EEVblog #751 - How To Debunk A Product (The Batteriser)

[Zbig]

For the record, screen captures of their absurd and embarrassing straw man claim about my using a PSU to determine the product cutout voltage:

[..]

After reading this they almost made me believe they actually do not comprehend that ESR is just a vehicle used to measure and describe the depleting battery's chemistry behavior under load. The guy who wrote this seems to genuinely believe that almost all of the energy is still hidden there magically and that pesky ESR is just some kind of a trimpot in series being turned by some little mot*********g gnome hiding inside, just to rain on your parade, blocking these 80% of energy from you just because f**k you, that's why It's so convincingly audiophile-grade delusional it almost seems as if they hired some student to write it, someone who actually believed what he just wrote. Well played.

[dcac]

not sure if this been posted before:

https://www.yahoo.com/makers/breakthrough-battery-gadget-answers-critics-125063020800.html

Discussing the EEVBlog video, he says: “I think he’s a good guy. I think he just didn’t know enough.”

Yahoo Makers was only able to try out the Batteriser briefly in our offices.

In the end, of course, neither the company’s claims nor the doubters’ blogs and YouTube videos will determine the true potential of the Batteriser.

[Fungus]

I am impressed at the price point they're able to achieve. Being an insider at Flextronics has its benefits.

They might actually be losing money on them if it's all part of a bigger scam.

$30,000 is a ridiculously low funding level. They already spent more then that making the pretty prototypes, making videos, etc. They're obviously doing this to attract bigger fish afterwards or something.

[LabSpokane]

I am impressed at the price point they're able to achieve. Being an insider at Flextronics has its benefits.

They might actually be losing money on them if it's all part of a bigger scam.

$30,000 is a ridiculously low funding level. They already spent more then that making the pretty prototypes, making videos, etc. They're obviously doing this to attract bigger fish afterwards or something.

Agreed that the funding level is silly, but this is advertising. These guys have money. I'm not sure they're losing money. Flextronics is one of the worlds best CMs. I'm pretty sure these guys can handle a 10 item BOM.

Looking at the credentials, if these guys are *complete* hucksters, they definitely are a grade or three up from the norm on IndieGoGo. They just sold a networked flash drive company to WD, so there is capital somewhere. Why they chose IGG instead of a more reputable venue is a good question and a red flag. But my bet is that people actually do receive their overbilled device that helps address a deficiency in older, or poorly engineered, or just cheap products. I just don't expect to see Apple trackpad users suddenly doing handsprings over their newfound battery longevity.

And I'm certain they are trying to sell the company. It's what they do: Build. Sell. Repeat.

[Fungus]

And I'm certain they are trying to sell the company. It's what they do: Build. Sell. Repeat.

That could be it.

Make a "successfully funded" product (they're hardly going to fail to get $30,000 - if the public doesn't step up obligingly they can probably fill the gap themselves).

Next look for a sucker to buy the company for $10 million.

[McBryce]

[Tinfoilhatmode]

Maybe it's all just one big social experiment funded by the government to measure our stupidity and see how far they've dumbed us down so far?

[/Tinfoilhatmode]

MCBryce.

[EEVblog]

https://www.yahoo.com/makers/breakthrough-battery-gadget-answers-critics-125063020800.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma

What Batteriser think of me: “I think he’s a good guy. I think he just didn’t know enough.”
That's kindly 
Guess I'll have to respond in kind showing how little he knows. 

[LabSpokane]

https://www.yahoo.com/makers/breakthrough-battery-gadget-answers-critics-125063020800.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma

What Batteriser think of me: “I think he’s a good guy. I think he just didn’t know enough.”
That's kindly 
Guess I'll have to respond in kind showing how little he knows. 

Now, you just remember young laddie!  No applying a voltage to the battery terminals to determine when the battery indicates "low" unless you include a series resistor which will definitively show um... er... uhh... well...it's darn important.  Just do that and trust me that the results will be very different.  Somehow.  Some way.  We hope that the result changes. 

Just do what we say, or we probe the monkey again. 

