you always have to manage a million different cables for each one, and they all suck. why can’t we just use AAA batteries instead of these shitty lithium ones? it’s so fucking frustrating. where can I find gadgets that work while plugged in, or at least don’t need to be recharged every two fucking days?
I think rechargeable is overall better than needing a thousand batteries that you just throw away to sit in a landfill, but agree they desperately need to 1) Normalize and standardize batteries and 2) Not use shitty ones that need charging every 2 day. We have standardized rechargeable AA and AAA batteries, if anything just encourage using those.
All the batteries in my house are double A and Triple A rechargeable. Use them for the Xbox and the remotes.
But I agree with OP sick of batteries that last one to two days. And cables today suck. Back in the old days the charger got with my phone lasted for years. Now it seems the cables lucky they last 6 months.
WTH do people do with their cables? I haven’t had one fray/fail on me… ever, and I pay zero attention to them.
Yeah this. Last cable had fray was nearly 20 years ago and it was cheap junk, known to buckle under use. But these days, even $5 cables from 7/11 are quite decent.
I guess stop trying to hang elephants with them? 🤷♂️
This is how I do it too, we just got a second charger so we could keep more than 4 charged, mostly for remotes and controllers. Agree with cables, I’ve had shit luck with anything from Amazon, it’s about a 50/50 shot if the cable will last more than a month, I’d be happy to hear where people buy quality cables.
Yeah that’s the thing, battery sizes already have standards. We need to force the industry to use them though instead of the wild west diarrhea that is current LIon and LiPo batteries.
Problem with rechargeable AA and AAA batteries is that they need complicated chargers. Putting a charger for those into a device will make it unnecessarily big. There’s also the issue with the charge cycles they can take. I believe they have a maximum of around 100 charge cycles while lithium ion batteries are more around 1000 cycles.
they need complicated chargers.
This problem was solved 40 years ago.
You do realize there are rechargeable lithium AA and AAA batteries, right?
The AA and AAA are just a form factor with a half dozen different mainstream chemistries depending on what you want to use.
Xbox360 managed both. You either plugged in the pack with two AAA’s or you could use the one with a rechargeable battery that fit the exact same slot.
Seems a good compromise to me.
Meanwhile, Sony went with an internal battery but had a standard USB connector.
Nowadays, you can get an Xbone controller and still choose a replaceable battery pack or a rechargeable one, and it has a USB-C connector. Standard connector, choose of battery feels like a good way to go for me.
Xbox has consistently had my favorite controllers. Being able to swap batteries makes for such a better experience than seeing the “battery low” notification and either being on an umbilical cord or setting the controller down entirely until it’s charged
What are you talking about? I literally just bought a charger today for AA and AAA batteries for $15 today so I’d have 2 chargers at home. I’m still using my original AA rechargeable batteries after 6 years now. Are you saying that’s somehow worse than single use batteries? My rechargeables last just as long as alkaline ones and I haven’t had to buy batteries in years.
Check your misinformation.
Man chill, he’s right, single use batteries have a higher energy density than rechargable ones. And somehow everybody is misreading that OP was talking about built-in chargers.
Not an argument not to use rechargable ones though
That poster is still a dingus, because lithium battery chemistries require even more complicated charging circuitry than NiMH or NiCd. Lithium ion powered devices also have “complicated chargers” built into them, so it’s a non-argument anyway.
What’s true is that lithium ion has higher energy density than NiCd or NiMH. What’s not true is the notion that consumer primary cells (alkaline or zinc-carbon) have more capacity than NiMH, because they don’t. A brand name alkaline AA cell has around 2200-2400 mAh available, but a really good quality (i.e. not Amazon Basics or whatever other cheap horeshit) NiMH AA can have up to 3000. NiMH chemistry also handles high current loads significantly better than alkaline, which is important for high drain devices (cameras, flashlights, motorized toys) but less important for low drain devices expected to have a long shelf life (remotes).
I was sure that alkaline has a higher energy density than NiMH but you are right, they don’t. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_commercial_battery_types Thanks for the correction.
Buying shit tier stuff is gonna give your a shit tier experience. Have more discretion in your shopping, which could mean holding out for quite awhile, and you’ll eventually find a USB-C option.
It has been my experience that electronics are the only thing where “you get what you pay for” actually applies. If you’re getting tired of your cheap shit falling apart, spend more money to get not cheap shit.
For sure with electronics development equipment.
You can get by with a 10€ logic analyzer, 20€ soldering iron, and 80€ oscilloscope, but the experience of a 280€ Salae, a high end Weller, and a 3000€ Keysight scope is a whole other experience.
