Batteriser: expand the battery life of disposable batteries by 800%!

[EEVblog]

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.

I think what happens is that you can see your comments, but if a channel like Batteriser has comment moderation turned on your comment won't show up to anyone else until they approve.
There seems to be no indication at the commenters end whether the comment is live or not. Horrible 

[timofonic]

What about some kind of anti-batteriser campaign with some other communities? They deserve it, using professional internet offenders to try to scare people. They are making internet bullying activities, that's something serious.

They already crossed that line over 800%, I would say over 9000...

Any ideas about an Anti-Batteriser Coalition? This should make these scammers what they deserve.

Can anyone write a letter to the universities of these teachers and students too? It even visit them personally if close enough.

[jancumps]

Giving critique on the claims based on engineering principles is just fine.
Organized anti-campaigns - or spamming - aren't.

[Muttley Snickers]

Did you guys see this video and disturbingly the comments, just outrageous.
Big thumbs up to Arlen .... ....for giving this arsehole some back.

[meeder]

Brad  Jones seems to be a friend of the son of the founder of batteriser. He claims that people who are picking the batteriser claims appart are children but he reacts in a very mature way...

[edy]

I wouldn't waste any more time on it. Really. Just take a deep breath and walk away. It's simply not worth your energy.

People buy nonsense products every day... There is a billion dollar industry for it. Never mind electronics, look at the many other products and foods with misleading and false claims that are marketed.

Warn your friends and family if you must, or make a video rebuttal and post it to YouTube and disable comments so you don't have to deal with word abuse. But honestly there is nothing more that will make these guys happy than to get your heart pumping and your blood pressure up.

[Delta]

Doctor Bobby must be so proud to have chaps like Brad defending his project...

[wraper]

Their assumptions with respect to battery cut-off voltage may have drawn some scorn but it still remains that if the studies they quote about energy left in discarded batteries are accurate then some people may find this thing useful.

You would need to actually test one before passing a final judgement.

It is not useful and cannot be. At the same price you can buy eneloop (if concerned about self discharge) rechargeables or even cheaper. You'll both save the ecology and money. Also, I already imagine a lot of moaning idiots, because batteries leaked and damaged their devices because of the deep discharge (if this thing will be actually delivered).

[timofonic]

Giving critique on the claims based on engineering principles is just fine.
Organized anti-campaigns - or spamming - aren't.

The plan would be do a campaign based on engineering principles, and also a protest against scammy crowdfunding projects in platforms like IGG. This is becoming a very dangerous plague and this will only benefit to big companies, small ones will have a lot more difficult market environment.

A you see, the lack of regulation and massive appearing of professional scammers is making these platforms less attractive to future users because of bad publicity. This could make the business situation even a lot more difficult to future hobbyists and small companies to benefit from crowdfunding campaigns.

This shit is a lot more worse than it seems, there should be a lot more of pressure to platforms like IGG to avoid this. These kind of platforms could give lots of nice opportunities to great smart and creative people, but fraudsters are getting the money instead.

[Muttley Snickers]

Edit: Updated the Youtube comments on my last post to include the full comments, it's actually threatening the boy, and whats more he is one of our own so now I'm really pissed off.

www.eevblog.com/forum/profile/?u=105567

[EEVblog]

Giving critique on the claims based on engineering principles is just fine.
Organized anti-campaigns - or spamming - aren't.

I agree.
Just keep calling out any incorrect, deceptive or stupid technical claims. But no need to tell engineers that, it's what we do 

[timofonic]

Giving critique on the claims based on engineering principles is just fine.
Organized anti-campaigns - or spamming - aren't.

I agree.
Just keep calling out any incorrect, deceptive or stupid technical claims. But no need to tell engineers that, it's what we do 

Is that enough to stop the flood of scams and snake oil stuff?

I understand stupidity is the most difficult illness to cure in humanity, that requires a very strong focus on education and even reformulate the ways to teach and stimulate people to learn (I believe a sophisticated Active Learning is the best way).

But the worst part of this is that certain organizations like corporations such as IGG close their eyes to scams such as this because they get the money anyway, despite many people inform them about the false promises of the project and the lack of scientific facts about being not possible to do.

Who are the worst ones in this scheme? Batteriser ones aren't, they "just" are tricky liars on an ecosystem that makes it easy to scam people. The worst part of this are the crowdfunding platforms such as IGG, they look elsewhere and get their percentage as any corrupt organization.

It's cool to make videos and have your name on some mass media, we live on a world where being known and famous can give you many advantages. But if close you are doing it in both a very educative and entertaining way, you deserve it a lot much more than all these movie stars.

Maybe debunking isn't enough, maybe legal and stronger educative action is necessary to stop stupid consumers and penalize scammers.

I think that the involved teacher must be known to be part of a scam and his university should take actions against his lack of ethics. Maybe there's even there's an student organization in the university that can protest about it too.

