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Batteriser: a gadget that extends alkaline battery life

347 points by chris-at 11y ago

kabouseng 11y ago
I'm not sure if it is a good idea to use this device with your rechargeable batteries...
- nodata 11y ago
  Everywhere in the article it refers to disposable batteries.
  - amelius 11y ago
    > “15 billion batteries go into landfill every year,” he says, “so we can help avoid that.” So actually, it would be better if everybody switched to rechargable batteries?
    - nodata 11y ago
      It would be better, yes.
    - pmontra 11y ago
      Definitely yes, but (example) the rear light of my bicycle insists to be powered by two AA 1.5 V batteries. Two rechargeable ones don't have enough voltage to light it so I need disposable batteries. The front light works with 3 rechargeable ones. We should stop building stuff that needs throw away batteries.
      - jrockway 11y ago
        I use this taillight which lasts forever with NiMH batteries: http://www.cateye.com/en/products/detail/TL-LD570-R/moreinfo/ http://www.cateye.com/en/products/detail/TL-LD570-R/moreinfo... I probably change the batteries every month or so, which is usually about 40 hours of riding. Probably too often, but whatever. The light cost $15, I think. (Actually I'm retiring this light today and switching to a dynamo-based lighting system. No more recharging ever. Looking forward to that.)
- m_eiman 11y ago
  According to the article Roohparvar says the sleeve will also work with 1.2 volt rechargeable batteries, boosting them up to 1.5 volts., but they don't say anything about how well the rechargables would handle this usage.
  - Filligree 11y ago
    The usual way for rechargables, I imagine. They'll handle it just fine until they die from an overly deep discharge. If the chip is very clever, then it'll detect that it's working on a rechargable (from voltage curves?), and stop discharging after a certain point. But the specifics there depend on the exact chemistry used, so it'd be difficult to get it right.
- usrusr 11y ago
  No problem at all, the built-in compatibility mode will conveniently turn your rechargeables into disposables. Jokes aside, while the technology and the "why did nobody think of this before" is certainly impressive, if this gets any market traction it will cause more landfill by hurting rechargeable adoption than it will prevent by slowing the disposable battery replacement cycle.
pjc50 11y ago
This is a very nifty commercialisation and miniturisation of the "joule thief" circuit, a type of switchmode power supply.
- fizgig 11y ago
  I was wondering about that. I set one of those up a few years ago on a breadboard. It was a fun project (for this non hardware guy) and somehow very satisfying to watch a "dead" AA power a bright blue LED for weeks. I wonder how the device will perform in the real world. Where do I sign up for announcements?
- comboy 11y ago
  My thouths exactly. Looks like the patent[1] is more about the sleeve than the actual circuit (because well, I guess it would/should be hard to patent Joule thief[2]). [1] https://www.google.com/patents/US20120121943 https://www.google.com/patents/US20120121943 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule_thief http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule_thief
jacquesm 11y ago
That's clever. I used a similar trick to boost the output of my windmill during low-wind days when the voltage from the alternator would not be larger than the voltage of the batteries. I don't understand this bit: > The next step is an Indiegogo campaign in late June, and then delivery in late September. If they already have a working product and a price set and they're going to ship in September they should be well into mass production right now and such a campaign would not make much sense. If made cheap enough the circuitry could possibly be internalized in the battery sleeve.
- wangarific 11y ago
  This happens often. The Kickstarter campaign is more about marketing the product than getting funding to manufacture it.
  - shultays 11y ago
    Also free money.
- Cthulhu_ 11y ago
  They probably need a bit of money to scale up production and do some marketing - especially the latter can be very expensive. Just look at how much advertising companies like Duracell do, for a product that hasn't significantly changed or improved in the past decade or two.
- bobwaycott 11y ago
  > The next step is an Indiegogo campaign in late June, and then delivery in late September. I've a feeling that's part of this being a marketing strategy by agency|2.0
jwr 11y ago
One should be careful evaluating the claims. A good boost converter will be ~90% efficient (it can be more efficient, but not miniaturized like the pictures show). So, to begin with, you'll discard ~10% of your energy. Now look at AA alkaline discharge curves: http://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm http://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm Indeed if you gadget reports the batteries as dead at 1.25V, you can still get ~40% more usage. But most gadgets don't work that way. 1.25V is the normal voltage of a fully charged NiMH rechargeable AA, so if you gadget works with those, the real cutoff point is likely closer to 1.15V or so. The booster will boost the voltage (at the expense of current, obviously, plus losses) so that even though the battery will be below 1.15V, output voltage will be at 1.5V. Looking at the graphs, this buys you less than 1/5th, and if you consider the losses in the boost converter, probably half that. The "800%" claim seems totally bogus. Perhaps with a gadget that stops working when the voltage falls below 1.45V per cell. I'm not saying it's not a useful gadget (and I'm very impressed by the miniaturization: where is the inductor? This thing must run at several MHz at least!) — just that the claims should be taken with a large grain of salt.
- amelius 11y ago
  Also, I'm wondering if the maximum current output will drop over time. Or in other words, if the battery can maintain its power output.
  - VLM 11y ago
    The word you're looking for is internal resistance. Here's an on topic application report from (one of many) manufacturer of single cell upconverter chips. http://www.ti.com/lit/an/slva194/slva194.pdf http://www.ti.com/lit/an/slva194/slva194.pdf Internal resistance rises ridiculously fast with depth of discharge but even in the range of "ohms" you can still squeeze out a good fraction of an amp, a decent fraction of a watt. Its surprising how much you can do with a tenth of a watt or whatever, this will work quite well with a remote control or wireless game controller or a kitchen timer, maybe not so well with RC cars or laptop power supplies or the stereotypical "charge your cellphone with a AA battery" product or 1000 lumen flashlights. In the long run nobody's ever going to use cells in series so as to avoid depolarization / cell reversal type stuff. Its feasible now for low current stuff, what I'm getting at is "someday" people will be running portable drills off single cells. Its a long term trend in power conditioning.
michaelt 11y ago
