curve for alkaline falls below Eneloop about 1/3 of the way in. That means that if the device can work at alkaline voltage after it has used about 1/3 of the alkaline capacity it will also work as long or longer with an Eneloop of the same total capacity. The alkaline curve voltages falls below max Eneloop voltage after about 10% discharge. That means a device that actually needs a voltage above Eneloop voltage was poorly designed. It is either going to be ridiculously wasteful on alkaline batteries (unless the user realizes that when the device conks out due to low batter the batteries actually still have 90% capacity remaining and uses those batteries in some other device designed by a competent engineer instead of throwing them out as dead) or should have been using something other than AA batteries such as CR123A that will be above 1.4 V throughout most of its discharge curve. The only problem you should see in a well designed device that was designed for AA but for which the designers did not take into account rechargeable vs primary is that the battery indicator might not be as accurate on rechargeable. That's because simple batter indicators use the voltage to estimate where they are on discharge curve. If this assumes an alkaline discharge curve then with a rechargeable it will think fresh batteries are at about 90%, which will rapidly fall to around 75%, and then think it is barely declining for a long time until the batteries are actually at about 10%, and then it will rapidly go down.
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  > If this assumes an alkaline discharge curve then with a rechargeable it will think fresh batteries are at about 90%, which will rapidly fall to around 75%, and then think it is barely declining for a long time until the batteries are actually at about 10%, and then it will rapidly go down. It's a bit worse than that in my experience. Devices with low-battery warnings seem to basically show the warnings perpetually, never on truly fresh batteries but reasonably soon afterwards. In actuality, the batteries will last for months past that point. If the curve was like you describe, I'd expect to see low battery warnings less, not more, frequently with rechargeables than disposables. Still not worth switching away from rechargeable, although I wish I could silence the warnings.

petee 3y ago

Enloops low voltage causes a few of my devices to freak out, and my guitar tuner will go into 'boot loops'. Not sure why they even sell them when they don't match the characteristics of the AA form. I only have them for tv remotes/mice. Alkaline are also reliable for headlamps when I'm in the mountains.

jandrese 3y ago

I mostly agree, except for TV remotes. My experience is that the cheap off brand batteries that came with the remote will likely last for the entire lifetime of the device, a decade or more. Replacing them with rechargeables is a waste and a hassle since even Eneloops have a self discharge curve that means you have to pop the batteries out and top them off every few years.

spookthesunset 3y ago
It's crazy how to batteries that come with electronics seem to last forever isn't it?
- debian3 3y ago
  I would like someone to explain this. They are often not even alkaline. Once you replace them, they never last as long as the original.

copperx 3y ago

Why Eneloops instead of rechargeable batteries? Is there an advantage?

ianburrell 3y ago
Eneloops are rechargeable batteries. They have low self-discharge which means they don't lose their charge quickly like normal NiMH batteries, and can store them charged and devices don't need to be charged frequently. There are now other similar brands but Eneloops are most popular and maybe even generic name.
- fomine3 3y ago
  Just curious are there still "normal" NiMH batteries sold now? It was the normal when eneloop was debut, but I think every NiMH batteries I can find now are switched to eneloop style less self discharging (though some aren't good as eneloop).

alanbernstein 3y ago

I started making the transition, and then I realized that it makes me think of each eneloop as a device that I need to think about and maintain. How much life does it have left in it? How can I measure that? How can I remember which is which? It's been a few years, so I couldn't tell you exactly what happened that made me think this way. But some devices worked with brand new eneloops but not as well with older ones. Also, my camera flash dies (e.g. drops from usable to unusable) much more rapidly with eneloops. I missed a few one-of-a-kind photo ops and then decided the flash only uses alkalines now.

nuancebydefault 3y ago

My reasoning is, AAA or smaller use alkaline, they start off 1.5 volts and last a very long time. (if you use nimh, they are only 1.2V). AA or higher: use nimh or li ion instead, those are generally more power hungry devices.

tzs 3y ago

I think part of it is that most people probably think that the cost of the useable energy in a battery is a significant amount of the cost of the battery. And so they expect that the cost to recharge a rechargeable battery is going to be about the same cost as buying a new disposable battery (or more...the disposable battery maker will be getting their electricity at industrial rates which are usually quite a bit lower than residential rates). And so they think that what you are paying for when you spend 6x as much to buy a rechargeable battery is mostly the convenience of not having to go the store to buy new batteries. But since batteries are sold at the grocery store and at convenience stores and have something like a 10 year shelf life it isn't actually inconvenient to just keep a small stock on hand and replenish them as needed when buying groceries, except maybe for the exceptionally forgetful or disorganized. In fact batteries are a very expensive way to buy energy. Take a 2800 mAh AA alkaline battery. At a nominal 1.5 V that's 4200 mWh of energy, or 0.0042 kWh. If you live in someplace with very high residential electricity rates such as Denmark or Germany that's about $0.0023 worth of electricity. In the US, where electricity is a bit cheaper, for the average consumer it would be about $0.0007. It would take 1400 of those batteries to get the same amount of electricity that would cost you $1 when taken from a wall socket. The result is that for most people they will save money with rechargeable batteries. The exceptions will mostly be people who have very few devices that use AA or AAA batteries. They might go through batteries at a low enough rate that the savings each time they need to change batteries isn't enough to overcome the upfront cost of the rechargeable batteries and a charger.

eternityforest 3y ago

The only good reason for a disposable battery is if the power draw is somehow that a rechargeable would have expired from calendar aging by the time the disposable is dead. Very high efficiency RTCs, emergency backups never expected to be used, highly specialized devices used for only a few minutes a year, etc. I do really think that we need a better rechargeable battery standard though. If something is big enough for it, 18650s are close to perfect, but not much is. There's enough devices like GoPros which have swappable batteries and third-party availability, and so are de facto standards, why don't people just design their stuff to use one of those?