It's not about bullying them, they are already doing it with proxy entities to some activists as you see. They have money to make cool videos and lie people without the minimal scientific knowledge to understand it (something I consider it a massive fail of most educative systems/methodologies, of course), those aren't a bunch of occasional eBay scammers but something a lot more serious with big money that need to be stopped ASAP.

There's more like them, this could kill the crowdfunding ecosystem that made possible to do nice products without need to get loans or be under other kind of corporate slavery.

It's funny to debate and rant all time, but this shit is a lot more serious than it seems and there's need to do something about it. Crowdfunding is becoming a bubble that a lot of shady opportunists are taking advantage of it, this needs to change to make it a sustainable business model.

[LabSpokane]

The issues for me:

- Bringing the field of Electrical Engineering into disrepute by making claims that are incongruent with the facts as the overwhelming majority  the industry know them.

- I object to the premises being made that are thus totally unreproducable

- I object to the designers and manufacturers of the referenced "80% wasteful" devices being unfairly maligned.

- I object to the apparent abuse of academic credentials to argue unreproducable premises from authority.

- I object to the claiming of inflated academic credentials. I refer to the supposed "Professor of Electrical Engineering" in the "Batteriser Buggers a Monkey" video who received his UNDERGRADUATE degree in 2014. 

- I object to Silicon Valley's adoption of the PT Barnum marketing model and financing these ridiculous ventures while kicking folks with more humble, but very viable business ideas to the curb.

- I object to the abuse of Corporate immunity in making these claims.

- I object to such ventures subsequently going public and convincing institutional investors to gamble people's retirement funds on magical thinking.

It's about a lot more than $2.50. These types of questionable ventures are rendering  the United States a planetary laughingstock when it comes to engineering practices.

[Mechanical Menace]

https://youtu.be/yuaA-rUBmEc

"If you actually go through the video almost frame by frame, the power supply cuts out at 1.872volts, while the batteries were 1.876volts...

CLEARLY! you can't use a power supply to test the battery cut off voltage, that's a difference of 0.2%!"

 

[PeterL]

Giving critique on the claims based on engineering principles is just fine.
Organized anti-campaigns - or spamming - aren't.

I agree.
Just keep calling out any incorrect, deceptive or stupid technical claims. But no need to tell engineers that, it's what we do 

Is that enough to stop the flood of scams and snake oil stuff?

No, but nothing is.
I also would not call this one a scam (yet). Questionable marketing? Absolutely! But if they deliver a working product then it's not a scam imho.

I understand stupidity is the most difficult illness to cure in humanity, that requires a very strong focus on education and even reformulate the ways to teach and stimulate people to learn (I believe a sophisticated Active Learning is the best way).

I believe sometime's people need to bump their head to learn something, I know I did.. And it look's like about 5000 (4555 backers atm) people are going to learn something. And 5000 on a worldwide scale really is not that much, nor will the investment make them bankrupt.

I think that the involved teacher must be known to be part of a scam and his university should take actions against his lack of ethics. Maybe there's even there's an student organization in the university that can protest about it too.

Well I do agree that this saga is really bad for the reputation of the universities.

It's funny to debate and rant all time, but this shit is a lot more serious than it seems and there's need to do something about it. Crowdfunding is becoming a bubble that a lot of shady opportunists are taking advantage of it, this needs to change to make it a sustainable business model.

Crowdfunding is not shopping. It gives the funders the chance to be the first to have something really cool (think Occulus rift or Pebble) but there is also the risk that the product doesn't perform as wanted (or not at all). This risk is a part of the game, and this risk can be reduced by doing some investigation.

Dave did a great job showing that the claims made by batteriser are wrong. Now people can decide themselves what they are going to believe. At least the information is now there, it should be hard to find for anyone doing the search

[tom66]

The packaging of the batteriser is innovative, and it will definitely be capable of extending battery life in some very specific applications.

The problem is that those applications will be edge cases and for the majority of devices it will not extend life and possibly will reduce it. Plus it introduces the hazard of battery leakage and you lose any remaining battery life indications.

[JimRemington]

I want a battery that will send me email reminders that it is nearly dead, and should be removed from the device before it leaks.

[LabSpokane]

It's about a lot more than $2.50. These types of questionable ventures are rendering  the United States a planetary laughingstock when it comes to engineering practices.

This kind of thing trancends national and cultural borders, wherever money is involved you will get it.

And as for engineering practices, the conduct on this forum in some quarters has significantly departed from simple buy-the-numbers comment on this products performance. You can feel the moral high ground shifting from under our feet at times.

Looking past the exagerated claims and dubious measurement methodology it could be that there is some innovative engineering. Something that we must wait for actual units with which to conduct tests  before an informed judgement can be made. I think some people commenting have overreached with their judgement in the absence of test units.