“The time it takes for the battery voltage to drop by 0.1V is longer at lower voltages versus at higher voltages. That means that if a constant current was drawn from the battery, it would take the battery a lot longer to discharge from 1.2V to 1.1V than it would from 1.5V to 1.4V. This means that the extent to which the battery life is increased could be even higher.” Sure, but if you're drawing 20mA at 1.5v, you only need to draw 20mA from a 1.5v battery. If the battery drops to 1.2 volts, for constant power output you'll need to pull 25mA into the boost converter.
- rlpb 11y ago
  Right. In this situation it would be more sensible to consider how the voltage drops based on constant power rather than constant current.
- blinken 11y ago
  The article reads like a scam for exactly this reason. Sure, if you scale the power you draw from the battery as the voltage drops then I don't doubt you get a 8x increase in battery life. But if you keep your power draw constant - ie. you're actually powering something useful from your battery - then current draw must rise as the voltage falls, and it will fall asymptotically. I can't see you getting anywhere near 8x; more like 1.5x. If that. Here's a random page with graphs, because science: http://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm http://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm
afandian 11y ago
If this is such a great idea why isn't the circuit integrated into the devices that use batteries? I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult monitor the discharge rate and kick in the circuit when it's needed and the battery has demonstrated that it's an alkaline by its discharge profile.
- nodata 11y ago
  Take a guess.
  - afandian 11y ago
    Here are my guesses: 1 - they already do 2 - the technology isn't actually sound or reliable or is only suitable in very specific cases 3 - it's too difficult to integrate 4 - the batteries aren't rated for it, or there's FCC regulations, or EMF problems or standards that prohibit it 5 - it makes batteries explode sometimes 6 - it makes batteries too unpredictable and makes monitoring even less accurate 7 - it doesn't provide enough current when in use 8 - there's some massive industry conspiracy and they'll be coming for your children next How'd I do?
    - adlpz 11y ago
      9 - It's more expensive, the market won't tolerate a price rise on disposable batteries, they cannot sustain a 8x average life of their product at current prices.
    - 5xman 11y ago
      0 - "Our technology is really a miniaturization technique that allows us to build the sleeve..., but the key is we’ve been able to miniaturize the boost circuit to a point that no one else has been able to achieve"
    - blisterpeanuts 11y ago
      10 - Patent protection would add to the per-unit cost
    - 11y ago
userbinator 11y ago
Batteroo says the sleeve and its boost circuitry doesn't introduce any extra risk of chemical leakage. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_battery#Leaks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_battery#Leaks The reason for leaks is that as batteries discharge — either through usage or gradual self-discharge — the chemistry of the cells changes and some hydrogen gas is generated. This out-gassing increases pressure in the battery. Eventually, the excess pressure either ruptures the insulating seals at the end of the battery, or the outer metal canister, or both. In other words by extracting more energy, there is more hydrogen evolved and it will increase their tendency to leak. This was also posted on an EE forum I frequent, and the opinions on it so far have been mostly negative: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/'batterizer'-claims-to-increase-disposable-battery-life-8x/ http://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/'batterizer'-claims-to-... IMHO rechargeable lithium is the way to go. An 18650 has several times the energy of an AA while being not much bigger, and can be recharged. They're still not all that common in the West, but equipment like torches, power banks, and portable fans which take 18650s are gaining in popularity.
- ferongr 11y ago
  >equipment like torches, power banks, and portable fans which take 18650s are gaining in popularity Don't forget e-cigarette mods (power sources). I'd wager they're the most popular application of free-standing (not packaged in a pack) rechargeable cylindrical lithium cells (I have 12 of them personally).
  - soylentcola 11y ago
    Yeah, if there's one thing I've learned from mechanical mods, it's that I don't want to over-discharge my cells. I'm guessing that your average AA cell won't fail as catastrophically as an unprotected lithium battery due to chemistry but I'd still prefer rechargeables (for most everything) to an endless stream of disposable alkaline batteries (even if I were able to squeeze a little more out of each one).
    - userbinator 11y ago
mschuster91 11y ago
How is this supposed to work w/ rechargeable batteries? Deep-discharging can permanently kill a battery.
- muppetman 11y ago
  It's not. It's for Alkaline batteries. *Edit: I'm wrong. See below. Ignore this comment!
  - mschuster91 11y ago
    > "Roohparvar says the sleeve will also work with 1.2 volt rechargeable batteries, boosting them up to 1.5 volts."
    - muppetman 11y ago
      Sincere apologies, I don't know how I missed that the first reading.
PythonicAlpha 11y ago
I just wonder, if the video is part of a new, clever (or not) marketing strategy? At least at my computer (tried with two different browsers), the video stops after 17sec or so and is interrupted in midst of a sentence by a form to enter my email address. I just wanted to view the video to the end, but have to enter my email instead?? Either an error in the page (?) or a clever marketing strategy?? In my case, not so clever, because I will not adhere to such tactics. It could also be, that the whole thing is similar to that tactics? As jwf also pointed out, the claims are a little over the top. I don't think, that 800% are really achievable. Maybe 20-30% in real life applications. That of course could be still good, when the gadget will not be to costly and is unlimited reusable. Still the question remains, if simple rechargeable are not still better (for your economy and the environment) in cases where you have battery-intensive applications. I try to limit the usage of non-rechargeables to cases where the battery is swapped really seldom -- and in such cases, additional gadgets just make life more complicated.
cryodesign 11y ago
Why would I want to buy this gadget compared to investing my money in rechargeable batteries? I would probably use non-rechargeables for smoke detectors only. Also the environmental impact is less with rechargeable batteries[1] [1] http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/batteries/pdf/battery_report_june2010.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/batteries/pdf/battery_... Edit: fix typos
- ohitsdom 11y ago
  If this actually works as promised, it would help with the environmental impact of disposable batteries by greatly extending their life.
  - dbdr 11y ago
    Quote from the study linked in grandparent: NiMH batteries compared to alkaline batteries cause about 96 times less damage to each of the three damage criteria (for 400 cycles). So even if batteriser allows alkalines to be used 8 times longer, rechargeable (NiMH) batteries would still be 12 times better than that for these three criterias (human health, ecosystem quality and resources).
josefresco 11y ago
I got about 3 paragraphs in before my browser succumbed to the atrocious ad/JS bloat on this site. I'll hunt down a mirror/print version.
