Someone just asked me to debunk this... but honestly you've done a FANTASTIC job here!

@aabbccddeeffgg1234

7 жыл бұрын

just for fun, debunk his debunking even though its bullshit what youre saying.

@TheShivABC

7 жыл бұрын

you should probably go to his page and see that he in fact did it

@drstrangelove09

7 жыл бұрын

Wow, Tf00t is a Dave fan!! Makes sense!

@palebluedot7435

7 жыл бұрын

drstrangelove09 i discovered dave through TF

@BillAnt

4 жыл бұрын

Is this "thing" using a Joule Thief circuit for voltage boosting?

The reason why they last 800% longer is because the sleeve you insert the battery into will make the battery slightly larger, and will not allow the battery to be put into any devices.

@areg7182

6 жыл бұрын

derstreber2 yes actually

@video99couk

6 жыл бұрын

Or worse, you may get it into a product, like the keyboard with a long battery tube, but not out again!

@BillAnt

4 жыл бұрын

That's the first thing that popped in my mind, lots of devices have a really tight fit... smh

@blackturbine

4 жыл бұрын

Got em

@theoakun3635

4 жыл бұрын

XD

Read what the calculator says at @9:24. Never change, Dave!

@oscargarza804

8 жыл бұрын

BOOBIES!

@asg32000

8 жыл бұрын

+nokidding I'm literally laughing out loud. Nice work.

@peterschmidt9942

7 жыл бұрын

I didn't see that the first time - now I'm PML. Oh the fun at high school

@evelyndai8200

7 жыл бұрын

nokidding i came in the comments just to see if anyone else noticed lmao

@zhou_sei

5 жыл бұрын

lol came in the comments...

Reading the comments, i am amazed at the stupidity displayed. I designed both battery driven equipment, and chargers... I spent many years at this. All the nit-picking in the comments aside, this video is completely accurate. Equipment is designed with the battery discharge curve in mind. And any decent engineer will use a threshold of 1.1 to 1.0 volts, depending on battery chemistry. Designing a product to declare "low battery" at 1.35 volts is literally unheard of.

@jesseespinosa3325

8 жыл бұрын

+Bob Lake I agree, if this were a real problem I think battery companies like Energizer or Duracell would have tackled this many, many years ago instead of throwing all their research money into making the advance+ and all the other super long lasting alkaline batteries. They are more expensive for a reason, they really do last a lot longer in most devices. Not to mention that real designers such as yourself wouldn't be around that long if you designed such wastefull circuits! I have a few devices that run all the way down to .6V!! GOOD JOB GUYS! If it was a real problem there would already be a solution from someone reputable like Duracell or Phillips or Sony, someone you have heard of and can trust. Does anyone have something similar? It's obviously just our modern snake oil but it is a little scary how many are uninformed enough to give them their money in this day when people like Dave take their time to let all of us know why we shouldn't. Dave's channel is linked as the first related channel on the Batterizer Batteroo channel.

@CoolKoon

8 жыл бұрын

+Jesse Espinosa Actually it IS a real problem, but it's usually inversely proportional to the quality of the battery itself. Just like you said yourself: reputable batteries (that use higher quality materials, tighter tolerances, better additives to the electrolyte etc.) last longer even on a low voltage because their internal resistance (ESR) is MUCH lower than their cheaper counterparts. BTW you can look up Joule thief, which is basically the same thing, except perhaps even more efficient in some cases.

@darioampuy

8 жыл бұрын

+Bob Lake i think most of the comments are from people that used a tester on a used battery and found out it reads 1.2 - 1.3V but that's not a proper way to measure it's charge

@dashcamandy2242

6 жыл бұрын

Sorry to necro an old comment, but... I have a Canon PowerShot A560 that "runs" on two AA batteries; the Low Battery warning goes on when cells are at 1.4v and the camera shuts itself down when cells are at 1.39v. (Total runtime: almost 3 minutes without taking a photo, or good for two really quick snapshots.) This is, of course, an older digital camera and the engineers probably didn't think too much about battery life, although in the instructions they do recommend you purchase NiMH batteries instead of using alkalines. Using 2 x 2300 mAh NiMH batteries, I get nearly 45 seconds before the low battery warning comes on, and almost a full second after that before it shuts down. My mother has a Vivitar digital camera that will work for almost ten minutes until the low battery warning comes on, cell voltage at 1.2v when it shuts down. So I am assuming customer demand for longer battery life in devices forced engineers to add boost circuits to get more life out of batteries.

@drmic3401

5 жыл бұрын

DashCamAndy, that is impossible. The nominal voltage of a charged NiMH batteries is 1.2 V so if the manual recommends NiMH batteries, it means your Canon Powershot can work down to (quite a bit) less than 1.2V, not not 1.39 V. What matters is the battery voltage under load, so while the battery is powering the camera. The voltage difference between unloaded and loaded can be very large, especially under heavy load like an old digital camera.

An example of how broken the journalism industry really is. In an attempt to cut costs, publishers use content marketing services and the CMS on their website prioritizes click bait articles to increase ad revenue. This shows how important skeptical thinking is. Thanks Dave, I will use this video with my engineering students. Finding the right information used to be an important skill, but the internet has made information ubiquitous. This makes the evaluation of information a critical skill.

@channelengineer

9 жыл бұрын

Francois Hoffman so true i also try to put this across to my students. They have got into the habit off skimming over articals and going wow that's great without looking deeper in most cases its screaming bull from the get go and they miss it because of fancy marketing crap. marketing and journalists that love to feed us bull s***t need a firecracker up there arse.

