Author Topic: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!  (Read 28536 times)

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Offline PeterLTopic starter

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Link:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2928997/batteriser-is-a-250-gadget-that-extends-disposable-battery-life-by-800-percent.html

also a popular dutch news site here:

http://www.nu.nl/gadgets/4061033/gadget-van-2-euro-verlengt-levensduur-batterij-met-800-procent.html

Catchwords:
-industrial espionage (with a picture of a busted-in office door!)
-Silicon Valley
-Ph.D. in electrical engineering
-VP stint at Broadcom and a CEO stint at FlexPower
-patent
-below 1.35 or even 1.4 volts
-prove it’s not snake oil
-saving the planet
-15 billion batteries
-Indiegogo (end of june)

Bonus quotes:
physics department of San Jose State University by Dr. Kiumars Parvin:
“We tested the Batteriser sleeve in our lab and we confirmed that the Batteriser taps into 80 percent of energy that is usually thrown away,”

ex-CTO of Energizer:
`.... we’re chemical engineers, and we weren’t thinking about power management.’

So, it must be true!
 

Offline janoc

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #1 on: June 03, 2015, 08:35:52 pm »
"Batteriser taps into 80 percent of energy that is usually thrown away,”

Isn't that what the guys with the iPhone sleeve that recharges the phone's battery using the emitted radio signal claimed too? "Uses wasted energy!".

WTF is going on with these kooks recently ...

EDIT: That thing is nothing else but a Joule Thief. It boosts the voltage of the cell so that the connected device doesn't shut down prematurely when it detects dead cell.

Oh and I love that "test" with the bluetooth receiver - of course that thing will report a "full battery" because it measures only voltage. The question is how long it will actually manage to run on that - and they didn't measure that. They cannot get around the  battery discharge curve. If they calculate the "savings" by declaring the battery "dead" at 1.4 volts, well, no wonder they can get to those 80%. Wonderful example of moving the goalposts conveniently.

I believe that what they have built is actually legit - there isn't anything special about a miniature boost converter. What isn't kosher is the breathless reporting by clueless journos and their marketing ...


« Last Edit: June 03, 2015, 09:01:33 pm by janoc »
 

Offline retiredcaps

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Offline PeterLTopic starter

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2015, 07:15:35 am »
... What isn't kosher is the breathless reporting by clueless journos ...

That's exactly what bothered me about this, in more than one way.

Topic already started on June 2 ...

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/'batterizer'-claims-to-increase-disposable-battery-life-8x/

Oh sorry I missed that, let's close this thread then.
 

Offline Kalidor

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In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
 

Offline JJayzX

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #5 on: July 28, 2015, 05:53:42 pm »
There's an article on yahoo and even mentions Dave's video about it and response from the "CEO". https://www.yahoo.com/makers/breakthrough-battery-gadget-answers-critics-125063020800.html
 

Offline Wytnucls

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #6 on: July 29, 2015, 10:37:51 am »
So, they are going after the rechargeable battery market as well now:



Bob Roohparvar
 
16 hours ago
   

@jllobet
 We are in the process of completing our customized IC (Integrated Circuit) design for Rechargeables. After receiving the IC from the fab and testing it we can introduce the new Batteriser for Rechargeables.
 We do not recommend using the current Batteriser with Rechargeables.
 The reason for this is the current Batteriser will discharge the rechargeable batteries too low which can reduce their charge retention.
 The Rechargeable version (coming soon) of Batteriser will address the issue.
 

Offline CanadianAvenger

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #7 on: July 30, 2015, 07:39:19 pm »
I challenged them on their Apple Keyboard video to produce a single commercial device that will demonstrate their 800% more life claim. Let's see if they bite. [Or how long till they censor my comment away]

https://youtu.be/NF4zjWynjEo

 

Offline AndreasF

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #8 on: July 30, 2015, 09:16:51 pm »
I challenged them on their Apple Keyboard video to produce a single commercial device that will demonstrate their 800% more life claim. Let's see if they bite. [Or how long till they censor my comment away]

I don't see any challenging comment, so not long at all.
my random ramblings mind-dump.net
 

Online Bud

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #9 on: July 30, 2015, 09:46:52 pm »
You may have missed the final phrase in the video repeating twice: "one hundred percent"

So first, how is it magically 13% remaining power  becomes 100% new power.
Second, assuming first question answered, it is 100% for shit sake, not 800%. False advertising!
 ;D
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Offline suicidaleggroll

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #10 on: July 30, 2015, 09:56:53 pm »
You may have missed the final phrase in the video repeating twice: "one hundred percent"

So first, how is it magically 13% remaining power  becomes 100% new power.
Second, assuming first question answered, it is 100% for shit sake, not 800%. False advertising!
 ;D

100% / 13% ~= 8x

It's a completely misleading "test" though.  The battery level indicator uses the battery voltage to estimate the remaining capacity.  As soon as you introduce a device to modify the voltage being measured, the indicated battery level becomes absolutely meaningless.  Sure it reads 100%, and it will continue to read 100% until it suddenly and inexplicably dies (probably around the same time that it would have died anyway...).  The batteriser will do a GREAT job of rendering the battery level indicator on every single device it's installed in completely useless.