- Cthulhu_ 11y ago
  Luckily there's browser addons that can help with stopping most of the excess there.
throwaway434317 11y ago
How can other posters take this article at face value? This reads 100% like a fake ad (I mean stylistically and in terms of presentation, like the kind of thing you see "Advertisement" written in small text over the top of while it's run in the New Yorker or wherever. I read them. I like it. Because they're amusing.) The only thing that keeps it from being one is that it's on macworld.com. Like, really? Industrial espionage, a real "professional job"? "Big Battery"? Everyone here has worked on way more interesting technology than a metal sleeve and a farfetched tale - which is all this is - and who breaks into our offices to steal our tech? It doesn't happen. Nobody would do it even if the device works exactly as stated. Do these prototypes look to you like something that came out of a test lab? The only work put into them is the branding, "Batteriser" a word that is mentioned 43 times in 2000 words, including the first word of the title. I'm not calling this native advertising but if it isn't, it seems the only one more gullible than this journalist is everyone else who swallows this hook, line, and sinker. You could have written the same article but with some doohickey that lowers gas mileage by increasing oxygen mixture, and gets stolen in a brazen act of industrial espionage, a real professional job. come on. we're adults here. this article is insulting. Where are the details of the break-in, such as date or what precisely was stolen, or where it happened - you know: journalism?
- VLM 11y ago
  "some doohickey that lowers gas mileage" I was thinking if I lowered the RF exposure from my cell phone using one of those stickers you put on the battery, using some magic battery gadget in combination might very well turn my phone into a perpetual energy device.
- carsonreinke 11y ago
  It is a bit odd, it starts talking about the break in, but mostly goes into the product itself.
- DaFranker 11y ago
  > and who breaks into our offices to steal our tech? AFAIK: Shadowrun characters, and that's about it.
- 11y ago
chrisBob 11y ago
One issue I don't see addressed is that I appreciate the warning I get as my batteries die. In an apple trackpad, like the one in the "article", I get a few weeks notice when my batteries are dying. With this am I more likely to have devices just give up suddenly? That, plus the safety concerns and the fact that their math is bogus will probably keep me from using one.
drodgers 11y ago
"Batteriser can continue to deliver a 1.5 volt charge in batteries that have discharged down to 0.6 volts. There are more than eight 0.1 volt steps between 0.6 and 1.5 volts, so, in grossly simplified terms, the Batteriser can extend operational battery life somewhere around a factor of eight." ... No. That's not how maths works.
- Dylan16807 11y ago
  They explained right after that how you get more amp-hours at each voltage step. The math works for that, though I don't think it fits the actual behavior of the discharge curve past 1.1 volts...
- malchow 11y ago
  No, the alkaline battery companies decades ago figured out how to do controlled quantum discharge! It goes instantly from 1.5v to 1.4v to 1.3v!
skyshine 11y ago
Could these be used to boost NiMH to 1.5 volts? Could I finally stop throwing money at my smoke detector which always throws a fit at about 2AM if I try and put NiMH in it?
- pepijndevos 11y ago
  The article mentions it does work for 1.2v batteries. Except they forgot to mention that some types of rechargeable batteries get damaged if you discharge them completely.
  - skyshine 11y ago
    That is exactly what I was wondering about.
- jerf 11y ago
  Alkaline is still often the best choice for those really long, low draw applications. That said, if you really want NiMH, make sure it's the latest-generation "low self-discharge" ones, which do seem to be much better about holding on to power for longer. I haven't tried to put it in my smoke detector, but the low-self discharge are now reasonable for use in TV remotes and such. To be honest, unless you use your remote a lot, it's probably still more economical to use alkaline on those, but, well, my battery needs have fluctuated a lot over the years and is now trending down as the kids get out of the "battery-powered toy" phase, and the NiMH-in-hand is still cheaper than the alkaline on the store shelf, right?
  - skyshine 11y ago
    I've been using low self discharge NiMH batteries for years. I find they are better than Alkaline for almost everything. They are fine in all my remotes. Last for months. It is only a couple of items that just don't work with any NiMH batteries. The smoke detector and a clock. It's not that they run dry quickly. The smoke detector fails within 24 hours (gives a battery low warning siren) and a clock that just doesn't work.
Confiks 11y ago
I do think that the claims made by Macworld are somewhat exaggerated. This kind of journalism always needs to be taken with some grains of salt. The paragraph in which the 800% extension is described, sounds messy, and doesn't cohere with some other claims made in the article. The motivation of the story, namely that of a robbery of private documents, seems odd, and I can understand that it will immediately raise red flags among readers. Some other points in the article did seem plausible to me. Modern electronics need stable voltages to keep working properly. The working of voltage regulators is well understood. Only the miniaturization is the invention, which is patented (https://www.google.com/patents/US20120121943 https://www.google.com/patents/US20120121943), and has a very verbose application compared to other patents. There can of course be issues with the technology, of which theories are offered by some commenters. Another patent by "Frankie Roohparvar" (and not Bob as in the article), can be found here: https://www.google.com/patents/US6717853 https://www.google.com/patents/US6717853 , and Mr. Roohparvar can be seen talking (presumably; I only skipped around) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V6IKoFhBtQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V6IKoFhBtQ For some theories that commenters are offering, an elaborate conspiracy would be required, building up references and trust, only to mislead absolutely and quite likely not get away with it. Of course, conspiracies exist, but please don't think so lightly about arguing them.
- bobwaycott 11y ago
  Just want to note there is both a Frankie and Bob Roohparvar. They are the cofounders of Batteriser/Batteroo. Bob's the CEO. Frankie's the Chairman (he's also the CEO at Skyera).[0][1] --- [0]: It's on the front page of the company's "website" @ http://batteriser.com http://batteriser.com -- which is really a redirect to a page on a different domain -- and Frankie is said to have 500+ patents. [1]: Quick Google searching led to his linkedin page, and various other results, like Bloomberg research. [EDIT: clarity & wording (...and now fixing formatting mistakes)]
ferongr 11y ago
You won't get much power (Wh, as opposed to mAh) from a cell at a low state of charge. The initial lower voltage of the almost empty cell, combined with the increased voltage sag under load due to the converter pulling increased amounts of current will result in dubious amounts of actual extra energy. In any case, many complicated electronic gadgets already use some kind of voltage regulator that maximizes the runtime of the device, this gadget (if it works as advertised) would be useful only for some direct-drive lights or motors