@combatmedic4347

9 жыл бұрын

channelengineer That's kind of why I avoid the technology sections of major news sites. The journalists aren't writing an article because they care about the product, they are just given a marketing packet and told "summarize it."

@ingusmant

9 жыл бұрын

This goes deeper than clickbait, sponsored content basically opened the gate to paid-for content and ads as news. It used to be frowned upon but now it's standard practice

@MrTripcore

9 жыл бұрын

Francois Hoffman And guess who owns and pays the wages of half the Journalists? The same people who produce the products.

@waswestkan

9 жыл бұрын

Francois Hoffman Reads like you are another expecting the impossible from journalists. To have to be fairly & reasonably skeptical about anything that crosses their desk; they would have to know everything there is to know about everything. In an age where everyone expects free content, there is no revenue to maintain investigation. Even Dave here has to be earning something from his independent investigation or we would be viewing this. I'm sure he is smart enough not to spend time on that doesn't earn him at least equal to what he could earn elsewhere. We only get what we or some else is paying for, the internet hasn't yet changes how basic commerce works

Another downside - rendering every low battery measurement absolutely useless.

@EEVblog

9 жыл бұрын

Christopher Johnson Yep, a huge downside I forgot to mention!

@WayneJohnsonZastil

9 жыл бұрын

Christopher Johnson Not if circuit designed to show the original voltage on it. i.e. ever heard of ref pin?

@GeneralSeptem

9 жыл бұрын

Christopher Johnson That's a good solution - these marketing guys should use this product in their smoke detectors.

@lifeessence

9 жыл бұрын

Wayne Johnson and draw more current from the battery to power whatever is used to display it as well as having to open the battery compartment to see it.

@0xbenedikt

4 жыл бұрын

@@WayneJohnsonZastil That would be really non-standard. No device would have a third prong to measure the battery level.

The Batterizer actually does more harm than good, since the devices cannot determine the amount of power left from voltage drop. Instead the devices would show full battery until the very moment they drop dead, right? It is ridiculous how hyped the news media got over this ...

@hrivera9623

7 жыл бұрын

A good point to be take in to account for critical usage, not too much to energize a tv remote control. ;)

@MrOpenGL

5 жыл бұрын

Until the remote dies when you want to turn on the TV to watch your favourite movie/show/match... :D

@PunakiviAddikti

5 жыл бұрын

Yeah, it would "work" fine until it can't boost the voltage anymore. At that point the battery bar would suddenly start dropping very rapidly.

@shroomzgames7370

4 жыл бұрын

yeah a lot of devices that use flash ram for storage that depend on power would probably suffer, remotes, test equipment, heating controls, you will normally get 10 seconds to 1 minute to change the batteries over in these devices for it to keep the memory, with these you wont get any notice, it will go from 100% battery to nothing in seconds and anything stored by flash is gone.

@snaplash

4 жыл бұрын

Yep. My LED flashlight, which contains a boost converter, works at full brightness until it suddenly goes dark with no warning.

that "800%" just magically turned into 80% on their facebook page.

@GamingWithNikolas

5 жыл бұрын

The lying bastards.

@sharpfang

4 жыл бұрын

And the 80% is accurate. 80% of unused power - of the very tail; the area between 1.1 and 0.6V. So, if you use up 85% of the battery capacity, you're left with 15%... 80% of 15% is 12%. So you're using up 97% of the capacity... at 90% efficiency at best; 87.3%, net gain 2.3%.

@melgross

4 жыл бұрын

80% of energy left means an 800% increase in use time. It’s equivalent. That doesn’t mean it works, because it doesn’t.

This would be perfect to boost the energy of a solar roadway! /s

@ulrichkalber9039

6 жыл бұрын

or to boost free energy...

@LordZordid

5 жыл бұрын

800% more unlimited energy. Yay!

@BillAnt

4 жыл бұрын

Or even the SUN itself! Wooo-hooo!! xD

Well researched, Dave! It was fun to see all of those products that work just fine down to 1.1V.

@EEVblog

9 жыл бұрын

Applied Science Now I'm kinda obsessed with finding something that *does* dropout at 1.35V or higher! I must have something somewhere, surely?

@kuhrd

9 жыл бұрын

EEVblog some digital cameras will drop out pretty quickly since they use such a high current but that is why most digital cameras use lithium based battery tech now. One camera I had would kill a pair of batteries within 75-100 photographs depending on settings like flash. This same batteries would work in my walkman for several hours of music listening after being used in the camera. This arrangement worked out well for traveling.

@matsv201

9 жыл бұрын

EEVblog Try a women vibrator... well it sure works under 1.35V, but then all the fun is over ;) (yea, i actually measured the batteri when she thought they was bused, and they was over 1.3V) So i got shitload of batteries with 1.3V. The kids train can use them, but it takes a month to eat up the rest

@lowendnet

9 жыл бұрын

EEVblog There is a reason why they used the Apple Trackpad in the article, a 5 year old Bluetooth 2.0 device. It has pretty poor battery management if I go by the apple forums.

@TobiasRedepenning

9 жыл бұрын

We have a samsung camera that uses AAs and cuts out over 1.35,

Best way to use the rest of the 80% is in a remote control. most will work tell the batteries are dead as a door nail

@walnutuprising1641

7 жыл бұрын

I was taught that in the 80's and have done that ever since with never having a single issue.