A REAL test would be to put brand new batteries in a keyboard, run some kind of benchmarking test until the keyboard dies, and measure how long it took.  Then restart it - take new batteries, put them in a batteriser, run the same benchmarking test until the keyboard dies, and compare the run time to the first test.  Then repeat each of those tests a handful of times to get a nice average.  If the runtime with the batteriser is 8x longer than without, I'll eat my words, but it won't be.  I wouldn't be surprised at all if it even hurts the run time due to switching losses, since I assume the Apple keyboard already has a DC/DC converter inside that's designed to extract a significant amount of the battery capacity, in which case adding the batteriser just doubles the switching losses and runs the battery out faster.  I suspect this will be the case with most other consumer devices as well.

I also suspect that they KNOW this, and the fact that they haven't provided ANY measurements for ANY devices shows that they have nothing good to report, and they're bringing it to market anyway.  The fact that they have to resort to false advertising (battery level indicator showing 100% on a depleted battery) is VERY telling of the lack of confidence they have in their product.  If they had something real, they would show it, instead of resorting to deception.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2015, 10:16:33 pm by suicidaleggroll »
 

Offline cliffdbrown

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #11 on: July 30, 2015, 10:07:53 pm »
These clowns have raised almost $125K on indigogo as I type this.

I'm bothered that none of the writers that hyped this project have bothered to print any followups suggesting that batteroo's claims may be dubious.  What really bugs me though is charlatans like these guys will destroy the crowd funding model.

I wrote a complaint to Indigogo, but got back a stock reply email (i.e. we'll investigate, but we can't let you know what we've found).

 
 

Online Bud

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #12 on: July 31, 2015, 02:05:34 am »
You may have missed the final phrase in the video repeating twice: "one hundred percent"

So first, how is it magically 13% remaining power  becomes 100% new power.
Second, assuming first question answered, it is 100% for shit sake, not 800%. False advertising!
 ;D
100% / 13% ~= 8x

The point was once you took a bite off a donut it is not a whole donut anymore, no matter how you look at the donut. One would not eat a 1/8 of a donut and get 8 times more calories.

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Offline sunnyhighway

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #13 on: July 31, 2015, 05:02:45 am »
You may have missed the final phrase in the video repeating twice: "one hundred percent"

So first, how is it magically 13% remaining power  becomes 100% new power.
Second, assuming first question answered, it is 100% for shit sake, not 800%. False advertising!
 ;D
100% / 13% ~= 8x

The point was once you took a bite off a donut it is not a whole donut anymore, no matter how you look at the donut. One would not eat a 1/8 of a donut and get 8 times more calories.

Indeed, if the battery level with the Batteriser would show 87% instead of 100%, it would have appeared plausible.
 

Offline CanadianAvenger

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #14 on: July 31, 2015, 03:36:43 pm »
I challenged them on their Apple Keyboard video to produce a single commercial device that will demonstrate their 800% more life claim. Let's see if they bite. [Or how long till they censor my comment away]

I don't see any challenging comment, so not long at all.

Interesting. When I look while logged in, I can still see the comment, but when I look while not logged in to my account, the comment is not there.

Anyway, this is what I wrote:
Quote
Of course it'll display 100%, you've boosted the voltage, you've effectively disabled the battery monitor, it will now display 100% until it dies. The reason for this is the battery monitor bases remaining capacity on the voltage of the batteries [under load]. Your boost supply that you strap on, will effectively disable this, as it will now always be presenting 1.5V/cell at the terminal [ie a full battery].

Show a test of something actually operating for a longer period, as in the end it all comes down to how much energy is in the battery. In fact I challenge you to produce a commercial product that will demonstrate your 800% more life claim.

I commented on the "monkey" videos too, that one has also disappeared.
Quote
Curious, you compared the open-circuit voltage [no load] of the batteries to the under-load voltage of the power supply [PSU]. This is completely meaningless, as once you applied load to those batteries, the terminal voltage dropped. [which you state in the video, but fail to demonstrate in your "proof"] Now if you showed the voltage (under-load) of the batteries you would have made a valid comparison. However, had you done so, you would have confirmed what the PSU was showing, the device stops working at around 0.9V. [in fact it's likely that those batteries dropped well below 0.9V once loaded]. Please repeat your proof with the batteries in an external holder, and then place voltage a voltage meter across the pack, and a current meter between the pack and the load to show how it compares to what the PSU was showing.

The no-load voltage of a battery is a relatively meaningless measurement, as it can only tell you roughly the state of the cell, but gives no indication of how much actual energy remains, and carries no relationship to the terminal voltage when the cell is under load.

Yes a PSU will maintain the set voltage, while delivering as much current as the device needs [provided that the PSU has not reached the current limit set-point], whereas a battery will drop in voltage, as the load demands increase.  But that's the point here... the voltage has dropped, so the two are no longer equal... one simply has to lower the PSU voltage to emulate this. Thus, by slowly decreasing the voltage on the power supply, you can find that terminal voltage point [under load] at which the device fails. This point will be the same regardless of what the power source is.