joosters 11y ago
Where are the published 3rd party test results? If all they say is true, it would be simple & cheap to get an independent test done showing a range of devices and the run times with & without the batteriser. Their one-line statement from Dr. Kiumars Parvin is worthless on its own. Show some confirmed test results on real life items, or you are just selling snake oil.
noonespecial 11y ago
Strange that he picked a mac keyboard for the demo. Mine works until the batteries reach 0.8v each. Batteries that are long "dead" in my kids toys make my keyboard work for weeks. (Of course the Mac starts alerting me of impending doom much sooner. Is this just a clever way to lie to the power meter and get it to shut up?) The trackpad on the other hand...
noipv4 11y ago
I am guessing it's a miniaturised charge pump boost (uses a few capacitors and an electronic switch) converter, similar to ones produced by Maxim. http://www.maximintegrated.com/en/app-notes/index.mvp/id/725 http://www.maximintegrated.com/en/app-notes/index.mvp/id/725 Nowhere in the article I see an alkaline battery discharge curve. http://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm http://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm Battery discharge curves are never linear. Most capacity is lost between 1.5V and 1.3V. I am afraid this device might be snake oil.
jellicle 11y ago
As people have already discussed, voltage boosters for things like LED flashlights are already in wide use (usually called a "voltage regulator"). The tradeoff appears to be something like: -- longer life at full rated voltage -- when the battery dies, it dies suddenly and completely, no tapering down - one second it's on, the next second it is dead as a doornail -- parasitic current drain drains batteries even when they're not in use -- more expensive They most definitely do NOT increase usable battery life by 8x.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
lttlrck 11y ago
I would be surprised if most /electronic/ gadgets don't have circuitry that already do this.
tlrobinson 11y ago
Why aren't voltage boosters built into more products? Cost? Will they destroy rechargeables?
jhallenworld 11y ago
I wonder how noisy it is.. I mean if I use one in an old AM radio, does the radio become useless from switching noise?
IanDrake 11y ago
Certainly a neat gadget, but here's the part that blows me away... >They’ll never out-sexy the Apple Watch or Surface Pro 3. That, coming from macworld.com, has me wondering if hell just froze over.
fiovio 11y ago
Can I actually buy this gadget already?
- kissickas 11y ago
  >... will cost just $10 for a pack of four when it goes on sale in September
  - fiovio 11y ago
    Hey thanks, didn't notice that.
bobwaycott 11y ago
So, the same exact article appears on PCWorld, at the exact URL (just change the domain's 'mac' > 'pc'). Is that normal? I never visit either site, so I'm unfamiliar how much cross-posted content it/they feature across both domains.[0] Oddly (to me, at least), the company's domain (http://batteriser.com http://batteriser.com) redirects to a single page on another domain. That page & domain is http://comingsoon-tech.com/batteriser http://comingsoon-tech.com/batteriser. Curiously, http://comingsoon-tech.com http://comingsoon-tech.com (sans path) redirects to http://agency20.com http://agency20.com, an agency that describes itself as offering "bespoke crowdfunding strategy ... as a way for creative professionals and entrepreneurs to successfully fund & grow their projects, while retaining 100% ownership and creative control."[2][4] Looking at the page one lands on via the redirect trip from http://batteriser.com http://batteriser.com > http://comingsoon-tech.com/batteriser http://comingsoon-tech.com/batteriser, I can't help but notice an insane amount of nearly identical wording as that which appears in the PC/MacWorld articles. Something is quite fishy here. --- [0]: I found this via the Batteriser Twitter account[1], which made its first tweet 12 hrs ago--declaring they've launched--with a link to the PCWorld endpoint. [1]: https://twitter.com/gobatteriser https://twitter.com/gobatteriser [4] [2]: i've combined direct quotes from their home page & "our story" page[3] [3]: http://www.agency20.com/our-story/ http://www.agency20.com/our-story/ [+] [4]: someone at agency|2.0 really ought to fix the Twitter description by adding a "with" or "using" or some other such coordinating helper verb, preposition, phrase, what-have-you. one expects a bit finer fit and finish with bespoke goods. [+] [+]: footnotes for footnotes are fun [EDIT: formatting screwups]
fugyk 11y ago
If we now use 20% energy of battery as batteriser claims, how can it extend the life of battery by 800%.
pdx 11y ago
Back in 2001 I was designing mp3 players with boost converters in them that could start switching from a battery as low as 0.9V. It was hard to find boost converters in 2001 that worked down to 0.9V. It's obviously not hard to find them in 2015. Any product that is evaluated on it's battery life already has very efficient boost converters built into it. Battery life is priority #1 for any battery powered product design team. It's agonized over in every design decision from the very 1st schematic. About the only products that don't seem to give a shit about battery life are toys. Toy designers know that you are not making buy/don't-buy decisions based on battery life, when you're looking at a toy in the store. Toy designers cost optimize their circuits aggressively, at the expense of battery life. They deserve a special place in hell for that. This product would benefit many toys. Not much else, though.
- userbinator 11y ago
  If you were still involved with those 4-5 years after that, you might remember these cute little things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:S1_mp3_player_example-edit.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:S1_mp3_player_example-edit... They lasted a long time on just one AA or AAA cell. The SoC had the boost converters integrated into it, and from what I remember could work down to ~0.85V.
ankitgarg43 11y ago
We need this out as soon as possible. I personally think so because then we will manufacture less alkaline based batteries and save the environment. Also then things will be more efficient. We as people should protect this invention against the big company giants. Who will definitely try to kill it. I request you all to get it out there and make the best of it. Mr. Bob Roohparvar I STAND BY HERE IN THIS AMAZING INVENTION'S PROGRESS
spiritplumber 11y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule_thief http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule_thief Here.
powera 11y ago
OK, this article is hopefully getting spam upvotes - it's clearly a terrible article promoting some (probably terrible) product through lies.
liquidcool 11y ago
Dumb question: do most battery meters (internal to the device) test voltage? If so, does that mean using this would give you no warning that your batteries are dying? From the demo, it sounds like they might go from 100% straight to dead, at least from the device's perspective.