[rollatorwieltje]

https://www.yahoo.com/makers/breakthrough-battery-gadget-answers-critics-125063020800.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma

What Batteriser think of me: “I think he’s a good guy. I think he just didn’t know enough.”
That's kindly 
Guess I'll have to respond in kind showing how little he knows. 

Do I smell another excuse to buy more test gear? There are several Keithley 2306 battery simulators on eBay...

[EEVblog]

OMG!
Batteriser have finally admitted they were wrong and used the wrong voltage measurement to characterise their product!
They have changed the wording on their website completely to finally mention battery voltage under load, with a caveat that that related to 1.3V open circuit 
But they still cling to their stupid 80% unused energy claim, and even use it in the same headline implying that an under load dropout voltage of now 1.1V still translates to 80% unused energy.
Oops, how embarrassing!   
The silly thing is their claim is now even more demonstrably untrue!

And they have changed their claim AGAIN!



They ave now removed the admission of 1.1V under load!
No wonder because they know their x8 claim cannot hold water now with admitting that 1.1V is the typical under load dropout voltage. They truly have no legs left the stand on.
My new video will prove this (right at the end), but the new video wasn't really intended as a Batteriser video.
They have to be closely monitoring this forum as they seem to be making changes based on the responses here to hide their tracks.
They even included a link to a used battery report in the campaign that was posted here, and they are using it as evidence. Of course they still don't have their own evidence to show after 5 years or work on this, not a single thing. It's one of the most embarrassing things I've ever seen! 

[EEVblog]

They have even changed their logo!
http://batteriser.com/press/

Used to be:


Now it's:


And they have the hide to say I don't know what I'm talking about! They have changed almost everythign based on my debunking this thing

[nitro2k01]

Roohparvar says the critics ignore the differences in internal resistance between a battery and the equipment used to test voltages.

So he admits that he knows what ESR is. Now, if he would just explain how a voltage boost circuit would make the battery deliver enough current when the ESR creeps up in the single digit ohms. 

[LabSpokane]

By the way, Batteriser Batteroo, since you're clearly keeping up with this, I wondered if you have asked Apple how they feel about your website insinuating that their battery management is poor:

[Muttley Snickers]

I've been busy...

[onlooker]

The 8x part is obviously a scam. But, it is a different matter to make it obvious for average non-EEs who may not know the difference between voltage, wattage and energy.  All the numbers, graphs and theories can help very little here. 

On the other hand, a simple video with proper test setup can be much more convincing: The monkey toy can be a good test device for being "well-known" as a "battery tester". The test setup should use a stack DC-DC converter ( that presumably uses a similar technology, except the miniature part) and a bunch of random dead batteries that has open voltage above 1.3V.   

The important thing to test is to measure how long the toy can play with such test setup. This compared to the working time of a set of fresh batteries will, much better, show how much capacity is left in random dead batteries.

The fact that Batteriser guys did not show any data with tests similar to the above one  already implied they are pulling a scam. Their video about the the keyboard showed full battery and, then, they skipped the important part, that is to show how long this full battery status lasted. Obviously, something they are trying to hide.

 

[EEVblog]

The important thing to test is to measure how long the toy can play with such test setup. This compared to the working time of a set of fresh batteries will, much better, show how much capacity is left in random dead batteries.

After 5 years of development they still have not shown a single full discharge test comparison.

The fact that Batteriser guys did not show any data with tests similar to the above one  already implied they are pulling a scam. Their video about the the keyboard showed full battery and, then, they skipped the important part, that is to show how long this full battery status lasted. Obviously, something they are trying to hide.

They are still running that Apple keyboard 100% demo to media, as late as last week.

[miguelvp]

PHD - Piled Higher and Deeper.

What's with the hate for PhDs?

Am I the only one that thinks that it takes hard work to become one and it's not a waste of time? Without the theory developed mostly by PhDs there would be no engineering.

Or is someone in here going to tell Shahriar that he wasted all those years/money for nothing and that getting employed at Bell Labs is really not that big of a deal?

