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.
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.
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.
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."
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
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
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.
+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.
+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.
+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
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.
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.
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 ...
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.
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.
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
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.
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%.
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.
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
***** 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
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?
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 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%.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :)
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?
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%)
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".
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!
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
+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.
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 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!
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.
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)
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.
+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).
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
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.
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/.
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.
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.
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
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?
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!
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!
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.
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.
***** I hope not. Thunderf00t is an amazing scientist, but his video "debunking videos" use the very same selective information and quotation style, he is accusing others of. His conclusion are (mostly) right - I respect Thunderf00t for that - but his presentation is as flawed as the one in the video being debunked. An example: Dave did not get personal in this video. He showed how the claim is objectively untrue and why the Professor maybe said something that does not hold up. Fair enough. Thunderf00t on the other hand, would make fun of the Professor and get very personal and offensive, calling the Professor stupid and so on. Look Thunderf00t videos and try to catch how often he gets personal and offensive for no real reason.
John Yorson Insulating for entertainment and entertainment for convincing anyone is a very dangerous path. Entertainment as a tool to convince people is exactly the part that makes those kickstarter videos so... powerful in convincing the unknowing public and so annoying to people knowing better. Look how Dave handles it: He blames marketing or the media - marketing is not a person, just a function within a company. Media is a generalized therm. There is simply no need to get personal to prove a point. (and if it is needed to get personal to prove a point - discharge the prove. The prove has to stand on its own legs.) Thunderf00t on the other side would blame the Physic Professor, the developer of the product, specific writers of the news stories... and then wonder why they take it personal. One of the video were I started to doubt thunderf00ts style (not the content - that part was great - just the way he is communicating) when he made a point with Professor Poliakoff from Periodic Videos for having acces to better equipment and not realizing that something is just not right in the explanation of the reaction of water and alkaline metals. Thunderf00t is a great scientist for discovering the cathodic explosion. He can be proud for discovering it - but... he should be proud because of the discovery it self, not for out smarting a Professor how made the Alkaline reaction video based on the knowledge of that time for a broader audience. Thunderf00t saw something nobody as seen before and he spend years of his life for that discovery - great. But using a video of Professor Poliakoff just to prove that he is smarter then anyone before him? That is for no reason personal towards Professor Poliakoff and the team behind periodic videos.
Kakunapod I generally agree with Thunderf00ts message, but rarely with his methods. Thunderf00t is using insults and selective information all the time. On his videos he is pointing at selective informations to debunk a video. When the mentioned people get angry at him because he got personal, he uses that (them getting angry) as prove against them. See a pattern? Off course, the people he is dealing with can be considered trolls and scammers - but trolling a troll does not solve anything. He can not use the methods he him self considers bad scientific/scholar practice to point out that some else is doing it. That is throwing fuel into the flame war, destroying the middle ground. (either with us or against us - nothing in bethwhen) He is creating an echo chamber where only people listen to him, that are on his side anyway. (instead of in-lighting people so that they can follow the discussion from both sides, allowing general progress)
John Yorson That's not even a problem to me, i can realize that and get the facts at the same time, so i get entretained and informed at the same time. Getting personal or no has nothing to do with facts, Thunderfoot delivers both. I doubt anyone would watch a 15 minutes long video with only graphs, and text, no sound, no voice, no explanations, only numbers and graphs and comparisons as in a datasheet
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
I knew the voltage claims of 1.35v to 1.4v were nonsense right away. I've been using rechargeable NiCd batteries for many years, and they are only rated at 1.2v. Devices that won't run on these batteries are extremely rare. So the dropoff has to be below 1.2v, which invalidates their efficiency claims at least.
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.
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
***** 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.
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).
I did put some batteries that were dying into a ziploc bag and submerged it in hot water for a few minutes to squeeze some useable juice out of the thing. It does work, but after that it's definitely dead.
9 років тому+3
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...
well i went a read the blog for a quick description of the product. The moment i saw "1,5volt of energy" BS i understood this was all crap. After all what expert company would measure energy by volts? These products are so helarious! Serves the ignorant and unsuspected well until the subject every aspect of their life to srcutiny. Cheers for the video!
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.
matsv201 Though I don't think their tiny boost converter will be able to handle the amount of power the motor draws, that would be very a viable usage.
the32bits Well,, maybe, i´m note sure. I actually seen boost converters that smaller than a thumbnail that handle 20A. And that is all in with caps and induction built in. So i don´t know, but if it well made with really good components, i would guess you could fit something that can handle 1A or so. That is about what the draw of i high power vibrator is. Actually most better made only consume about 0.5A.