347 points by chris-at 11y ago

kabouseng 11y ago

I'm not sure if it is a good idea to use this device with your rechargeable batteries...

nodata 11y ago
Everywhere in the article it refers to disposable batteries.
- amelius 11y ago
  > “15 billion batteries go into landfill every year,” he says, “so we can help avoid that.” So actually, it would be better if everybody switched to rechargable batteries?
  - nodata 11y ago
    It would be better, yes.
  - pmontra 11y ago
    Definitely yes, but (example) the rear light of my bicycle insists to be powered by two AA 1.5 V batteries. Two rechargeable ones don't have enough voltage to light it so I need disposable batteries. The front light works with 3 rechargeable ones. We should stop building stuff that needs throw away batteries.
    - jrockway 11y ago
      I use this taillight which lasts forever with NiMH batteries: http://www.cateye.com/en/products/detail/TL-LD570-R/moreinfo/ http://www.cateye.com/en/products/detail/TL-LD570-R/moreinfo... I probably change the batteries every month or so, which is usually about 40 hours of riding. Probably too often, but whatever. The light cost $15, I think. (Actually I'm retiring this light today and switching to a dynamo-based lighting system. No more recharging ever. Looking forward to that.)
m_eiman 11y ago
According to the article Roohparvar says the sleeve will also work with 1.2 volt rechargeable batteries, boosting them up to 1.5 volts., but they don't say anything about how well the rechargables would handle this usage.
- Filligree 11y ago
  The usual way for rechargables, I imagine. They'll handle it just fine until they die from an overly deep discharge. If the chip is very clever, then it'll detect that it's working on a rechargable (from voltage curves?), and stop discharging after a certain point. But the specifics there depend on the exact chemistry used, so it'd be difficult to get it right.
usrusr 11y ago
No problem at all, the built-in compatibility mode will conveniently turn your rechargeables into disposables. Jokes aside, while the technology and the "why did nobody think of this before" is certainly impressive, if this gets any market traction it will cause more landfill by hurting rechargeable adoption than it will prevent by slowing the disposable battery replacement cycle.

pjc50 11y ago

This is a very nifty commercialisation and miniturisation of the "joule thief" circuit, a type of switchmode power supply.

fizgig 11y ago
I was wondering about that. I set one of those up a few years ago on a breadboard. It was a fun project (for this non hardware guy) and somehow very satisfying to watch a "dead" AA power a bright blue LED for weeks. I wonder how the device will perform in the real world. Where do I sign up for announcements?
comboy 11y ago
My thouths exactly. Looks like the patent[1] is more about the sleeve than the actual circuit (because well, I guess it would/should be hard to patent Joule thief[2]). [1] https://www.google.com/patents/US20120121943 https://www.google.com/patents/US20120121943 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule_thief http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule_thief

jacquesm 11y ago

That's clever. I used a similar trick to boost the output of my windmill during low-wind days when the voltage from the alternator would not be larger than the voltage of the batteries. I don't understand this bit: > The next step is an Indiegogo campaign in late June, and then delivery in late September. If they already have a working product and a price set and they're going to ship in September they should be well into mass production right now and such a campaign would not make much sense. If made cheap enough the circuitry could possibly be internalized in the battery sleeve.

wangarific 11y ago
This happens often. The Kickstarter campaign is more about marketing the product than getting funding to manufacture it.
- shultays 11y ago
  Also free money.
Cthulhu_ 11y ago
They probably need a bit of money to scale up production and do some marketing - especially the latter can be very expensive. Just look at how much advertising companies like Duracell do, for a product that hasn't significantly changed or improved in the past decade or two.
bobwaycott 11y ago
> The next step is an Indiegogo campaign in late June, and then delivery in late September. I've a feeling that's part of this being a marketing strategy by agency|2.0

jwr 11y ago

One should be careful evaluating the claims. A good boost converter will be ~90% efficient (it can be more efficient, but not miniaturized like the pictures show). So, to begin with, you'll discard ~10% of your energy. Now look at AA alkaline discharge curves: http://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm http://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm Indeed if you gadget reports the batteries as dead at 1.25V, you can still get ~40% more usage. But most gadgets don't work that way. 1.25V is the normal voltage of a fully charged NiMH rechargeable AA, so if you gadget works with those, the real cutoff point is likely closer to 1.15V or so. The booster will boost the voltage (at the expense of current, obviously, plus losses) so that even though the battery will be below 1.15V, output voltage will be at 1.5V. Looking at the graphs, this buys you less than 1/5th, and if you consider the losses in the boost converter, probably half that. The "800%" claim seems totally bogus. Perhaps with a gadget that stops working when the voltage falls below 1.45V per cell. I'm not saying it's not a useful gadget (and I'm very impressed by the miniaturization: where is the inductor? This thing must run at several MHz at least!) — just that the claims should be taken with a large grain of salt.

amelius 11y ago
Also, I'm wondering if the maximum current output will drop over time. Or in other words, if the battery can maintain its power output.
- VLM 11y ago
  The word you're looking for is internal resistance. Here's an on topic application report from (one of many) manufacturer of single cell upconverter chips. http://www.ti.com/lit/an/slva194/slva194.pdf http://www.ti.com/lit/an/slva194/slva194.pdf Internal resistance rises ridiculously fast with depth of discharge but even in the range of "ohms" you can still squeeze out a good fraction of an amp, a decent fraction of a watt. Its surprising how much you can do with a tenth of a watt or whatever, this will work quite well with a remote control or wireless game controller or a kitchen timer, maybe not so well with RC cars or laptop power supplies or the stereotypical "charge your cellphone with a AA battery" product or 1000 lumen flashlights. In the long run nobody's ever going to use cells in series so as to avoid depolarization / cell reversal type stuff. Its feasible now for low current stuff, what I'm getting at is "someday" people will be running portable drills off single cells. Its a long term trend in power conditioning.

