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

[rollatorwieltje]

OMG, how cluelesss are these people?   

I love their experts's "workbench". Totally clean and littered with tools what are obviously fresh out of the packet and unused.

Look at that scope, it's hooked up to the test signal. That's probably the worst probe compensation I've ever seen.

[Kjelt]

Look at that scope, it's hooked up to the test signal. That's probably the worst probe compensation I've ever seen.

It is the obvious tell sell expert camouflage surrounding like the doctors always dress in white and a skeleton against the wall, what doctor still has a skeleton in his office besides an ex patient that he forgot about in the waiting room.
I had expected the real nerd type with pencils in his shirt to explain this, bit of a bummer there was no actor that could do this besides this guy who really is a good casting for this monkey part 

[electr_peter]

Completely fake instrument setup (too much clutter, unused new tools in random places, all instruments are faced to camera (why?)) - all points to deliberate fake video scene setup.

They made a strange video showing that battery is not equal to power supply (keeping in mind that is obvious to any engineer and is irrelevant to the point ...). Why? To confuse not technically literate people and indirectly say that all criticism is false. Demagogy at it's best.

Dave, do not waste time debunking this BS. Just link in few links/videos from publicly available videos from test equipment manufacturers advertising their power supplies/battery emulator solutions. For example, http://www.keithley.com/products/dcac/highspeedpower/battery or http://www.keysight.com/en/pd-1000000819%3Aepsg%3Apro-pn-66319D/dual-mobile-comm-dc-source-battery-emulation-dvm?cc=LT&lc=eng

I think they know exactly what they are doing (they know that Dave's arguments are right, that their claims are BS, that they are deliberately providing borderline wrong or confusing information). I would clasify it as a deliberate scam. Let's wait and see what happens

[Fungus]

Dave, do not waste time debunking this BS.

No, please do!   

(You'll need one of those monkeys, maybe somebody can find where they sell them and post a link.)

[rollatorwieltje]

Dave, do not waste time debunking this BS.

No, please do!   

(You'll need one of those monkeys, maybe somebody can find where they sell them and post a link.)

"Magic Monkey Plays Cymbals Retro Battery Operated"
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Magic-Monkey-Plays-Cymbals-Retro-Battery-Operated-/221824158248?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item33a5c00a28

[mackrc1]

I love how their oscilloscope is just sitting in the background with a test pattern. "Look at us we have fancy equipment, therefor we are not pulling shite out our arse" 

[apis]

I'm convinced they know what they are doing too, it's textbook scamming. They need to respond to criticism somehow and if facts don't work, nonsense is almost as effective. Most people can't follow the technical arguments anyway so it comes down to which authority you trust most and people usually believe in the guy with a suit... This video was so bad I hope most people will see through it though.

They should have added their product to those empty batteries that run instantaneously below the 0.9V when activated in the test and then....... oh no the monkey still does not operate even with their magic smoke product FAIL 

+1

[EEVblog]

Dave, do not waste time debunking this BS.

I don't know whether to throughly destory this video, or just not give them the air time any more? 
Their Indiegogo Starts in two days time, and I suspect will succeed regardless of what I or anyone else who is talking out about this says.

[Howardlong]

I don't know whether to throughly destory this video

You know you want to... 

[Fungus]

I don't know whether to throughly destory this video

You know you want to... 

All you need is two flat batteries, a voltage booster module, and one of those monkeys.

[EEVblog]

They need to respond to criticism somehow and if facts don't work, nonsense is almost as effective. Most people can't follow the technical arguments anyway so it comes down to which authority you trust most and people usually believe in the guy with a suit...

They showed their hand in a classic case of this by looking at my Linkedin profile & comparing their PhD's, which because they are more qualified, of course makes them right

[Muttley Snickers]

We could start a whole new society with Dave as president.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Batteries....RSPCB or RSPCBOM for battery operated monkeys, I felt that poor toys pain.

[apis]

They showed their hand in a classic case of this by looking at my Linkedin profile & comparing their PhD's, which because they are more qualified, of course makes them right

They deserve a PhD in con-artistry at least!

They must know what they are doing, they already have prototype devices and it would be obvious when they test them that they don't work. And if they actually have real PhD's in electrical engineering and have been able to develop these tiny converters there is no way they don't understand Ohm's law at least.

At the same time they have spent all this money on a slick website, all those actors, video-production, marketing... I don't know what it cost to get your product pushed in all those magazines as if they were legit, but it can't be cheap.

[Barny]

Isn't knowingly false promiseing and selling a potentiell dangerous product (lets be a little bit keen) a little bit illegal?

What does Duracel say that teire design get used in a fraud?

[EEVblog]

They must know what they are doing, they already have prototype devices and it would be obvious when they test them that they don't work. And if they actually have real PhD's in electrical engineering and have been able to develop these tiny converters there is no way they don't understand Ohm's law at least.