I think single-use batteries should be banned. Whenever I go to the weed store and I see them selling/advertising disposable vapes I can’t help but feel a hint of rage. All my AA and AAA batteries are rechargeable now. Hopefully soon everything will use USB-C and graphene batteries and supercapacitors will be common.
I’ll infuriate you further. Most of those disposable vape products actually have rechargeable lithium ion batteries inside, but they’re just designed so you can’t recharge them. Why? Well, the same form factor reasons as why other gadgets use lithium ion batteries, and due to economy of scale they’ve decided that’s the cheapest way to do it.
If you’re a hardware hacker type you can grab discarded disposable vapes and dismantle them to get the batteries out, then use them for other projects.
Big Clive has made a career out of it
I think single-use batteries should be banned.
Unfortunately, some devices simply don’t work unless you have the voltage curve of an alkaline/lithium battery, or they’ll show a “low battery” even with a relatively fresh NiMh rechargeable batteries.
If devices could all accept lithium rechargeable batteries, or something else better than NiMh, then there’d be very little reason why you’d need to use single-use batteries.
I’d love to take advantage of super capacitors if they became more readily available. Many dashcams use them instead of internal batteries, and they make a HUGE difference when using them in the cold, and they are safer than using lithium batteries in the summer heat, too.
Could try nickel zinc batteries in those maybe.
I go camping and have some lights that have rechargeable batteries but you can swap disposable batteries in if needed which is really nice to have as a backup when any sort of charging isint available
Right, the convenience is not just being able to replace the battery but being able to find a replacement battery essentially anywhere. That’s great for flashlights, but your phone will always have a custom battery that will be expensive and hard to find
I’m of much the same opinion, and I refuse to buy certain categories of gadget if the battery is not replaceable with a commodity type. This is becoming increasingly difficult.
Note that this doesn’t have to be AAA/AA batteries, either. The reason so many little gizmos use lithium-whatever rechargeable batteries is because the energy density of lithium is way better than consumer alkaline batteries (with some exceptions that I’ll get to; keep your shirt on) and because they’re available in a lot of form factors – particularly flat ones – that are easy to jam into the product.
For instance, I have quite a few flashlights that take rechargeable lithium chemistry 18650 cells. Some of these allow for charging the battery in the light with a USB cable or whatever, but the important point is if the battery takes a shit I can just take it out and replace it with another one easily and cheaply. I cringe every time I see the backpacking dudebros recommending “slim” USB-rechargeable-only lights to each other like they’re all the best thing ever, but which will inevitably be landfill in a year or two when their little nonreplaceable batteries give up the ghost. Hikers look at me like I have a fish for a head when I mention I use an 18650 light. “But it’s so heavy!” Sure, and it gets 4 times the battery life of your little stupid light, and it will last forever. I also still have a digital camera that runs off of AA’s, and several other oldschool odds and ends of that ilk.
If you are using a gadget that takes consumer AA or AAA cells, by the way, you can now get lithium rechargeable versions of these which are in most cases superior to both disposable alkalines and rechargeable NiMH cells. Whatever you do, don’t run everything you own off of disposable alkalines. That’s just stupid.
Well, I still go for eneloop for aa/aaa uses personally, but that’s a big hell yeah on this comment :)
I’ve got a black diamond headlamp that I’ve been using for 20 years. Cost me less than $40, runs in triples, has seen some serious shit, been banged, stomped, and submerged. It’s still going strong (I assume. It’s been in a box for a year, but the last time I left it in a box for two years, it just needed new batteries).
I used to. I had a Black Diamond ReVolt that mysteriously took a shit one day after almost precisely 1 year of ownership. I replaced it with another one, the new “updated” model, and it did the same thing. So I gave up, and now I have a Shenzen Express no-brand 18650 headlamp that’s been serving me well for about three years. It also cost like a quarter as much. I give up on Black Diamond lights. (I also hope my Black Diamond ATC doesn’t have a hidden built in expiration date, either…)
My 18650 light has just under 4 times the available battery capacity as my old ReVolt. I run a 3600 mAh cell in it, versus the 950 mAh or so AAA’s I could put in the old Black Diamond. And if push comes to shove I can always just pop the cell out of it and swap in another while the first one is charging.