Bottom line...  Testing with a PSU is completely valid, as all that matters from the devices perspective is the terminal voltage under load. A PSU will faithfully work in doing this, in fact it makes this process much easier, as it maintains that state, whereas a battery could drop off very rapidly, making it hard to determine the actual failure point.
 

Offline AndreasF

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #15 on: July 31, 2015, 06:47:15 pm »

Interesting. When I look while logged in, I can still see the comment, but when I look while not logged in to my account, the comment is not there.


Wow! So, if someone deletes a Youtube comment I made*, I may not even notice it because it still shows up for me (when logged in)? Sneaky!  I can understand why they (Youtube) might do that, but that may also explain the horrendous level of Youtube comments. Maybe some of the commenters would think twice about what they are writing if they saw that a lot of their comments were deleted? But who am I kidding - probably not!

[*I think the number of comments I ever made on Youtube can be counted on a single hand.]
my random ramblings mind-dump.net
 

Offline CanadianAvenger

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #16 on: August 02, 2015, 04:06:08 am »
Perhaps not deleted, but left in moderation limbo, so it remains, but is not publicly visible.

They did seem to respond to it though [and likely to others which I can't see, though one has seemed to become visible.

Quote from: Batteriser Battteroo
The entire purpose of the video was to show that Batteries are not power supplies... The main point that was brought to everyone's' attention is the existence of  internal resistance that had been  omitted in some of the blogs. There was an attempt to get people to look at the ESR  which plays a major role in battery operation and makes the battery to be different from a power supply.

The whole point of the video was to show that battery voltage under load (closed circuit voltage) is very different from the unload (open circuit voltage)...

To which I replied:
Quote
Please read my previous comment again. The ESR of the battery is IRRELEVANT when evaluating the dropout voltage of a device, as all that matters is the TERMINAL VOLTAGE, which a PSU is perfectly capable of providing. The ESR is relevant when when evaluating the performance of a battery, but that's a different test altogether.

+Batteriser Batteroo said: "The whole point of the video was to show that battery voltage under load (closed circuit voltage) is very different from the unload (open circuit voltage)..."  But that's NOT what you showed, or stated in the video. Your whole point was to try and make it look like a PSU was not a proper device for testing the dropout voltage of a device.  If what you said here was the whole point, you would have shown the voltage of the battery open circuit and under load, in comparison to that of the power supply.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2015, 04:10:19 am by CanadianAvenger »
 

Offline Kalidor

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #17 on: August 02, 2015, 06:49:00 pm »

Interesting. When I look while logged in, I can still see the comment, but when I look while not logged in to my account, the comment is not there.


Wow! So, if someone deletes a Youtube comment I made*, I may not even notice it because it still shows up for me (when logged in)? Sneaky!  I can understand why they (Youtube) might do that, but that may also explain the horrendous level of Youtube comments. Maybe some of the commenters would think twice about what they are writing if they saw that a lot of their comments were deleted? But who am I kidding - probably not!

[*I think the number of comments I ever made on Youtube can be counted on a single hand.]

Normally it's not deleted, if you logged in your comments have a higher ranking for you and it shows up on top, if you are not logged in you have to switch the comment ordering from "Top comments" to "Newest first" or you open the complete comment section which can kill your browser if too big. If your comment gets enough thumbs up it sticks on top.
But on this video it has only some few comment, will see if this is possible, just added a link to the EEVblog video.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2015, 06:58:58 pm by Kalidor »
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
 

Offline Kalidor

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #18 on: August 02, 2015, 07:04:14 pm »
@CanadianAvenger, did you spend a dollar on the IGG campaign? If so I would spam the comments section as I and others do on the Ritot campaign. Just post the link to the EEVblog video.
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
 

Offline CanadianAvenger

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #19 on: August 03, 2015, 05:20:42 pm »
Nope I refused to give those guys even a penny. As for the visibility of the comments, The count is off by one between when logged in, and not logged in. I did try the various options you listed, and mine never shows while not logged in.
 

Offline CanadianAvenger

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #20 on: August 14, 2015, 07:49:55 am »
So they've admitted that they're not deleting comments, but rather the settings for comment son their videos are set to "approved only". So it appears they're simply not approving any factually correct critical ones.  Another interesting thing is that I have been getting email notifications for replies to a particular comment, even if not approved. YouTube/G+ bug perhaps... but funny, given all I see are people calling them out for their ineptitude.
 

Offline meeder

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #21 on: August 14, 2015, 08:33:20 am »
I have been spamming their Youtube channel as well.
They did something sneaky there as well, they cleam that it is not the official batteriser youtube channel but merely a channel made by fans... Yeah right...
 

Offline CanadianAvenger

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #22 on: August 14, 2015, 04:32:35 pm »
I haven't been spamming them, just making valid comments or replies. With the exception of one which contained a trollish remark, I think I've been pretty civil in my comments.
 

Offline meeder

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #23 on: August 17, 2015, 06:44:11 am »
Wow, just wow.... Someone is getting a bit irritated on their Youtube page. I got the following reply on a post (see attached image)

 

Offline meeder

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Re: Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!
« Reply #24 on: August 17, 2015, 06:45:31 am »
another gem...


 


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