Yes, they must know this.
One has a Ph.D in EE from Iowa State University, and Vice President and General Manager at Broadcom, and a professor at California State University.
The other has an MS EE from Santa Clara University
Yet they can't even get the basics right?
You never, ever, measure the unloaded battery voltage and use that to claim anything, let alone product cutoff voltages, remaining energy capacity, and to base patents and an entire business around it. Yet they have admitted this is the entire basis of their product. It's a crazily embarrassing mistake if genuine.
If I claimed that I'd be laughed out of the industry.
If you did that at design job you'd be sacked for being clueless.
If you said that at a design job interview, you'd be shown the door.
It's stuff even hobbyists know - measuring the battery voltage under load is the only thing that counts!

At the same time they have spent all this money on a slick website, all those actors

The other thing is that flat out claim that those promo videos are submitted entries from "fans".

Also, a month ago they claimed they release data proving that it works as well as claimed, and that it was their "top priority" to do so.
Now the Indiegogo is 2 days away and still nothing. Not a single bit of data after working on this for 5 years! 

[HKJ]

C'mon Dave. Just give us the facts. Why did the monkey work down to a much lower voltage with a power supply than it did with batteries? Is their claim wrong? Does the internal resistance of the battery have no bearing?

The internal resistance in the battery is the problem. You may measure a high voltage on the battery when unloaded, but put a load on and it drops to nearly nothing.

[TheAmmoniacal]

Please do more videos destroying this bullshit! This tech scamming won't go away if people ignore it. T   

[amyk]

Observe how they never measured the voltage across the batteries in the toy when it was on...

I don't know whether to throughly destory this video

You know you want to... 

Do it Dave!


I don't have a YouTube account but please be sure to downvote and link to Dave's debunking video on their other videos too, like these ones (not going to link them directly because I don't want to embed them here):

Code: [Select]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF4zjWynjEo
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-5RLfvy8XI[/url]
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkfdm8soHyU[/url]
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP2kuEzySP8[/url]
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4_XvJaQO34[/url]
Look at the comments on that last one... clearly not right.

[apis]

Isn't knowingly false promiseing and selling a potentiell dangerous product (lets be a little bit keen) a little bit illegal?

What does Duracel say that teire design get used in a fraud?

The fact that it is crowd sourced probably complicates the legal situation... might even be legal because no-one thought about sites like indiegogo when the law was written. Considering all the effort they have put into this wouldn't surprise me if they have gotten thumbs up from their lawyers. They also use lots of weasel words, avoiding statements that are provably false and so on... like this last video, it's obviously true that batteries and power supplies are different but that's a straw man, no-one claimed they weren't.

[EEVblog]

C'mon Dave. Just give us the facts. Why did the monkey work down to a much lower voltage with a power supply than it did with batteries? Is their claim wrong? Does the internal resistance of the battery have no bearing?

That's a rhetorical question right?

It's the ESR of the battery, and they are incorrectly measuring the open circuit voltage. Of course that's the whole point of their argument, which is of course completely and utterly the wrong way to measure a product cutout voltage.

Getting a mob of your fans stirred up is not the way to respond. Play a straight bat.

How was my video or blog post not playing with a straight bat?
If you are referring to comments here, then this is just forum chat.

[Fungus]

C'mon Dave. Just give us the facts. Why did the monkey work down to a much lower voltage with a power supply than it did with batteries? Is their claim wrong? Does the internal resistance of the battery have no bearing?

You basically just said you don't understand Ohm's law...

[EEVblog]

Comments on their videos stink to high heaven. Take this new one testing against a flashlight (fair enough test, that's why most LED flashlights have boost converters built in):


Check out this commenter called SagorRoy:


Joined start of July, clearly a recently generated sock puppet account. Check out all the other random comments made by this account.



Pathetic, really pathetic 

[EEVblog]

No. You basically didn't comprehend that I think the best strategy Dave can use to counter the claims these people make is to play a straight bat and fend off the claims they make without additional comment.

Once again, I think I played with a fairly straight bat in my video and my follow-up blog post. I in fact cut them plenty of slack, and didn't call anyone who believed it stupid or any such thing.

[Fungus]

I'm thinking of applying to be an authorized Batterizer distributor.

[Galenbo]

I dont quite understand who the target audience is in regards to the toy monkey clips.

You can be sure they understand that aspect very well.

The video is very well made, I mean, expensive camera, professional setup, they bought tools with the right color, actors etc.
Their whole campaign already cost more than a new car, and I assure you these guys will make a lot of money with it.

I dislike this type of scam very much, but if I look at the world around me, there's worse everywhere.
Health products, religion, greenwashery,...