I will point out for any existing ReVolt owners, as well, that the batteries Black Diamond include with the thing are absolute trash. Mine came with 750 mAh cells in it which were far behind state of the art even back when I bought my first one. If you want to put higher capacity cells in it, note that Black Diamond saved a nickel by not including any chemistry sensing hardware in the headlamp; it “detects” their NiMH cells by way of a set of contacts in the battery compartment that touch an unwrapped section of their cells. If contact is made it assumes you have rechargeables in there and if it isn’t it assumes you loaded disposable cells and won’t charge them. If you want to use aftermarket batteries with it and allow them to charge in the headlamp, you’ll have to either peel some of the wrapping off of your cells or apply some foil tape or something. (This is surely to prevent imbeciles from putting alkalines in there and plugging it in, causing them to go off bang.)
Interesting. I hate AAA batteries and only buy things that I can charge with USB cables. I hate having to replace and throw away batteries all the time.
I assume op was talking about rechargeable AAA batteries. At least then they’re hot swappable.
Even better would be if more devices used the lithium ion cylindrical cells. Higher power and energy density, while also being a standardized form factor that can be switched out as needed.
Key is standardisation, we should all move to li-ion but not at the cost of random shapes and non-swappable. Everything should have similar 3-4 form factor batteries and easily replaceable. Also the charging connector, everything should have USB c, barrel connector should be banned or be forced to just use one single size
Maybe in buying the wrong AAA batteries but I’m struggling to make them last longer than a few cycles
That sounds like you need better brand. when the inventor got 500 cycles on their patented design 60 years ago… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel–metal_hydride_battery
Sanyo Eneloops are great. I have some really old ones with a lot of cycles from my Xbox controller.
The “USB C” charger laws in the EU should help with this. As should the “right to repair” laws that are emerging.
Consider all the dinky appliances that end up in the garbage when their non-replaceable battery fails (like electric toothbrushes and razors). This is specially bad when the manufacturer chooses to use a lithium ion battery. Great way to start a fire in the garbage truck.
USB-C makes things kinda worse, in a way.
In the past you could slap together an adapter by chopping up some old cable and slapping it to a new power supply. And things would work, even if voltage or power ratings didn’t match exactly, or even at all (although, things would usually work much worse then).
I’ve jury rigged an adapter for my laptop, which uses a 65w, 20v power brick, to run off a 45w, 16v one, when mine died and I needed to access the files. It worked, as long as I wasn’t using doing anything too computationally intensive on the thing.
If the laptops used USB-C, that is very likely would not have worked at all. Chances are, the manufacturer of the smaller laptop would’ve bundled the cheapest power brick that covers the needs of the machine, so it would’ve most likely been 45w, 15v over power delivery. And mine would’ve been 65w, 20v over power delivery. And since everything in USB-C world has to talk to each other and agree beforehand, chances are, nothing would even try to work, even if it, realistically, can.
Uh no. USB C means you can grab a duck head or cable from any other USB C device and plug it in without having to worry about the correct connector or voltage. It’s part of the design, and it’s why the EU mandates all cell phones switch to it. Some duck heads may charge more slowly than others, but it should still work.
USB-C is an interface that can be used for a variety of different things. There are different “levels” of power delivery, there’s thunderbolt, there’s DisplayPort-over-USB-C, etc. And for things to work, the devices on both ends of the cable and the cable itself must comply with any given standard.
For example, on some laptops you can’t use a USB-C port with thunderbolt for charging the device, nor the port that supports power delivery to connect thunderbolt devices. While using the same physical interface, the ports are not interchangeable. Even if you’re connecting everything right, nothing is going to work if the cable you’re using isn’t specced properly (and trying to figure out the spec of a cable you have, considering they rarely have any labeling, is, definitely, fun).
If anything, USB-C makes everything harder and more convoluted, because instead of using different ports and plugs for different standards, it’s now one port for nigh everything under the sun. If you want things to work, nowadays, you have to hunt down cable and port specs to ensure everything is mutually compatible.
No one is using DisplayPort with an electric toothbrush. You’re confusing the issues solved by the EU legislation.
Even looking at power delivery alone, there’s still different voltages and wattage, as well as cable specs. Nothing really changes. You still end up having different cables for different devices, essentially.
I haven’t run into a USB-PD charger that doesn’t fall back to 5V/2A if it can’t negotiate power delivery. As long as you buy a 45/65/100W PD brick and a supporting cable (both are cheap and getting cheaper) you don’t really have to worry about what you might be charging.
Even 20-25W phone chargers and cables will generally slow-charge most laptops in a pinch.
Charging my laptop with my powerbank I have for my phone is a moment of glory.
Sad thing is, it’s not entirely true: I have a baby night light that charges with usb-c. But only if you have some old usb-a brick on the other side of the cable. Nut a single usb-c to usb-c cable and charger combination I tried worked neither does the charger ofy ThinkPad work.