michaelt 11y ago

“The time it takes for the battery voltage to drop by 0.1V is longer at lower voltages versus at higher voltages. That means that if a constant current was drawn from the battery, it would take the battery a lot longer to discharge from 1.2V to 1.1V than it would from 1.5V to 1.4V. This means that the extent to which the battery life is increased could be even higher.” Sure, but if you're drawing 20mA at 1.5v, you only need to draw 20mA from a 1.5v battery. If the battery drops to 1.2 volts, for constant power output you'll need to pull 25mA into the boost converter.

rlpb 11y ago
Right. In this situation it would be more sensible to consider how the voltage drops based on constant power rather than constant current.
blinken 11y ago
The article reads like a scam for exactly this reason. Sure, if you scale the power you draw from the battery as the voltage drops then I don't doubt you get a 8x increase in battery life. But if you keep your power draw constant - ie. you're actually powering something useful from your battery - then current draw must rise as the voltage falls, and it will fall asymptotically. I can't see you getting anywhere near 8x; more like 1.5x. If that. Here's a random page with graphs, because science: http://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm http://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm

afandian 11y ago

If this is such a great idea why isn't the circuit integrated into the devices that use batteries? I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult monitor the discharge rate and kick in the circuit when it's needed and the battery has demonstrated that it's an alkaline by its discharge profile.

nodata 11y ago
Take a guess.
- afandian 11y ago
  Here are my guesses: 1 - they already do 2 - the technology isn't actually sound or reliable or is only suitable in very specific cases 3 - it's too difficult to integrate 4 - the batteries aren't rated for it, or there's FCC regulations, or EMF problems or standards that prohibit it 5 - it makes batteries explode sometimes 6 - it makes batteries too unpredictable and makes monitoring even less accurate 7 - it doesn't provide enough current when in use 8 - there's some massive industry conspiracy and they'll be coming for your children next How'd I do?
  - adlpz 11y ago
    9 - It's more expensive, the market won't tolerate a price rise on disposable batteries, they cannot sustain a 8x average life of their product at current prices.
  - 5xman 11y ago
    0 - "Our technology is really a miniaturization technique that allows us to build the sleeve..., but the key is we’ve been able to miniaturize the boost circuit to a point that no one else has been able to achieve"
  - blisterpeanuts 11y ago
    10 - Patent protection would add to the per-unit cost
  - 11y ago

userbinator 11y ago

Batteroo says the sleeve and its boost circuitry doesn't introduce any extra risk of chemical leakage. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_battery#Leaks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_battery#Leaks The reason for leaks is that as batteries discharge — either through usage or gradual self-discharge — the chemistry of the cells changes and some hydrogen gas is generated. This out-gassing increases pressure in the battery. Eventually, the excess pressure either ruptures the insulating seals at the end of the battery, or the outer metal canister, or both. In other words by extracting more energy, there is more hydrogen evolved and it will increase their tendency to leak. This was also posted on an EE forum I frequent, and the opinions on it so far have been mostly negative: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/'batterizer'-claims-to-increase-disposable-battery-life-8x/ http://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/'batterizer'-claims-to-... IMHO rechargeable lithium is the way to go. An 18650 has several times the energy of an AA while being not much bigger, and can be recharged. They're still not all that common in the West, but equipment like torches, power banks, and portable fans which take 18650s are gaining in popularity.

ferongr 11y ago
>equipment like torches, power banks, and portable fans which take 18650s are gaining in popularity Don't forget e-cigarette mods (power sources). I'd wager they're the most popular application of free-standing (not packaged in a pack) rechargeable cylindrical lithium cells (I have 12 of them personally).
- soylentcola 11y ago
  Yeah, if there's one thing I've learned from mechanical mods, it's that I don't want to over-discharge my cells. I'm guessing that your average AA cell won't fail as catastrophically as an unprotected lithium battery due to chemistry but I'd still prefer rechargeables (for most everything) to an endless stream of disposable alkaline batteries (even if I were able to squeeze a little more out of each one).
  - userbinator 11y ago

mschuster91 11y ago

How is this supposed to work w/ rechargeable batteries? Deep-discharging can permanently kill a battery.

muppetman 11y ago
It's not. It's for Alkaline batteries. *Edit: I'm wrong. See below. Ignore this comment!
- mschuster91 11y ago
  > "Roohparvar says the sleeve will also work with 1.2 volt rechargeable batteries, boosting them up to 1.5 volts."
  - muppetman 11y ago
    Sincere apologies, I don't know how I missed that the first reading.

PythonicAlpha 11y ago

I just wonder, if the video is part of a new, clever (or not) marketing strategy? At least at my computer (tried with two different browsers), the video stops after 17sec or so and is interrupted in midst of a sentence by a form to enter my email address. I just wanted to view the video to the end, but have to enter my email instead?? Either an error in the page (?) or a clever marketing strategy?? In my case, not so clever, because I will not adhere to such tactics. It could also be, that the whole thing is similar to that tactics? As jwf also pointed out, the claims are a little over the top. I don't think, that 800% are really achievable. Maybe 20-30% in real life applications. That of course could be still good, when the gadget will not be to costly and is unlimited reusable. Still the question remains, if simple rechargeable are not still better (for your economy and the environment) in cases where you have battery-intensive applications. I try to limit the usage of non-rechargeables to cases where the battery is swapped really seldom -- and in such cases, additional gadgets just make life more complicated.

cryodesign 11y ago

Why would I want to buy this gadget compared to investing my money in rechargeable batteries? I would probably use non-rechargeables for smoke detectors only. Also the environmental impact is less with rechargeable batteries[1] [1] http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/batteries/pdf/battery_report_june2010.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/batteries/pdf/battery_... Edit: fix typos

ohitsdom 11y ago
If this actually works as promised, it would help with the environmental impact of disposable batteries by greatly extending their life.
- dbdr 11y ago
  Quote from the study linked in grandparent: NiMH batteries compared to alkaline batteries cause about 96 times less damage to each of the three damage criteria (for 400 cycles). So even if batteriser allows alkalines to be used 8 times longer, rechargeable (NiMH) batteries would still be 12 times better than that for these three criterias (human health, ecosystem quality and resources).

josefresco 11y ago

I got about 3 paragraphs in before my browser succumbed to the atrocious ad/JS bloat on this site. I'll hunt down a mirror/print version.