@briankelly8697

7 жыл бұрын

i DO THAT because I'm a tightwad. Whoops, didn't knowcaps lock was on

@creato938

7 жыл бұрын

This is the best way, remote controls are really low power devices.

@samuelfellows6923

4 жыл бұрын

I put nearly dead/weak battery’s in quarts clocks

@brianwild4640

4 жыл бұрын

My mum used to save batteries from our toys (motorized cars ect) and use them in electric clocks remotes ect 35 years ago lol

If your device is happy running on, say, 1.2V, and the battery is currently giving, say, 1.3V, but the batteriser is pumping that back up to 1.5V, there's a good chance that your device is going to be drawing more power, and hence running down the battery faster, than it otherwise would, even if the batteriser were a magical device with 100% efficiency.

@Hansengineering

4 жыл бұрын

There are always inefficiencies in converting power. The batterizer will use power just being on the battery, too.

@shanejohns7901

Жыл бұрын

There are volts and there are amps. I think you're assuming that the amps would be the same across 1.2 V and 1.5 V.

@sylviaelse5086

Жыл бұрын

@@shanejohns7901 Depends. If the device uses a linear regulator, then the current will be the same. If it uses a switch mode regulator, then not. But a linear regulator is cheaper.

Don't remember where I read it, but someone said "while no one was looking, weather reports became accurate, and news reports became unreliable."

An 800% increase is equivalent to a multiplication by 9 not 8

@miles11we

9 жыл бұрын

I even missed that

@s0nnyburnett

9 жыл бұрын

theiceman259 Was wondering when someone else would notice.

@steventrompet3151

9 жыл бұрын

The moment I saw their % numbers I already knew the product was a fake.

@DolganoFF

9 жыл бұрын

Yep, "tapping into remaining 80%" is 400% increase, not 800%. So 400% at best in the case their claims are true which they aren't...

@BenjaminEsposti

9 жыл бұрын

***** They probably meant that there is 1 *more* of _n_, which is saying the same thing as _2n_

Dave, Nice work poking huge flaming holes in the claims made by the manufacturer, nothing speaks louder than actual measured evidence. I'd like to throw in two additional points - 1. A large number of small draw devices use linear regulation, both for cost and the reduced quiescent current. For these devices, you now have the double whammy efficiency hit by both adding to the quiescent current and also increasing the wasted energy across the linear regulator during the mid-end of the discharge curve. 2. The vast majority of users will not do trials with and without the device to confirm the claims. Indeed people's inherent desire to not be ripped off will bias them against realizing the actual utility of the device, slowing down any useful feedback to the rest of the buying public.

@EEVblog

9 жыл бұрын

Greg Amidon Yes, if using a linear reg in the product, extra whammy.

Need to get a few and send to Dave for a tear down. Science!.... I do smell the bs too, just want to see a vid on you tube of it failing.

@EEVblog

9 жыл бұрын

KraziIvan I'll be buying some when they come out, I'm keen to do measurements.

@KraziIvan

9 жыл бұрын

Nice, all I could think of was you having one in you hands and definitely debunking it. Cheers from Canada.

@ernststavroblofeld1961

9 жыл бұрын

EEVblog What are these devices? Step up transformers?

@danlane1249

9 жыл бұрын

Ernst Stavro Blofeld I'm thinking they are based off of a common DC to DC boost converter circuit. Problem is that they are only looking at the voltage as if that tells the entire story on battery life. Power is by definition voltage times current for any DC circuit and since the battery didn't grow extra chemicals to react, the amount of power remains the same and as we raise voltage we will lose current to maintain the power in question. That's my feeble understanding of it mind you. So, yeah, it can raise the voltage but with diminished current capabilities and losses due to running the boost converter circuitry subtracted as well. That would work fine in an ideal world, but generally speaking, nature doesn't tolerate free lunches nor does scientific results include the terms 'many', 'some' or 'up to' as a data set.

@piratetv1

9 жыл бұрын

Ernst Stavro Blofeld im guessing its a joule thief en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule_thief

I like in the promo video: congrats, you fooled the battery level indicator to prove that you've caused your device's indicator to malfunction and show 100% until 2 minutes before it turns off.

Oh man throwing away batteries without "cycling" them. Usually i take my used batterys measure them for voltage (old style bulb flashlights becomes rather useless at 1.2 volts) So if i have over 1.2 volts i keep using them in my remotes untill they dont work any longer then if they still have 1 volt in them i put them in a wallclock that will typically run for 4-8 monthe on the battery from ~1.0 -0.8volts then i throw them away.

@dodaxo1234567890roll

9 жыл бұрын

When you are measuring them you are putting 0 load on the battery. However as Dave showed as capacitance decreases in the battery increases so when using those 1.3 volt measured capacitance you are looking at a much lower voltage under load.

@dodaxo1234567890roll

9 жыл бұрын

***** *Internal resistance increases

@Cyberdreg

9 жыл бұрын

***** Yes i understand if i read 1 volt on the "dead" battery it will drop to 0.8 or something under load BUT if the load is wery small like a "quarts" clock that battery will still power that clock until close to 0.4 volts under load. Simplified i go like this use new battery for thing that draws 50 watts (but have voltage cut off) until "dead" switch to thing that uses 5 watts until dead and finally put in devise that uses 0.5 watts. And on a sidenote i once tested a MC battery 20ah or somthing and it took charge according to the battery loader and was a little bit on the low side for a fully charged battery (12.6v) but put a 10 watt lightbulb as load when testing and it vent down to 6.4 volts

@dodaxo1234567890roll

9 жыл бұрын

Cyberdreg OK I understand.