Also, I might be wrong, but as the cell voltage goes down, won't the boost converter pull more current? If so, will that not increase voltage sag from the internal resistance? Like I say, might be wrong, but if not, surely that would reduce battery performance, not increase
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 remember watching this when it came out, but on the second take, I wonder if these things cause batteries to leak much earlier, due to their parasitic drain that circumvents the power switch. Also since these things are supposed to make you care less about changing batteries, and the lack of a working charge indicator might cause the batteries to be so deeply discharged that they start leaking much worse than they usually do.
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 LOLD SO HARD @ the calculator!!! I used to do that, once some church folk came over, I had done the boobies on the calc, they actually laughed, my mother not so much!
I just measured the voltage on a dead battery from a my wife's epilator from Braun. The open-circuit voltage was 1.43V on the Duracell alkaline batteries. It would just barely work on with this battery, however the epilator had no problem running on a charged NiMH batteries at 1.35V. So obviously, they are stating the open-circuit voltage in their ads while you are testing (the correct) bias under load.
This is the way I would test it. A new high quality battery keeps my mouse working for about a year. So, after 1 year I put this device on it and I better get 8 more years of service out of that battery. Otherwise, false advertising and I smell a law suit. But seriously, I think it would be easier (and nicer) if the companies who build the devices added boost circuitry to their products so batteries would last longer in their device. It would be a real selling point. Maybe some already to. This is assuming that the boost circuitry itself won't waste whatever energy was gained.
Would that be such a good idea? As shown in this video, boost circuitry can be very inefficient and means the product can not be used with rechargeable batteries. Making your product cut of at 1.1 V looks like the way to go.
Dave, I appreciate your take on this subject. I noticed your testing didn't include any series resistance to duplicate the rather high internal resistance of a tired alkaline battery. Any thoughts relating to that? Again, I don't doubt your conclusion but I was a little surprised you didn't simulate that effect. Thanks!
This is an amazing video! I have to show this to all my engineering friends!!! I mean I am not just baffled by how this company even exists (and that they have a totally unscientific patent in their hands!!!) but also by how easily they were able to bribe even some big press to hop onto this crazy ass cheating bandwagon :O
I noticed that they used incorrect grammar with the word "lets". The sentence "Batteriser uses micro-circuitry that let's you instantly ..." (33:50) should say "lets", not "let's".
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.
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.
Another issue regarding that bare conducting sleeve design is imminent when two or more cells are insereted in parallel. Unless you manage to keep them at a right angle (different from the tongue angle) you'll short the negative terminals.
Someone just asked me to debunk this... but honestly you've done a FANTASTIC job here!
just for fun, debunk his debunking even though its bullshit what youre saying.
you should probably go to his page and see that he in fact did it
Wow, Tf00t is a Dave fan!! Makes sense!
drstrangelove09 i discovered dave through TF
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.
derstreber2 yes actually
Or worse, you may get it into a product, like the keyboard with a long battery tube, but not out again!
That's the first thing that popped in my mind, lots of devices have a really tight fit... smh
Got em
XD
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.
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.
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."
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
Francois Hoffman And guess who owns and pays the wages of half the Journalists? The same people who produce the products.
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
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.
+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.
+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.
+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
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.
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.
Read what the calculator says at @9:24. Never change, Dave!
BOOBIES!
+nokidding I'm literally laughing out loud. Nice work.
I didn't see that the first time - now I'm PML. Oh the fun at high school
nokidding i came in the comments just to see if anyone else noticed lmao
lol came in the comments...
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 ...
A good point to be take in to account for critical usage, not too much to energize a tv remote control. ;)
Until the remote dies when you want to turn on the TV to watch your favourite movie/show/match... :D
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.
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.
@@shroomzgames7370 Remotes usually don't keep any data in RAM though - and the universal ones usually keep data in flash
Well researched, Dave! It was fun to see all of those products that work just fine down to 1.1V.
Applied Science Now I'm kinda obsessed with finding something that *does* dropout at 1.35V or higher! I must have something somewhere, surely?
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.
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
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.
We have a samsung camera that uses AAs and cuts out over 1.35,
that "800%" just magically turned into 80% on their facebook page.
The lying bastards.
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%.
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
or to boost free energy...
800% more unlimited energy. Yay!
Or even the SUN itself! Wooo-hooo!! xD
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.