Cthulhu_ 11y ago
Luckily there's browser addons that can help with stopping most of the excess there.

throwaway434317 11y ago

How can other posters take this article at face value? This reads 100% like a fake ad (I mean stylistically and in terms of presentation, like the kind of thing you see "Advertisement" written in small text over the top of while it's run in the New Yorker or wherever. I read them. I like it. Because they're amusing.) The only thing that keeps it from being one is that it's on macworld.com. Like, really? Industrial espionage, a real "professional job"? "Big Battery"? Everyone here has worked on way more interesting technology than a metal sleeve and a farfetched tale - which is all this is - and who breaks into our offices to steal our tech? It doesn't happen. Nobody would do it even if the device works exactly as stated. Do these prototypes look to you like something that came out of a test lab? The only work put into them is the branding, "Batteriser" a word that is mentioned 43 times in 2000 words, including the first word of the title. I'm not calling this native advertising but if it isn't, it seems the only one more gullible than this journalist is everyone else who swallows this hook, line, and sinker. You could have written the same article but with some doohickey that lowers gas mileage by increasing oxygen mixture, and gets stolen in a brazen act of industrial espionage, a real professional job. come on. we're adults here. this article is insulting. Where are the details of the break-in, such as date or what precisely was stolen, or where it happened - you know: journalism?

VLM 11y ago
"some doohickey that lowers gas mileage" I was thinking if I lowered the RF exposure from my cell phone using one of those stickers you put on the battery, using some magic battery gadget in combination might very well turn my phone into a perpetual energy device.
carsonreinke 11y ago
It is a bit odd, it starts talking about the break in, but mostly goes into the product itself.
DaFranker 11y ago
> and who breaks into our offices to steal our tech? AFAIK: Shadowrun characters, and that's about it.
11y ago

chrisBob 11y ago

One issue I don't see addressed is that I appreciate the warning I get as my batteries die. In an apple trackpad, like the one in the "article", I get a few weeks notice when my batteries are dying. With this am I more likely to have devices just give up suddenly? That, plus the safety concerns and the fact that their math is bogus will probably keep me from using one.

drodgers 11y ago

"Batteriser can continue to deliver a 1.5 volt charge in batteries that have discharged down to 0.6 volts. There are more than eight 0.1 volt steps between 0.6 and 1.5 volts, so, in grossly simplified terms, the Batteriser can extend operational battery life somewhere around a factor of eight." ... No. That's not how maths works.

Dylan16807 11y ago
They explained right after that how you get more amp-hours at each voltage step. The math works for that, though I don't think it fits the actual behavior of the discharge curve past 1.1 volts...
malchow 11y ago
No, the alkaline battery companies decades ago figured out how to do controlled quantum discharge! It goes instantly from 1.5v to 1.4v to 1.3v!

skyshine 11y ago

Could these be used to boost NiMH to 1.5 volts? Could I finally stop throwing money at my smoke detector which always throws a fit at about 2AM if I try and put NiMH in it?

pepijndevos 11y ago
The article mentions it does work for 1.2v batteries. Except they forgot to mention that some types of rechargeable batteries get damaged if you discharge them completely.
- skyshine 11y ago
  That is exactly what I was wondering about.
jerf 11y ago
Alkaline is still often the best choice for those really long, low draw applications. That said, if you really want NiMH, make sure it's the latest-generation "low self-discharge" ones, which do seem to be much better about holding on to power for longer. I haven't tried to put it in my smoke detector, but the low-self discharge are now reasonable for use in TV remotes and such. To be honest, unless you use your remote a lot, it's probably still more economical to use alkaline on those, but, well, my battery needs have fluctuated a lot over the years and is now trending down as the kids get out of the "battery-powered toy" phase, and the NiMH-in-hand is still cheaper than the alkaline on the store shelf, right?
- skyshine 11y ago
  I've been using low self discharge NiMH batteries for years. I find they are better than Alkaline for almost everything. They are fine in all my remotes. Last for months. It is only a couple of items that just don't work with any NiMH batteries. The smoke detector and a clock. It's not that they run dry quickly. The smoke detector fails within 24 hours (gives a battery low warning siren) and a clock that just doesn't work.

Confiks 11y ago

I do think that the claims made by Macworld are somewhat exaggerated. This kind of journalism always needs to be taken with some grains of salt. The paragraph in which the 800% extension is described, sounds messy, and doesn't cohere with some other claims made in the article. The motivation of the story, namely that of a robbery of private documents, seems odd, and I can understand that it will immediately raise red flags among readers. Some other points in the article did seem plausible to me. Modern electronics need stable voltages to keep working properly. The working of voltage regulators is well understood. Only the miniaturization is the invention, which is patented (https://www.google.com/patents/US20120121943 https://www.google.com/patents/US20120121943), and has a very verbose application compared to other patents. There can of course be issues with the technology, of which theories are offered by some commenters. Another patent by "Frankie Roohparvar" (and not Bob as in the article), can be found here: https://www.google.com/patents/US6717853 https://www.google.com/patents/US6717853 , and Mr. Roohparvar can be seen talking (presumably; I only skipped around) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V6IKoFhBtQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V6IKoFhBtQ For some theories that commenters are offering, an elaborate conspiracy would be required, building up references and trust, only to mislead absolutely and quite likely not get away with it. Of course, conspiracies exist, but please don't think so lightly about arguing them.

bobwaycott 11y ago
Just want to note there is both a Frankie and Bob Roohparvar. They are the cofounders of Batteriser/Batteroo. Bob's the CEO. Frankie's the Chairman (he's also the CEO at Skyera).[0][1] --- [0]: It's on the front page of the company's "website" @ http://batteriser.com http://batteriser.com -- which is really a redirect to a page on a different domain -- and Frankie is said to have 500+ patents. [1]: Quick Google searching led to his linkedin page, and various other results, like Bloomberg research. [EDIT: clarity & wording (...and now fixing formatting mistakes)]

ferongr 11y ago

You won't get much power (Wh, as opposed to mAh) from a cell at a low state of charge. The initial lower voltage of the almost empty cell, combined with the increased voltage sag under load due to the converter pulling increased amounts of current will result in dubious amounts of actual extra energy. In any case, many complicated electronic gadgets already use some kind of voltage regulator that maximizes the runtime of the device, this gadget (if it works as advertised) would be useful only for some direct-drive lights or motors

joosters 11y ago

Where are the published 3rd party test results? If all they say is true, it would be simple & cheap to get an independent test done showing a range of devices and the run times with & without the batteriser. Their one-line statement from Dr. Kiumars Parvin is worthless on its own. Show some confirmed test results on real life items, or you are just selling snake oil.