@ehill1536

9 жыл бұрын

Cyberdreg I will agree getting every milliamp out of the product is good practice. But with clocks and watches, battery powered, wouldn't the weak battery begin to slow the normal rate of it and become slower than the time you are trying to keep?

Thats a lot of paid dislikes...

I'd rather just pay the extra $2.50 on rechargeable cells...

If Daily Mail runs it, you know it has to be fake

Also worth noting that 800% is 9 times longer, not 8 times longer. So those articles also have some basic math wrong. (2 times longer is 100%, 3 times is 200%, ... , 8 times is 700%)

@MrNacknime

7 жыл бұрын

800% *increase* is 8 times *longer* 800% *as much* is 8 times *as long*.

@Harlequin314159

7 жыл бұрын

Just go to the simplest case. "A 100% increase is how many times longer?" a 100% increase is twice as big. I think the English language is as much at fault here. Since it is often ambiguous if we mean "10 is 100% OF 10" versus "10 is a 100% increase from 5".

@MrNacknime

7 жыл бұрын

It's once longer. The increase is 1 times the original length, thus once longer. In total it's twice as long.

@Harlequin314159

7 жыл бұрын

I'm sure we are just saying the same thing, and as I guessed English is the culprit. You are measuring the increase itself alone, versus the increase plus the original. So if I invest $1 and end up with $2, my profit (the increase) is 100% of $1, whereas my final position $2 is 200% of my starting position of $1. All good!

@MrNacknime

7 жыл бұрын

I'm saying exactly the same on the part of the percentages. With regards to comparative words, I think "longer", "bigger" etc. only describe the increase. I think we've found mutual understanding :P

when you boil it down. its just a joule thief. plain an simple.

I use two and get 1600% more battery life.

I assume that once you have it in it goes to 100% but will suddenly switch off with no warning because the 100% is just because your device is measuring 1.5V.

@EEVblog

9 жыл бұрын

Robbie Katz Yes, there will be no indication of battery level, you have no idea when it will die on you.

@RKatz121

9 жыл бұрын

So it seems like a product that is only really useful for an emergency to get 15 mins extra battery life and a good product for destroying rechargeable batteries... Excellent video, thanks for the quick response :)

@WayneJohnsonZastil

9 жыл бұрын

Robbie Katz Again no reason why ref output can be put in although mean products would need to access it.

@gl1500ctv

9 жыл бұрын

Yeah, the only actual use case that comes to mind would be for a incandescent flashlight (torch) where you want a full brightness output for a shorter total battery life, as opposed to having a steadily decreasing output without this product. Not sure whether I would prefer full brightness with suddenly death vs steadily decreasing output with no brick-wall cutoff. Not defending the product, but this is one possible case that came to mind. Even this would be iffy such as if you had a high-output bulb that draws more current than this product could handle. Of course most every LED flashlight driver circuit has its own boost circuit, with a digital way to warn the user about low battery life (as opposed to just going dim.) Comments?

@Iwasneverevenhere

9 жыл бұрын

Also your battery life can be shorter just because it uses more energy to keep constant 1.5 v while your device would also work at constant 1.1 v

If low voltage cutoffs were really 1.35 to 1.4 volts most rechargeable batteries would be useless because they typically only charge to around 1.3 (maybe 1.4 for a brand new one) anyway. LOL commented too soon. I was only 10 minutes in, right before you mention rechargeable.

@JoeStuffz

4 жыл бұрын

I'm also thinking that many rechargeable batteries are rated for 1.2V

"Corporate espionage"? Think it may have been the janitor simply doing his job taking out the trash...

Dave, you didn't even need to do the empirical measurements. Just applying the conservation of energy, their 1.4V drop-out claim, and the battery curves, it's clear that the remaining energy is not 8 times that used before dropping below 1.4V. So maybe 2-3x best case. But you took mere defeat to the next level of crush! Nice Job! Lyle

How do they get from 80% unused to 8x life? Sounds more like 5x (without considering efficency). They even contradict themselves ...

@tubical71

9 жыл бұрын

michaelsteinle nononoNo....you get them totally wrong, as 80% has the same 8 in it as the 8 in that 8x lifeSpan;) Do not confuse people with 5 as 5 isn´t the same as 8, keep on having that 8 wherever possible, as it´s easier to everday people to understand.....;)

@michaelsteinle

9 жыл бұрын

TubiCal and everyone capable of 8th grade math is confused, but then one can already assume that they know only idiots buy that

@softwaredeveloper6791

9 жыл бұрын

michaelsteinle They clearly mentioned the increments between 1.4 and 0.6. There are eight 0.1 increments, and the increment from 1.4 to 1.3 lasts one month, so that means it's eight months, because the curve, you know!

@my3dviews

4 жыл бұрын

Actually the claim is worse than that. They say it makes the battery last 800% longer, which is really nine times as long. Think about it. If it said it lasts 100% longer, that would mean twice as long. 200% longer is really three times as long. So, 800% longer is 9 times as long.

@theoakun3635

4 жыл бұрын

I think the idea was JOULE THIEF...

I see what you did @ 9:24 LOL What a pleasant surprise!