Another thing I hate is that those usb-c phone ports always suck up lint, and at some point refuse to work. Which makes cleaning needed and might break your charging port.
And yeah, I still think it’s the best option available.
Did you try flipping the cable over? Some of the ports or cables that use USB C are super cheaply made and get rid of the flippability.
Which is part of the problem…
On the one hand , I did not try it just once, so just by accident this would have happend. But yes I too tried it deliberately.
You’re gonna want a room full of AAA batts if you want your phone to last a year, not to mention that you have to set the date and time every time you reboot your device since it’s got no charging port and you have to replace the batts which contain date and time information.
Rechargable AAA batts are not very easy to find where I’m from. I’m probably guessing that’s not the case where you live.
And don’t even think about playing graphically intensive video games on that thing, the batt is gonna die within 3 minutes due to the insane power consumption.
And your phone better have a DC input incase you DON’T wanna use the batt, but then you have to leave it plugged into the wall when you wanna use it, so it basically becomes a house phone (but it’s smrt).
The only solution is to wait until the EU enforces replaceable batts on everyone, then move to an EU country. I recommend Belgium if you lack self-love like I do.
Also, did you notice that I never called them “batteries” until this point. Because I also hate them. But they’re super important nowadays.
but even with new eu regularities, phones most probably won’t be forced to have swappable batteries
Oh well
For sure. When I get something new, regardless of what it is, I tend to look for whether it takes regular batteries or not.
Take bike lights, for example. So many use non-removable batteries. Why? If you run out of power with one, you’re SOL. The best ones I own take 18650 batteries, you can swap them, upgrade them, and carry as many as you need as spares.
I hate, absolutely HATE the fact that phones don’t have swappable batteries like they used to. Right now, the only reason I’d have to replace my perfectly good phone is because of battery degradation. Previously, I’d just buy a replacement, pop it in, and I’m good to go for another few years at least.
But even back then, every phone model had a different battery. Now it would just be worse with how specialized those have become.
I’d buy it as the use case if you want to carry a spare battery (like you could currently carry a portable charger), so obviously a replaceable battery makes or breaks that. However, you’re giving the use case of replacing your battery when it goes bad, but phone batteries easily last 2+ years and are not that expensive to replace. This seems a lot to go through just to be able to save a little on the cost of replacing your battery once in the lifetime of your phone
Well, Lithum has way better energy density than the other rechargeables hence tends to be chosen for devices that draw more energy such as stuff with microprocessors and/or large screens.
However that battery tech puts out a much higher voltage (at around 3.8V instead of 1.5V) than they typical rechargeable or discardable batteries, plus it needs extra circuitry to avoid excessive discharge (which kills the battery), which is probably why you don’t see devices using AA and AAA rechargeable LiPo or Li-ion rechargeables.
What we need is some kind of proper and legally enforced standard for Lithium battery form factors like we have with the AA, AAA (and D and others).
Ultimatelly it’s a political problem derived from living in an age were the dominant political discourse is all about less regulation - there is simply no will to “interfere with the Free Market” and regulate this to reduce waste, so in the end the Environmenf suffers so ultimatelly we all suffer.
I use lithium rechargeable AA and AAA batteries, and they are way better than NiMh or Alkaline. You can even charge them directly (literally plug a USB-C cable into the battery itself!
If those aren’t an option, 18650 or 21700 cells are perfectly fine many devices.
Manufacturers don’t go that route because of planned obsolescence. That’s it. That’s the only reason why.
The advantage liion has with the AA size is that it maintains its voltage better than nimh as nimh can only supply 1.2V and some applications that use AA batteries start to not work when nimh have a lower charge because of the voltage drop being smaller than the required voltage.
The main con with liion is its a fire hazard and is fairly toxic
Yes, and yes.
I do see that LiFePO4 AA batteries seem to be available, which could mitigate the safety concerns, but I still don’t think it would be as safe as alkaline or NiMh.
You also need to consider that lithium batteries have a significantly longer shelf life vs Alkaline and can be safely operated well below freezing. They also weigh less, if that’s a concern.
Pros and cons to both, but at least standard battery form factors have options! When a company decides to use some proprietary, hardwired battery pack in their device, they’ve basically given you a big FU!
I looked it up and the only direct 1.5V compatible AAA battery tech I found (source for the curious) seems to use lithium iron disulfide and are not rechargeable.
