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My Verizon Fios set top has a feature where it periodically flashes a warning on the TV when the remote's batteries are low. The problem is, these warnings star

by gdulli 3y ago

My Verizon Fios set top has a feature where it periodically flashes a warning on the TV when the remote's batteries are low. The problem is, these warnings start when the batteries still have several months of life left. So my choice is to consume batteries much faster than I need to, or put up with the garbage warnings on my screen interrupting my viewing. I choose the latter, and yes it's a more miserable experience than I've had with TV remotes before this new "innovation." Also, the power button on the remote doesn't reliably turn off my TV. 10% of the time it puts the set top in its sleep mode, keeping the TV on. Never in my life before this did I not trust a TV remote to do its basic functions. This was a solved problem.

JR1427 3y ago
I feel your pain.
LegitShady 3y ago
assuming the remote batteries are standard AAA or AA batteries, get a set of rechargeable batteries and stop worrying about it? I have a bunch of equipment that runs on standard rechargeable AA and AAA and I feel like its not a big deal. Can't really help you about your controller turning off the wrong device. Normally the fancy remotes these days have a device selection near the top, but sometimes its just buggy garbage.
- milesvp 3y ago
  While I agree with using rechargables, this may make it worse. Most rechargables will have a voltage of 1.2 instead of alkaline battery 1.5. depending on the level set for a low battery, this may trigger the warnings much sooner. Really it’s an obnoxious feature. I can tell the battery is dead when it stops working. If the message is deemed useful then it should happen when it’s not obnoxious, say just before an “off” event triggered by said remote.
  - LegitShady 3y ago
    I would just switch them to a different pair of batteries when the message came, and charge the ones you just removed. Whether thats every 3 months or 5 months is sort of a shrug.
  - tzs 3y ago
    I've wondered why apparently no one makes an adaptor that fits where AA batteries fit and holds a NiMH AA with a built in DC/DC converter that adjusts the output voltage to emulate an alkaline discharge curve. I used to think it was because if the adaptor has to fit in an AA slot and contain an AA it obviously would have to larger in length and/or diameter than an AA battery and might not fit. But a few years ago some company was pushing an AA to AA adaptor for use with non-rechargeable batteries that they claimed significantly increased the battery life. Electrically it was just an ordinary Joule thief [1] and in most devices would not really noticeably increase battery life so most reviews considered it to be pretty much worthless and because of its misleading marketing probably a scam. It was a flop for its intended purpose but it did demonstrate that there is enough wiggle room in the size devices will accept for an AA battery that the extra volume added by an AA to AA adaptor would not be a problem in most cases. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule_thief https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule_thief
    - milesvp 3y ago
      Yeah, maybe. I’ve seen big clive play with a joule thief. He certainly thought it was sort of nifty. Might not be a bad idea for certain electronics. My experience with nimh, is that while they have a lower starting voltage, their discharge curve is much better. I found some devices would last longer on a single charge than with some of the alkaline batteries I was using. I recently bought some roughly AA size lifepo4 batteries. They’re nice in that if you have an even number of batteries you can use one and a dummy battery to replace 2 alkaline to get 2v7-3v6. Not sure how I feel about increasing amounts of lithium batteries though lying around my house. I probably wouldn’t put them in a random remote since the cost of a short is super high.
    - edrxty 3y ago
      This exists, there are 3.7v lithium rechargeable cells with buck converters tacked on so they act like 1.5v alkalynes. They still have poor performance because the converters aren't perfectly efficient and rechargeables don't have the density of primary cells, but they do work
      - tzs 3y ago
- _nalply 3y ago
  I gave up on rechargeable batteries. They break down after about half a dozen charges. Then I wanted to buy alkaline batteries. Nobody could tell me how much charge the different models have. Corporate has managed to omit this important information and prevent an informed buy.
stranded22 3y ago
Maybe if you changed the batteries, the TV remote might work properly? (jk!)

by gdulli 3y ago

JR1427 3y ago

I feel your pain.

LegitShady 3y ago

assuming the remote batteries are standard AAA or AA batteries, get a set of rechargeable batteries and stop worrying about it? I have a bunch of equipment that runs on standard rechargeable AA and AAA and I feel like its not a big deal. Can't really help you about your controller turning off the wrong device. Normally the fancy remotes these days have a device selection near the top, but sometimes its just buggy garbage.

milesvp 3y ago
While I agree with using rechargables, this may make it worse. Most rechargables will have a voltage of 1.2 instead of alkaline battery 1.5. depending on the level set for a low battery, this may trigger the warnings much sooner. Really it’s an obnoxious feature. I can tell the battery is dead when it stops working. If the message is deemed useful then it should happen when it’s not obnoxious, say just before an “off” event triggered by said remote.
- LegitShady 3y ago
  I would just switch them to a different pair of batteries when the message came, and charge the ones you just removed. Whether thats every 3 months or 5 months is sort of a shrug.
- tzs 3y ago
  I've wondered why apparently no one makes an adaptor that fits where AA batteries fit and holds a NiMH AA with a built in DC/DC converter that adjusts the output voltage to emulate an alkaline discharge curve. I used to think it was because if the adaptor has to fit in an AA slot and contain an AA it obviously would have to larger in length and/or diameter than an AA battery and might not fit. But a few years ago some company was pushing an AA to AA adaptor for use with non-rechargeable batteries that they claimed significantly increased the battery life. Electrically it was just an ordinary Joule thief [1] and in most devices would not really noticeably increase battery life so most reviews considered it to be pretty much worthless and because of its misleading marketing probably a scam. It was a flop for its intended purpose but it did demonstrate that there is enough wiggle room in the size devices will accept for an AA battery that the extra volume added by an AA to AA adaptor would not be a problem in most cases. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule_thief https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule_thief
  - milesvp 3y ago
    Yeah, maybe. I’ve seen big clive play with a joule thief. He certainly thought it was sort of nifty. Might not be a bad idea for certain electronics. My experience with nimh, is that while they have a lower starting voltage, their discharge curve is much better. I found some devices would last longer on a single charge than with some of the alkaline batteries I was using. I recently bought some roughly AA size lifepo4 batteries. They’re nice in that if you have an even number of batteries you can use one and a dummy battery to replace 2 alkaline to get 2v7-3v6. Not sure how I feel about increasing amounts of lithium batteries though lying around my house. I probably wouldn’t put them in a random remote since the cost of a short is super high.
  - edrxty 3y ago
    This exists, there are 3.7v lithium rechargeable cells with buck converters tacked on so they act like 1.5v alkalynes. They still have poor performance because the converters aren't perfectly efficient and rechargeables don't have the density of primary cells, but they do work
    - tzs 3y ago
_nalply 3y ago
I gave up on rechargeable batteries. They break down after about half a dozen charges. Then I wanted to buy alkaline batteries. Nobody could tell me how much charge the different models have. Corporate has managed to omit this important information and prevent an informed buy.

stranded22 3y ago

Maybe if you changed the batteries, the TV remote might work properly? (jk!)