Please don't equate that because the batteriser CEO has a PhD that PhDs in general know nothing.  I bet even the batterizer CEO knows exactly what he is doing one way or the other, even if it's just to build up the business to sell it before people do detailed analysis of the product, even if he promised an independent study will come shortly (probably after the campaign is over of course) and by that time they probably sell the company as other suggested.

Anyways, me for one, I do admire the efforts and struggles PhD students go through. I worked with many PhDs in my life and only one of them was an entitled a-hole, the rest where very nice and down to earth. But the distribution for A-holes don't have degree barriers. Some people are just that way.

[LabSpokane]

OK Batteroo,

Since you doctorates depend on undergrads to do your work for you, here it is:

Apple Trackpad (this will be very similar to the keyboard since both are bluetooth): 

0% indication voltage:  2.10V / 1.05V per cell

Functional cutoff voltage:  1.85 / or 0.925V per cell

Before you and your "engineer" go doing handsprings down the hallway because 0.925V is higher than the 0.8V specified by Duracell, I refer you to the same graph Dave did below, where you will see that 0.925 is very nearly depleted.  If you need an exact % of area under the curve of energy remaining, I'll have that in a few days, as I need to do that for a project anyway. By counting squares, I'm estimating the remaining charge is less than 5%.  Please show me the math of how you plan to extrapolate that <5% into 800% better battery life.

Oh, and your argument about the voltage drop under load?  Bullshit.  Peak current is about 0.050 mA, and the measured voltage drop against fresh AA cells under that load is approximately 0.02V per cell.  0.04V one way or another does not meaningfully change reality here.  Will running electric motors have a higher voltage drop due to the current draw?  Of course they will.  But since your front page advertising is directed squarely towards modern electronics, I'm going to point this out to you (as if it hadn't been done enough already):  virtually all well-designed electronics use up their battery capacity nowadays. 

In other words, Apple is already extracting a very practical amount of energy from their batteries and leaving enough headroom to help prevent leakage due to over-discharge.  As a former Apple employee, it's surprising to me you don't know that.  Hmm...

[Fungus]

Apple is already extracting a very practical amount of energy from their batteries and leaving enough headroom to help prevent leakage due to over-discharge.

Aren't people going to be annoyed that their battery indicators have stopped working?

Mucking around with the battery-level indicator is a cute press demo but real users are going to be angry that the indicator is now useless and their keyboards are dropping dead unexpectedly (and the level indicator wasn't warning them to have some spare batteries around).

[HKJ]

I tried discharging a alkaline battery with constant power down to 0.3 volt to see where how much energy is available at the low voltage:

It looks like there is about 10% below 1 volt.
The spikes on the curve is unloaded voltage, measured during a 1 minute pause.

[Fungus]

After 5 years of development they still have not shown a single full discharge test comparison.

I predict that for every device that works better with a batteriser (and I admit there will be some!) there will be at least half a dozen which get shorter overall battery life.

(And with the double annoyance that battery level indicators no longer work).

[EEVblog]

Aren't people going to be annoyed that their battery indicators have stopped working?

Yep, very.

Mucking around with the battery-level indicator is a cute press demo but real users are going to be angry that the indicator is now useless and their keyboards are dropping dead unexpectedly (and the level indicator wasn't warning them to have some spare batteries around).

Yep. First time it happens they will throw it in the bin in frustration.

[EEVblog]

I predict that for every device that works better with a batteriser (and I admit there will be some!) there will be at least half a dozen which get shorter overall battery life.

You'll be spot on.
They are now backtracking on their claim of it working with rechargeables. They are now recommending in the Indiegogo comments not to use it with rechargeables.

[Lightages]

Most rechargeable battery chemistries will self destruct if taken down to 0 voltage, or even below 20%. They shouldn't be backtracking, they should be screaming to not use them for rechargeables!

[Kjelt]

After 5 years of development they still have not shown a single full discharge graph

Development? 5 years of meetings which actress to hire (and f...) for their promovids is more likely.
Probably they only started last year but that sounds worse then 5 years just as " lasts longer" sounds worse then 8 times more.