The Enrichment Center reminds you that although circumstances may appear bleak, you are not alone. All Aperture Science personality constructs will remain functional in apocalyptic low-power environments of as few as 1.1 volts.

I wonder how much 1.468 dislikes cost....

@nemsis567

3 жыл бұрын

Around $5 per 1000 on most smm.

Haha I see you are a fan of Irfanview too!

@EEVblog

9 жыл бұрын

Afrotechmods Irfanview is the bomb. My "photoshop" skills stop about there.

@steventrompet3151

9 жыл бұрын

F12 photoshop :-)

@alexsimonetti8522

8 жыл бұрын

+Afrotechmods +EEVblog It's cool that my 2 favorite EE [b|v]loggers are here! You guys rock. By the way, Dave, you should test digital cameras and Nikon flashes with these AA batteries: although the flashes work with 1.2V Lithium batteries, when they drop to 1.0V, they are already giving me low batt warnings and won't work any more. I often use Energizer Ultimate Lithium w/ my SB-910 and they don't last much. Whenever I go through 4 batteries on my SB-910, I keep them and they still give me a good run on an old school 35mm Nikon F5 (yes, I still use one).

I have several devices that run on AA batteries, that have a battery compartment that only just fits a bare battery - even some that you have to use some reasonable force to get batteries in/out. No way they will ever fit a battery with something wrapped around it. Also, their video claims batteries getting thrown away after using 20% of the capacity - leaving 80%. If that claim was true then that would only extend the available capacity five fold, not eight.

About the San Jose State lab throwing out batteries

I could see the Batterizer working for something like bicycle lights where you need to keep brightness all the way up until the very end. That maybe give alkaline batteries twice the usefulness, but no way in hell with it be 800%.

@wupme

4 жыл бұрын

Those lights, if you buy good quality ones, usually have a booster in them.

@eternalskywalker9440

3 жыл бұрын

Add a dynamo? Apparently not: based on the reviews and low volume of the few such products on Amazon, it's probably better to get a more efficient light and/or use rechargeable batteries.

Can't wait to see the infomercial on at 3am. Now we can use the other 80% of wasted energy from those solar roadways.

Great video Dave. most rechargeables are 1.2volts and they work perfectly in ALL the items in my home that takes batteries, as you show mostly all items are designed this way. Plus because of the strip running down the side They look like they could jam and could be difficult to remove from products that use a tube compartment like that apple keyboard in the video.

Actually, the product being featured in the Daily Mail is already the most compelling debunking argument.

Wow! I came here for debunking... I wasn't expecting that massive "nostalgia rush" of seeing my old Casio calculator. Second calculator I ever owned. I learned Simpson's Rule (which is even "on-topic" with all your talk of areas under curves) and Standard deviation on that! Miss you mate

I don't get how people fall for this, if the headline was +20% or so I could see people falling for it but 800% is insane, do people fall for it because they want it to be true? Their wishful thinking of everlasting batteries overruling their common sense? Order of magnitude improvements like this aren't exactly a common occurrence, most improvements are gradual over time, and if this was real it wouldn't be a weird gadget, it would be on all the store shelves and built into batteries.

@svampebob007

9 жыл бұрын

Christian Gerefalk yes, it's wishful thinking and ignorance. You saw how many "reputable" people claimed it to be true, you're average consumer has no idea how a battery works, and probably didn't even know that it dropped in voltage or what that even means... it's sad what people do for money, at least try and make something useful instead of bullshiting your way to fame and praying on the ignorance of people.

@AstralS7orm

9 жыл бұрын

Christian Gerefalk In fact, it is built into some lithium-ion cells. Smart cells specifically. But generally it's the device itself that has the charge controller and required step-up converter.

Protip: If your device drops out at 1.4V (I had a crappy infrared mouse), then just take out the battery and you can still use it in other devices like remote controls. Also hammering a battery might help you to get back some voltage, it was once enought for me to win a match in UT2004.

@kint5ugee

2 жыл бұрын

That's a great idea to put the "dead" batteries in another device. I should have thought of that before tossing my keyboard batteries.

Dave, thanks for doing this. It must also be pointed out, that because of decreased revenue across the board for journalistic publications, there has been a marked increase in advertisements that are formatted as news stories, the line has been blurred so badly, that we have to be on our toes, constantly.

Hi, I'm a young electronics engineer, and i wanted to thank you for this little debunk ! I felt that this storry was shitty, I started my research (I didn't knew were to start) and I found your's Realy complete. Cheers (France)

+EEVblog If they claim their "batteriser" maintains the fully charged voltage, surely this will actually decrease the battery life wouldn't it, by preventing the current from dropping between 1.0 - 1.4v? I'm guessing this would increase current used over a given time.

@God-CDXX

8 жыл бұрын

+Mark Bartlett YOU ARE EXACTLY RIGHT

I've noticed the hipster music. That is one way to find BS.

When you to their KZread channel, EEVBlog is the first recommended channel in the sidebar

I am skeptical of the product, but I want to get my hands on one to play with. Yes, I've forked over the money for a set of these things. Your video and your rationale are good. I especially like the "downsides" bits. I'll not be putting this batteriser on my more expensive Eneloops batteries, or into any high dollar electronics unless and until the product is proven to work, and to work reliably. I really need to test my batteries. One of the products you tested, is a Logitech mouse. I'm pretty sure that Logitech mouses extract a lot more energy than things like flashlights. My Mag instruments LED Pro flashlight will drain a set of batteries down, until it won't light up at all. I can take those batteries, put one into my Logitech wireless mouse, and get weeks of life from it. So, yeah, I'm skeptical - but I'm hopeful that this thing delivers even half of it's promises. No matter what, the marketing hype sucks. And, I'll probably feel like a sucker when I've tested this thing.