There are always inefficiencies in converting power. The batterizer will use power just being on the battery, too.
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.
@@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.
Another downside - rendering every low battery measurement absolutely useless.
Christopher Johnson Yep, a huge downside I forgot to mention!
Christopher Johnson Not if circuit designed to show the original voltage on it. i.e. ever heard of ref pin?
Christopher Johnson That's a good solution - these marketing guys should use this product in their smoke detectors.
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.
@@WayneJohnsonZastil That would be really non-standard. No device would have a third prong to measure the battery level.
Thats a lot of paid dislikes...
Don't remember where I read it, but someone said "while no one was looking, weather reports became accurate, and news reports became unreliable."
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
I was taught that in the 80's and have done that ever since with never having a single issue.
i DO THAT because I'm a tightwad. Whoops, didn't knowcaps lock was on
This is the best way, remote controls are really low power devices.
I put nearly dead/weak battery’s in quarts clocks
My mum used to save batteries from our toys (motorized cars ect) and use them in electric clocks remotes ect 35 years ago lol
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.
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.
Greg Amidon Yes, if using a linear reg in the product, extra whammy.
If Daily Mail runs it, you know it has to be fake
I'd rather just pay the extra $2.50 on rechargeable cells...
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.
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.
***** *Internal resistance increases
***** 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
Cyberdreg OK I understand.
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?
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.
An 800% increase is equivalent to a multiplication by 9 not 8
I even missed that
theiceman259 Was wondering when someone else would notice.
The moment I saw their % numbers I already knew the product was a fake.
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...
***** They probably meant that there is 1 *more* of _n_, which is saying the same thing as _2n_
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%.
Those lights, if you buy good quality ones, usually have a booster in them.
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.
Surely a gadget this cheap can do more than every battery manufacturer in the entire world !,,LMFAO !!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
KraziIvan I'll be buying some when they come out, I'm keen to do measurements.
Nice, all I could think of was you having one in you hands and definitely debunking it. Cheers from Canada.
EEVblog What are these devices?
Step up transformers?
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.
Ernst Stavro Blofeld im guessing its a joule thief en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule_thief
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.
Robbie Katz Yes, there will be no indication of battery level, you have no idea when it will die on you.
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 :)
Robbie Katz Again no reason why ref output can be put in although mean products would need to access it.
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?
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
"Corporate espionage"? Think it may have been the janitor simply doing his job taking out the trash...
Can't wait to see the infomercial on at 3am.
Now we can use the other 80% of wasted energy from those solar roadways.
When you to their UA-cam channel, EEVBlog is the first recommended channel in the sidebar
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%)
800% *increase* is 8 times *longer*
800% *as much* is 8 times *as long*.
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".
It's once longer. The increase is 1 times the original length, thus once longer. In total it's twice as long.
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!
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
+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.
+Mark Bartlett YOU ARE EXACTLY RIGHT
How do they get from 80% unused to 8x life? Sounds more like 5x (without considering efficency). They even contradict themselves ...
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.....;)
TubiCal and everyone capable of 8th grade math is confused, but then one can already assume that they know only idiots buy that
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!
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.
I think the idea was JOULE THIEF...
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)
I see what you did @ 9:24 LOL
What a pleasant surprise!
Laughed my arse off at the calculator :)
BOOBIES! That was hilarious
whats funny about it?
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.
I'm also thinking that many rechargeable batteries are rated for 1.2V
when you boil it down. its just a joule thief. plain an simple.
Haha I see you are a fan of Irfanview too!
Afrotechmods Irfanview is the bomb. My "photoshop" skills stop about there.
F12 photoshop :-)
+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).
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
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.
That's a great idea to put the "dead" batteries in another device. I should have thought of that before tossing my keyboard batteries.
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/.
This device channels the divine energy from solar roadways and puts it into a battery. Brilliant!
Actually, the product being featured in the Daily Mail is already the most compelling debunking argument.
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.
you're the only person i know who opens as many browser tabs as me!
by the way, great review.
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.
Audibly laughed at the BOOBIES reference on the calculator.
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
Thankyou. Glad somebody did this.
The problem isn't the batteries, it's the badly designed products that use them.
damn if you couple this with the 23 led free energy circuit the universe will collapse in a puff.
Oh shit, you're right! The universe will collapse into itself.
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?
Math is hard apparently
8 times longer is 700% longer! Grrrr...
8 times *longer*, not 8 times *as long*
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!
I use two and get 1600% more battery life.