There probably won't be anything in the performance that surprised experienced people but for me the test of this products worth is how it affects the consumption and disposal of batteries and how robust it proves to be. It looks flimsy and cautious phrasing on the IGG campaign page tends to support that.

If Bob And Frankie had designed an advanced boost converter that would consistently extract another 5% of energy out of an alkaline battery, that would have been plenty good. That would provide a huge economic and environmental benefit in aggregate. And it could have been licensed and designed into devices as the primary boost converter.

I don't feel I have overreached with my comments. I don't need to have the Batteriser device to know that it cannot extract energy which no longer is present.

[mikerj]

It was a general comment. Not aimed at  you. But your final sentence cuts to the heart of my comments. People DO throw away batteries with energy remaining and Batteriser are not claiming to manufacture energy where none exists. Their claims are rubbery enough and don't require sloppy or imprecise interpretation.

Creating a low voltage boost converter in such a tiny form factor that is capable of an alleged 1.3A continuous and 4.5A peak takes some not inconsiderable skill.  However the bullshit claims and the laughable test methodologies the in their videos suggest they are either incompetent and/or very dishonest. 

If the Batteriser is real and  they employed a proper engineer to design it then why didn't they get his or her advice on the test methodologies?  If the same people that did the videos actually designed the device, then you already know it won't work.

[EEVblog]

And as for engineering practices, the conduct on this forum in some quarters has significantly departed from simple buy-the-numbers comment on this products performance. You can feel the moral high ground shifting from under our feet at times.
Looking past the exagerated claims and dubious measurement methodology it could be that there is some innovative engineering. Something that we must wait for actual units with which to conduct tests  before an informed judgement can be made. I think some people commenting have overreached with their judgement in the absence of test units.

Don't confuse everyone laughing and poking fun at their crazy BS claims with lack of respect for any actual engineering.
Both brothers have the credentials to design innovative miniature hardware. They say they have developed custom IP and silicon for this thing, as well as the ultra-miniature electronics, and I think few if any engineers here or anywhere else would not give them credit for that. But because there is no hardware to test, no performance curves, no details on the actual hardware tech at all, people naturally aren't talking about that. So that's not really the communities fault.
Remember that it is them that have provided endless material to be lampooned, and no other technical info for the community to take them the last bit seriously, so it's not surprising the response they got.

If they published the efficiency envelope from day 1 they might have been taken a lot more seriously, as we'd have some tech to talk about instead of monkey's arses.

It looks flimsy and cautious phrasing on the IGG campaign page tends to support that.

And it also failed twice in front of the Yahoo reporter. But you can probably cut them some slack there because they are prototypes.

[LabSpokane]

I'm poking Bob and Frankie precisely *because* they are educated men with credentials. If I thought they were stupid, I wouldn't bother. It's tough love.  They're better than this.   

I don't think they're horrible people. Their family and friends obviously love them and have rallied around to support them. They'd probably be a fun crew to have over for a barbecue.

But these crazy claims have to stop.

[Bassman59]

But these crazy claims have to stop.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

[CanadianAvenger]

Giving critique on the claims based on engineering principles is just fine.
Organized anti-campaigns - or spamming - aren't.

I agree.
Just keep calling out any incorrect, deceptive or stupid technical claims. But no need to tell engineers that, it's what we do 

Is that enough to stop the flood of scams and snake oil stuff?

No, but nothing is.
I also would not call this one a scam (yet). Questionable marketing? Absolutely! But if they deliver a working product then it's not a scam imho.

Marketing and delivering a product that you know does not meet up to the claims is still a scam. These guys are trying to profit off of peoples ignorance. I'm pretty sure they're not that stupid as to believe their product actually does what they claim. In fact due to quiescent losses, the Batterizer might actually have a negative impact of battery life in your device, if you put it on a fresh battery, as they suggest you can.

Incidentally, looks like Batterizer has disabled comments on all of the videos. I guess they couldn't take the heat of people asking real questions, and making valid criticisms. I guess the signs were showing that they were cracking when they nasty replies they were making started surfacing..

[PeterL]

I also would not call this one a scam (yet). Questionable marketing? Absolutely! But if they deliver a working product then it's not a scam imho.

Marketing and delivering a product that you know does not meet up to the claims is still a scam.

If only every claim I have ever heard in the marketing of a product was completely true...

But these batteroo guys really deserve a masters degree in exaggeration. And not only that, they are also extremely talented in picking facts that suit them, and then rearrange them into a whole new beautiful truth, while gracefully skipping the facts that are not so nice.

So yeah, by now they are crossing the line for me too.

[CanadianAvenger]

As a follow-up. Looks like comments are open again on their videos. Speaking of... anyone pick up on any of the slights of hand? I wasted my time on  the "full length" video, hoping for an explanation of how the batterizer works, as they promised to do... they never got there. All we get is a 45min talk on why simply measuring cut-out voltage is not enough, and using constant current draw graphs are inaccurate. I hope Dave feels up to another rebuttal.