@GoldSrc_

8 жыл бұрын

+Paul Brown Get a boost converter, and boom, you have a batteriser. We already know how boost converter work, the batteriser is just a tiny one in a sleeve. One big downside of boost converters is that they turn your battery level gauge (if your product has one) useless, that means that once the energy of the battery runs out, your product will go instantly from 100% battery to 0%, no low battery warning at all. Also, never use boost converters on fresh new batteries, why you may ask?, well, boost converters are not 100% efficient, so using one on fresh batteries will give you less time than what you could get using just the batteries.

@68MalKontent

8 жыл бұрын

+Paul Brown In this usage scenario it gets more complicated, because a high-drain device like a flashlight will wear the battery down more quickly due to additional chemical factors (see the graphs Dave shows around the 17 minute mark)), and such battery, when left alone for some time or put in a low-drain device will slowly "catch up" with the internal chemical balance and regain some of its capacity - essentially "jump" up on the graph towards the low-current curves. So, even without additional circuitry, you can optimize the battery life by using them in a smart way, like in your example. You also have sort of a valid point about expensive equipment - the batteriser will not harm your device (unless it's very poorly engineered), but battery cells which will be deep-discharged (beyond the designed discharge level and especially over a long time in a low-drain devicel) may leak or otherwise decompose in a destructive way, so it'll be worthwhile to pull them out and check more often.

I like how they say that 80% of the energy is still left in the "used" battery, but then say the product uses that 80% to boost to 8 times the original life - wouldn't it be more like 5 times?

@genli5603

4 жыл бұрын

Math is hard apparently

Surely a gadget this cheap can do more than every battery manufacturer in the entire world !,,LMFAO !!

@miles11we

9 жыл бұрын

Because a battery manufacturer wants their batteries to last as long as possible?? I mean if it was my choice and i was a more greedy man i would want the batteries im selling to just barely be better than the competition but thats it.

@possiblydavid

9 жыл бұрын

Miles Eaton But being just barely better than the competition is the key! Your competition also wants to be just better than you... It's a loop that ends near the max battery life.

@BenjaminGoose

9 жыл бұрын

Miles Eaton So the low-end manufacturers add this little bit of technology and end up providing better batteries than the leaders. And then the leaders will want to top that. And so on.

@laharl2k

9 жыл бұрын

Miles Eaton well they could make a plotto make them ALL cheaper and last lots less like those chinese ones. That way they could get greater profits for the same amount of products. Like incandescent bulbs manufacturers have done. If this was so good and cheap, products would have it inside. Plus there's nothing "new" in a boost converter, unless they researched some new super ultra permeable material or something with 99999 teslas of saturation and no hysteresis. But the guy is an electrical engineer, nor a physicist specialized in magnetic materials and shit.

that's the first time i've seen a cell that the positive was the outer casing normally the negative is, at least around here.

When these guys reference a battery's "dead" voltage, they are probably referencing OCV voltage of the battery being 1.35V. I just tested a AA Duracell @ 1.4V OCV with a 12 Ohm load and the voltage dropped to 1.2V while drawing ~116 mA. I removed this battery from a "dead" alarm clock. I know this is 5 years old and nobody will ever see this, but I think it's worth mentioning...not that it changes the outcome of Dave's analysis though. EDIT: Disregard...seems to be covered in a follow-up video, EEVblog #789.

Thanks for this, I've already seen countless tech sites reprint all the claims of this device as if they're facts. Seems nobody wants to bother fact-checking the hype. At the time of writing this however, this video comes up on the front page of google when searching for 'batteriser' so there's hope yet.

watching this video in full screen and going "god, how did i manage to have all these tabs open? i need to close some of th... damn, it's a video" and then repeating the same process five minutes later

I think my favorite part of this is that you mention as an aside that this prevents product battery gauges from working correctly (since they're based on the measurement of the battery's remaining voltage), while in their promotional video they've twisted that around to be a /feature/.

They reached out to us inquiring about a cross promotion as we both have campaigns in the technology channel of Indiegogo. Our engineers were incredibly suspicious of the credibility behind their claims. Can't believe people do this!

This device channels the divine energy from solar roadways and puts it into a battery. Brilliant!

The "Batteriser Fan Page" is doing some serious damage control in the comments section. /popcorn

@Olivia-W

4 жыл бұрын

I see you are not a Latex user ;) \popcorn.

@moki2093

4 жыл бұрын

@@Olivia-W what is /popcorn

@Olivia-W

4 жыл бұрын

@@moki2093 Oh, a / with some name is generally some sort of command. /popcorn in this context probably means holding a tub of popcorn and eating it.

@moki2093

4 жыл бұрын

@@Olivia-W Oh okay Sorry, I live in a pond of frogs

you're the only person i know who opens as many browser tabs as me! by the way, great review.

Batteriser? And here I've been using YEAST all these years :)

some loosers pay for dislikes . this video is simply amazing !!!