About the San Jose State lab throwing out batteries
I wonder how much 1.468 dislikes cost....
Around $5 per 1000 on most smm.
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!
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.
Wobblycogs Workshop Important to note, many rechargeable batteries are rated at 1.2V
Thanks for the laugh with the calculator, good way to start the day, lol.
some loosers pay for dislikes . this video is simply amazing !!!
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.
LOL... Looking more & more like a Thunderf00t video! ;)
***** I hope not. Thunderf00t is an amazing scientist, but his video "debunking videos" use the very same selective information and quotation style, he is accusing others of. His conclusion are (mostly) right - I respect Thunderf00t for that - but his presentation is as flawed as the one in the video being debunked.
An example: Dave did not get personal in this video. He showed how the claim is objectively untrue and why the Professor maybe said something that does not hold up. Fair enough. Thunderf00t on the other hand, would make fun of the Professor and get very personal and offensive, calling the Professor stupid and so on. Look Thunderf00t videos and try to catch how often he gets personal and offensive for no real reason.
sarowie I wouldnt say for no real reason. I would say the people pumping this product out could do with a little ridiculing, as could most scammers
John Yorson
Insulating for entertainment and entertainment for convincing anyone is a very dangerous path. Entertainment as a tool to convince people is exactly the part that makes those kickstarter videos so... powerful in convincing the unknowing public and so annoying to people knowing better.
Look how Dave handles it: He blames marketing or the media - marketing is not a person, just a function within a company. Media is a generalized therm. There is simply no need to get personal to prove a point. (and if it is needed to get personal to prove a point - discharge the prove. The prove has to stand on its own legs.) Thunderf00t on the other side would blame the Physic Professor, the developer of the product, specific writers of the news stories... and then wonder why they take it personal.
One of the video were I started to doubt thunderf00ts style (not the content - that part was great - just the way he is communicating) when he made a point with Professor Poliakoff from Periodic Videos for having acces to better equipment and not realizing that something is just not right in the explanation of the reaction of water and alkaline metals.
Thunderf00t is a great scientist for discovering the cathodic explosion. He can be proud for discovering it - but... he should be proud because of the discovery it self, not for out smarting a Professor how made the Alkaline reaction video based on the knowledge of that time for a broader audience. Thunderf00t saw something nobody as seen before and he spend years of his life for that discovery - great. But using a video of Professor Poliakoff just to prove that he is smarter then anyone before him? That is for no reason personal towards Professor Poliakoff and the team behind periodic videos.
Kakunapod
I generally agree with Thunderf00ts message, but rarely with his methods.
Thunderf00t is using insults and selective information all the time. On his videos he is pointing at selective informations to debunk a video. When the mentioned people get angry at him because he got personal, he uses that (them getting angry) as prove against them. See a pattern? Off course, the people he is dealing with can be considered trolls and scammers - but trolling a troll does not solve anything. He can not use the methods he him self considers bad scientific/scholar practice to point out that some else is doing it. That is throwing fuel into the flame war, destroying the middle ground. (either with us or against us - nothing in bethwhen) He is creating an echo chamber where only people listen to him, that are on his side anyway. (instead of in-lighting people so that they can follow the discussion from both sides, allowing general progress)
John Yorson That's not even a problem to me, i can realize that and get the facts at the same time, so i get entretained and informed at the same time. Getting personal or no has nothing to do with facts, Thunderfoot delivers both.
I doubt anyone would watch a 15 minutes long video with only graphs, and text, no sound, no voice, no explanations, only numbers and graphs and comparisons as in a datasheet
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 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.
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.
I've noticed the hipster music. That is one way to find BS.
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.
Wow... has it been a year and a half already? well the wait is over, HOUSTON! WE HAVE CONTACT!
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.
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
Batteriser? And here I've been using YEAST all these years :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
1458 people got paid to dislike this video
I knew the voltage claims of 1.35v to 1.4v were nonsense right away. I've been using rechargeable NiCd batteries for many years, and they are only rated at 1.2v. Devices that won't run on these batteries are extremely rare. So the dropoff has to be below 1.2v, which invalidates their efficiency claims at least.
The "Batteriser Fan Page" is doing some serious damage control in the comments section. /popcorn
I see you are not a Latex user ;)
\popcorn.
@@Olivia-W what is /popcorn
@@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.
@@Olivia-W Oh okay
Sorry, I live in a pond of frogs
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.