The rechargeables I found in AA/AAA format use lithium iron phosphate which outputs 3.2V so they must have internal circuitry (and hence losses) to make them output around 1.5V and thus be drop-in compatible with other AA/AAA (batteries in a standard format with non-standard voltages are a great way to get non-expert users to blow up their electronics devices). The internal electronics probably explains why they’re so much more expensive than other rechargeables and (from what I found looking around) their capacity not be much more than NiMh (about 10-20% more).
nickel zinc are 1.6V, which could be fine for many things, but could still blow up a few things.
Well, battery voltage really changes a lot as the battery discharges (in that PDF I linked about non-rechargeable Lithium AA batteries there are some curves for Voltage based on charge which are pretty similar to other battery tech, except for the big drop at the very beginning) so battery devices are designed to be quite flexible with regards to the power input voltage and those which need very precise voltages include some form of DC-DC voltage conversion that makes sure the rest of the electronics gets a precise voltage.
Also circuits in Electronics are, as one of my EE teaches was fond to say, supposed to be designed with an “Oh, shit! margin”, which is at least 10%, plus the actually components in the circuit also tend to have that or more margin in the power supply voltage they can handle (in fact in my experience most voltage sensitive components have a lot more than just 10%) per their specification, and they seldom blow up even if you go out of spec a bit (basically they’re guaranteed to work by the manufacturer if you stay inside the spec, but most units of good quality components generally handle 10-20% out of spec conditions just fine, which is why for example you can overclock CPUs quite a bit before they stop working properly).
So providing 1.6V when it’s supposed to be 1.5V should be fine unless that circuit is really badly designed.
And that’s just the cars.
slightly different but there is a product im debating called tromataz toothbrush. its first iteration had a replaceable head but it has a bunch of its electronics in it. Its obvious it should have some sort of plastic brush snap on for the top but not only have they not improved it. It looks like they are going the other way and you have to change your toothbrush every 3 months or so. its nuts. whats wrong with their engineers!!!
There are so many electric toothbrushes on the market. A mid-tier Braun or Philips one will last you years. I had one for well over a decade before the battery was sufficiently used up to not really last a full session.
I had a Philips Sonicare with an embedded battery that I had to replace through warranty service because it failed within a year. They did not want the old one back so I had to take it to electronics recycling. I’m sure a lot of people would have just thrown away the defective one. And if you check YouTube, you’ll see a lot of videos on how to repair these, because they have a high failure rate.
To be fair, I’ve only ever used Braun (OralB) brushes. Philips is generally a pretty decent brand so I’m surprised their brushes suck.
That said, I’d not recommend the base-line OralB brushes. I had a OralB Vitality 100 a couple of years ago, which only cost me like $25 when I bought it. At some point decided to upgrade to a Oral-B Pro 3, which cost around $60 and the difference is night and day. Motor is much better, the pressure warning was helpful (I had no idea I pressed way too hard) and the battery lasts longer.
I seriously doubt that the ultra-expensive 3D imagery app-control AI bullshit that cost in the $2-300 is as big of an upgrade.
Philips used to be a pretty decent brand, it’s gone down big time over the last decade. Ask me how I know.
How do you know?
That was rhetorical.
But since we’re all gathered here… I used to buy a lot of their stuff, and, well, now I don’t because they’ve gone to shit.
Sorry, I thought you wanted someone to ask
I’ve gone through at least 5 or so Philips sonicare brushes, and it’s almost universally the linkage to the brush head that fails. Seems like they can’t handle the vibration for more than a couple years.
The buttons aren’t terribly insulated from water/other crap too, but honestly I’ve never had them fail, so it’s certainly not that huge of a concern
this one has this bioelectric current gimmick. It does not have motors.
So it runs on bullshit?
No. there is a legitamate study but it does not prove miracles or anything but did indicate it gets between teeth better than brushing alone (but not as good as flossing). I even discussed with my dentist who is skeptical but not willing to say its bullshit given the study. I might actually use it if it was done better. Way not environmental.
Still skeptical. This post is the only result for “tromataz,” which Google thought was an idiot trying to type “traumatize,” which is … not great.
sorry its TROMATZ. I used it but shelved it for now given the problems I have with their design. this is one of the studies https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8255 . I would actually use it if they would just improve the design but as I said they are going backwards. I really can’t believe any company would be so wasteful in design in our time of global warming.
Sounds like the engineers listened to their bosses who told them to make it a subscription without making it a subscription.
Yep. As an engineer you have a sense of good design, but if you’re getting paid to make a stupid design, you make a stupid design so long it complies with code.
Having the ability to refuse public-harming requests like that is why engineers are supposed to be licensed.
That’s by design. They want you to throw your money away through them.