Well, pretty much anything with "-iser" or "-matic" on the end of the name is guaranteed to be a scam. Also, it's like when someone says "we can extend your fuel mileage by 800% with this fuel additive" would you believe them? Same thing here. Great debunking, by the way. Keep it up! :D

Lol, first stumbled upon this guy while watching the solar roadways fiasco of debunking and even though I am not very familiar with the subjects he is talking about in his other videos I really, really like his style in the videos. Maybe someday when I have time I will delve into his usual, techinical electronic vids. until then big thumbs up for his regular subscribers and for the time he is taking to share all this stuff for free online. It's really great.

The WORST part of the batteriser is that any device you have that has a 'battery level indicator' will not display an accurate level anymore because the boost converter says it's 'full' all the time. And god forbid someone uses this on expensive rechargables, it would absolutely trash rechargable batteries by underrunning their minimum current. If you are the type of person who replaces your batteries as soon as the indicator drops down a notch, then yea... this will fool your device into thinking it has a full battery even when underrunning that 1v standard.

There`s another problem introduced by this batteriser thing. By the nature of voltage booster - internal feedback loop switching the coil constantly on and off seeking for the right output voltage - high frequency noise is being introduced to the output, a lot bigger then the immanent noise of the battery alone. It may disturb properly functioning devices, for example push some hifi portable players out of the claims for audio quality (added distortions). This extra noise could not be taken into account by engineers designing circuits, so decoupling caps may be unable to flatten supplied voltage (because of too big esr for example). Besides that - who uses batteries today? Eneloop technology is so cheap nowadays, it changed everything... And despite that, even more stuff produced recently uses internal lipo batteries, not even mentioning stuff with voltage boosters already built into them. Sorry, but I don`t see bright future for this product. Or wait, there are surely some people who will buy it and claim it works even despite it don`t just to not look like silly kid cheated by some random guy. Advertisers, they open their mouths and the value of gold magically rises...

@EEVblog

9 жыл бұрын

Piotr Szarański And given the tiny size of the magnetics it has to be very high frequency, several MHz.

Wow... has it been a year and a half already? well the wait is over, HOUSTON! WE HAVE CONTACT!

Great video Dave. Especially funny that while watching this video on my smartphone that it gave me a low battery warning. Thanks

When powering a project with primary cells I use some logic ICs and a digital pot to regulate the gain of my boost converter until the boost converter dies itself from no longer being in the minimum voltage range.

Thanks Dave!!!

Nice thorough debunk Dave! Love these kinds of videos. Not only are they entertaining, but I learn a lot about engineering too. Nice work.

@EEVblog

9 жыл бұрын

DrInductor That was the idea with this one, to hopefully show people how to approach looking at marketing claims like this from an engineering point of view.

I want to see the D cell version continue to supply 4A for a week or so after the cell reaches 1.1v...

I've noticed in a few of your videos you use Vartar batteries do you recommend them ?

8 times longer is 700% longer! Grrrr...

@MrNacknime

7 жыл бұрын

8 times *longer*, not 8 times *as long*

When i am dead, i still have 80% of life?

What about pocket digital cameras? I had one back in the day that was very picky and choosy about the batteries that I tried to feed it. Is it a voltage or current deal?

Just a thought, but given this is obviously bunk, could the idea be used to get the last dregs out and store them in a supercapacitor bank for charging rechargable devices? Or would the efficiency limitations not make it worth the trouble?

I may be a little late to the party, but don't many battery powered products already contain a "batteriser" as part of their power supply anyway? I thought we were well past the days of burning off excess voltage to heat your house :P

@EEVblog

9 жыл бұрын

Fernrat Yep, the design goal of any decently designed battery powered product is to use as much of the battery energy as possible.

@BulletMagnet83

9 жыл бұрын

***** Perhaps I'm a little jaded with the state of play in electronics right now... or maybe I'm not as clever as I think I am. But it seems to me that almost all crowdfunded "innovations" are shit that already exists or shit that nobody needs/asked for, wrapping up existing technology in a trendy box to make a fast buck through pseudoscience or patent wars.... please tell me I'm wrong :C I'd like to think we're better than that.

@imagoatbah

9 жыл бұрын

Fernrat I guess the only advantage is that little sliver of energy between 1.1v and 0.6v that most devices wouldn't risk completely draining if they support rechargeable batteries (unlike the batteriser).

damn if you couple this with the 23 led free energy circuit the universe will collapse in a puff.

@PunakiviAddikti

5 жыл бұрын

Oh shit, you're right! The universe will collapse into itself.

Boost converters are more efficient when boosting for an example 3 volts to 5-30 volts like some do. There are 2-3 volts to 5 volt 1-2 amp USB only -boosters, which have just a USB port as a output.

I loved the "your battery gauge will jump back to 100%" claim. Of course it will because the gauge relies on the voltage curve to predict life. It'll say 100% until it just suddenly dies. Gotta love how a drawback is turned into a feature through marketing.

Great debunking. It would be interesting to see if anyone can find a product that will cut out at 1.35V per cell, perhaps have a competition and the winner gets a new set of batteries. It seems to me that if this sort of thing was really useful designers would already be building it into their device. After all they could tell exactly which devices would benefit from this technique.

@TomaszWota

9 жыл бұрын

Wobblycogs Workshop Important to note, many rechargeable batteries are rated at 1.2V

1458 people got paid to dislike this video

Hey dave, can you check how low a typical wall clock that runs on a 1.5v cell? I've heard they shut down quite much earlier in the lifecycle of the battery. I'm gonna test it myself as soon as I get to my bench.