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
Fernrat Yep, the design goal of any decently designed battery powered product is to use as much of the battery energy as possible.
***** 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.
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).
Love how you predicted what would happen even before having one to test.
When i am dead, i still have 80% of life?
I did put some batteries that were dying into a ziploc bag and submerged it in hot water for a few minutes to squeeze some useable juice out of the thing. It does work, but after that it's definitely dead.
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...
Piotr Szarański And given the tiny size of the magnetics it has to be very high frequency, several MHz.
@9:25 Bwahahahaha. Gotta love Dave Jones...we're all ten years old at heart.
well i went a read the blog for a quick description of the product. The moment i saw "1,5volt of energy" BS i understood this was all crap. After all what expert company would measure energy by volts?
These products are so helarious! Serves the ignorant and unsuspected well until the subject every aspect of their life to srcutiny.
Cheers for the video!
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.
If this product really works, it would be great to replace alkaline batteries with NiMh in my wifes vibrator. She always want brand new once.
matsv201 Though I don't think their tiny boost converter will be able to handle the amount of power the motor draws, that would be very a viable usage.
the32bits Well,, maybe, i´m note sure. I actually seen boost converters that smaller than a thumbnail that handle 20A. And that is all in with caps and induction built in.
So i don´t know, but if it well made with really good components, i would guess you could fit something that can handle 1A or so. That is about what the draw of i high power vibrator is. Actually most better made only consume about 0.5A.
sounduser maybe then she'll stop using it and appreciate a real one
matsv201 Your wife always wants brand new vibrators? Interesting.
matsv201 Most? How many vibrators does your wife own??
Also, I might be wrong, but as the cell voltage goes down, won't the boost converter pull more current? If so, will that not increase voltage sag from the internal resistance?
Like I say, might be wrong, but if not, surely that would reduce battery performance, not increase
Nice thorough debunk Dave! Love these kinds of videos. Not only are they entertaining, but I learn a lot about engineering too. Nice work.
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 remember watching this when it came out, but on the second take, I wonder if these things cause batteries to leak much earlier, due to their parasitic drain that circumvents the power switch. Also since these things are supposed to make you care less about changing batteries, and the lack of a working charge indicator might cause the batteries to be so deeply discharged that they start leaking much worse than they usually do.
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
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.
8 times longer "that's what she said"
I LOLD SO HARD @ the calculator!!! I used to do that, once some church folk came over, I had done the boobies on the calc, they actually laughed, my mother not so much!
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
I just measured the voltage on a dead battery from a my wife's epilator from Braun.
The open-circuit voltage was 1.43V on the Duracell alkaline batteries.
It would just barely work on with this battery, however the epilator had no problem running on a charged NiMH batteries at 1.35V.
So obviously, they are stating the open-circuit voltage in their ads while you are testing (the correct) bias under load.
This is the way I would test it. A new high quality battery keeps my mouse working for about a year. So, after 1 year I put this device on it and I better get 8 more years of service out of that battery. Otherwise, false advertising and I smell a law suit.
But seriously, I think it would be easier (and nicer) if the companies who build the devices added boost circuitry to their products so batteries would last longer in their device. It would be a real selling point. Maybe some already to. This is assuming that the boost circuitry itself won't waste whatever energy was gained.
Would that be such a good idea? As shown in this video, boost circuitry can be very inefficient and means the product can not be used with rechargeable batteries. Making your product cut of at 1.1 V looks like the way to go.
actually a lot of products are already designed with a boost converter.
Dave, I appreciate your take on this subject. I noticed your testing didn't include any series resistance to duplicate the rather high internal resistance of a tired alkaline battery. Any thoughts relating to that? Again, I don't doubt your conclusion but I was a little surprised you didn't simulate that effect. Thanks!
This is an amazing video! I have to show this to all my engineering friends!!!
I mean I am not just baffled by how this company even exists (and that they have a totally unscientific patent in their hands!!!) but also by how easily they were able to bribe even some big press to hop onto this crazy ass cheating bandwagon :O
It also raises concerns about United States patenting.
Patents are unrelated to whether a device actually works as promoted - or at all. It just has to be in some way novel.
I noticed that they used incorrect grammar with the word "lets". The sentence "Batteriser uses micro-circuitry that let's you instantly ..." (33:50) should say "lets", not "let's".
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.
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.
Another issue regarding that bare conducting sleeve design is imminent when two or more cells are insereted in parallel. Unless you manage to keep them at a right angle (different from the tongue angle) you'll short the negative terminals.