noonespecial 11y ago

Strange that he picked a mac keyboard for the demo. Mine works until the batteries reach 0.8v each. Batteries that are long "dead" in my kids toys make my keyboard work for weeks. (Of course the Mac starts alerting me of impending doom much sooner. Is this just a clever way to lie to the power meter and get it to shut up?) The trackpad on the other hand...

noipv4 11y ago

I am guessing it's a miniaturised charge pump boost (uses a few capacitors and an electronic switch) converter, similar to ones produced by Maxim. http://www.maximintegrated.com/en/app-notes/index.mvp/id/725 http://www.maximintegrated.com/en/app-notes/index.mvp/id/725 Nowhere in the article I see an alkaline battery discharge curve. http://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm http://www.powerstream.com/AA-tests.htm Battery discharge curves are never linear. Most capacity is lost between 1.5V and 1.3V. I am afraid this device might be snake oil.

jellicle 11y ago

As people have already discussed, voltage boosters for things like LED flashlights are already in wide use (usually called a "voltage regulator"). The tradeoff appears to be something like: -- longer life at full rated voltage -- when the battery dies, it dies suddenly and completely, no tapering down - one second it's on, the next second it is dead as a doornail -- parasitic current drain drains batteries even when they're not in use -- more expensive They most definitely do NOT increase usable battery life by 8x.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

lttlrck 11y ago

I would be surprised if most /electronic/ gadgets don't have circuitry that already do this.

tlrobinson 11y ago

Why aren't voltage boosters built into more products? Cost? Will they destroy rechargeables?

jhallenworld 11y ago

I wonder how noisy it is.. I mean if I use one in an old AM radio, does the radio become useless from switching noise?

IanDrake 11y ago

Certainly a neat gadget, but here's the part that blows me away... >They’ll never out-sexy the Apple Watch or Surface Pro 3. That, coming from macworld.com, has me wondering if hell just froze over.

fiovio 11y ago

Can I actually buy this gadget already?

kissickas 11y ago
>... will cost just $10 for a pack of four when it goes on sale in September
- fiovio 11y ago
  Hey thanks, didn't notice that.

bobwaycott 11y ago

So, the same exact article appears on PCWorld, at the exact URL (just change the domain's 'mac' > 'pc'). Is that normal? I never visit either site, so I'm unfamiliar how much cross-posted content it/they feature across both domains.[0] Oddly (to me, at least), the company's domain (http://batteriser.com http://batteriser.com) redirects to a single page on another domain. That page & domain is http://comingsoon-tech.com/batteriser http://comingsoon-tech.com/batteriser. Curiously, http://comingsoon-tech.com http://comingsoon-tech.com (sans path) redirects to http://agency20.com http://agency20.com, an agency that describes itself as offering "bespoke crowdfunding strategy ... as a way for creative professionals and entrepreneurs to successfully fund & grow their projects, while retaining 100% ownership and creative control."[2][4] Looking at the page one lands on via the redirect trip from http://batteriser.com http://batteriser.com > http://comingsoon-tech.com/batteriser http://comingsoon-tech.com/batteriser, I can't help but notice an insane amount of nearly identical wording as that which appears in the PC/MacWorld articles. Something is quite fishy here. --- [0]: I found this via the Batteriser Twitter account[1], which made its first tweet 12 hrs ago--declaring they've launched--with a link to the PCWorld endpoint. [1]: https://twitter.com/gobatteriser https://twitter.com/gobatteriser [4] [2]: i've combined direct quotes from their home page & "our story" page[3] [3]: http://www.agency20.com/our-story/ http://www.agency20.com/our-story/ [+] [4]: someone at agency|2.0 really ought to fix the Twitter description by adding a "with" or "using" or some other such coordinating helper verb, preposition, phrase, what-have-you. one expects a bit finer fit and finish with bespoke goods. [+] [+]: footnotes for footnotes are fun [EDIT: formatting screwups]

fugyk 11y ago

If we now use 20% energy of battery as batteriser claims, how can it extend the life of battery by 800%.

pdx 11y ago

Back in 2001 I was designing mp3 players with boost converters in them that could start switching from a battery as low as 0.9V. It was hard to find boost converters in 2001 that worked down to 0.9V. It's obviously not hard to find them in 2015. Any product that is evaluated on it's battery life already has very efficient boost converters built into it. Battery life is priority #1 for any battery powered product design team. It's agonized over in every design decision from the very 1st schematic. About the only products that don't seem to give a shit about battery life are toys. Toy designers know that you are not making buy/don't-buy decisions based on battery life, when you're looking at a toy in the store. Toy designers cost optimize their circuits aggressively, at the expense of battery life. They deserve a special place in hell for that. This product would benefit many toys. Not much else, though.

userbinator 11y ago
If you were still involved with those 4-5 years after that, you might remember these cute little things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:S1_mp3_player_example-edit.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:S1_mp3_player_example-edit... They lasted a long time on just one AA or AAA cell. The SoC had the boost converters integrated into it, and from what I remember could work down to ~0.85V.

ankitgarg43 11y ago

We need this out as soon as possible. I personally think so because then we will manufacture less alkaline based batteries and save the environment. Also then things will be more efficient. We as people should protect this invention against the big company giants. Who will definitely try to kill it. I request you all to get it out there and make the best of it. Mr. Bob Roohparvar I STAND BY HERE IN THIS AMAZING INVENTION'S PROGRESS

spiritplumber 11y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule_thief http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule_thief Here.

powera 11y ago

OK, this article is hopefully getting spam upvotes - it's clearly a terrible article promoting some (probably terrible) product through lies.

liquidcool 11y ago

Dumb question: do most battery meters (internal to the device) test voltage? If so, does that mean using this would give you no warning that your batteries are dying? From the demo, it sounds like they might go from 100% straight to dead, at least from the device's perspective.