I don't know if this was mentioned in a video, but to add insult to injury for this product, you cannot just look at the mAh discharge curves for the batteries. Since the voltage will be boosted, the current going to the boost circuit will be higher than what you get out of it. So lets say the boost circuit is 100% efficient, and the battery is holding at 1 volt and you are getting 1.5VDC at 10mA from the device. Power out from the circuit = 1.5*10 = 15mW. Since we are 100% efficient, P = IV => 15mW = I*1VDC => Current from the battery = 15mA. So when you look at a battery discharge curve in mAh, keep in mind that since the voltage is increasing there is even less final capacity in mAh you will be getting out of the final output.

Unfortunately for most people (including a few in the comments surprisingly), the proof will be in the pudding. This product will be bought, used, most likely lowering battery life (due to power dissipated by the device itself) and thrown in the trash, with no lesson learned.

@SianaGearz

8 жыл бұрын

The proof is not in the pudding, because the product is bought, and... has not been delivered. It was supposed to ship half a year ago, but delays keep piling up, and promises keep getting bigger.

So does a,lot of products include booster circuits to drain the batteries till the last drop?

@jerryj5606

9 жыл бұрын

***** I don't thank so, because draining the batteries till the last drop is really bad for rechargeable batteries.

@EEVblog

9 жыл бұрын

***** Yes, a well designed product will be designed to make use of most of the battery capacity. Stuff that works with rechargeables you need to be more careful not to overdischarge.

@MetalHippie83

9 жыл бұрын

EEVblog cool, I'll have to google some circuits and plans, would be fun to mess around with them and use it for some projects.

Oh Dave, you don't even know how completely right you are about ESR when it comes to battery life :) First of all the discharge (due to the nature of the loads themselves) is usually VERY nonlinear, so the graphs in all the datasheet are VERY idealized. Second (and this is implied from the previous statement) the ESR (and thus the output current) is many times MUCH more informative about a battery's health/discharge state than the voltage itself. I've actually seen quite a few batteries that had an open circuit voltage of 1.1-1.3 volts, and yet they gave off little to no current whatsoever, since their internal resistance (ESR) was already WAY too high (and thus the battery's voltage has collapsed under even the smallest load). With such batteries (that are so far gone) I doubt that a Joule thief like the one "featured" in the video will help even a little bit, because the voltage will collapse lightning fast anyway, making any attempts at extracting the "remaining" energy in the battery a futile attempt.

Hi Dave. I knows this an old thread...but: This is not about facts. Its about rhetoric. What they say is, that just before the gadget will stop working there will be some juice left. If we define this amount af "power" to be 20% of whats left, then we can get you 4 times as much, namely the 80% rest of whats left. So when your device for ex. has 10 second left before it shuts down then the Batteriser can extend this to 40 seconds. If it can extend this time even to 80 seconds til will amount to 800% extra in that situation. That could be enough to put in the last "and its huge" in your boss's speech and save your job, your children's access to the private school and your wife's medical treatment. A real life saver! I got this understanding from listening to the new USA government. Martin Freeman

im guessing how they will impress stupid people with investment money is slapping it in something with a battery gauge and as the gauge is reading 100% of the voltage it will show 100% despite the fact that that will fall off nearly like a brick wall not that much later

I knew it was all a load of balls as soon as you pulled up The Daily Fail. Then The Star. I wouldn't even trust them to give me the right date never mind journalism.

Dave one thing you touched on but didn't fully flesh out - as the device internal resistance begins to increase and the voltage begins to decrease, a device that requires a constant or minimum current will cause the boost converter to draw an increasing amount of current from the battery. Thus, as it approaches its cutoff threshold, it will draw more current from the battery than it would without the batteriser. So in most cases it will actually reduce the effective life of the battery.

Laughed my arse off at the calculator :)

@briankelly8697

7 жыл бұрын

BOOBIES! That was hilarious

@jort93z

7 жыл бұрын

whats funny about it?

Given their claim only 20% of the capacity are used. Thats 1/5 of the full capacity, so all one can get out of that cell is the rest 4/5, which would result in a 4 times greater lifetime. So for 8 time lifetime they would need to magically double the capacity of the cell ;) Btw, I was very surprised when you showed that the metal case of a cell is the positive pole mostly. I checked some cells I had around, and yes, it seems nowadays it's build that way. Most of my NiMH cells (Panasonic) do have the negative pole on the case, and positive pin isolated, but with alkalines it seems to be standard to have positive on the case. Are there reasons they build it this way ? ,

@EEVblog

9 жыл бұрын

Dieter Mayr I don't know the manufacturing reasons why. I checked Energizer, Duracell, Varta, and Maxell, all have the positive case.

@tubical71

9 жыл бұрын

EEVblog Rechargeable and primary cells differ a LOT:) the rechargeable cells usually have the can negg´ed.

they updated their page to so called debunk the bench supply test lol probably after your video was widespread and more questions got asked to them

Dave, I only know Batteries, which are always separated on the positiv side. Is it normal in Australia, with the negative side?

You're not wrong about that Logitech keyboard! Mine (an MK 320) used the original AAA batteries for YEARS while the mouse required dozens of replacement AA's. After 7 years of use, I think I'm only up to my 3rd set and this keyboard gets regular, heavy, daily use!

Thanks for doing the research.

800% longer = 9 times longer, no?

Love how you predicted what would happen even before having one to test.

Small point of mathematics. An increase from 20% to 100% is a five fold increase so the banner claim should be 500% not 800%. This is of course ignoring engineering realities.