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

[jippie]

I'm guessing they started with fresh batteries, and their logger has 1-2 ohm shunt

I had calculated a similar shunt resistance too. Just thinking, would the 1 or 2 ohm shunt roughly support the batterised (what was the operational hours, 10hr or so?) service time?

[dexters_lab]

I have supported their campaign just to get some samples to test and am already planning to mail some out to vbloggers like dave who could put it through their paces 

lol, i backed them a while ago for the same reasons, i guess there will be plenty to go around... well if we get something for our hard earned!!

great video BTW

[edy]

What it shouldn't be: a witch-hunt against Batteroo, with people leaping on every new statement, tearing it apart, looking for the tiniest apparent inconsistency (even when there isn't one) and crying victory.  It makes you look petty, like you have some agenda that you haven't declared, and (when you see supposed failings that have other explanations) like you don't know what you're talking about.

I also agree, and I give thanks to all members on the forum who have been doing their own testing to try and replicate Batteroo's claims, and have stuck to arguing the science and engineering aspect of this entertaining campaign.

However, I believe there is some pent up frustration as to what has been going on with IndieGogo in particular and the growing examples of many questionable tech devices especially. The storm that ensued Batteriser's far-out claims and flame war may be just the beginning of what places like IndieGogo will have to deal with, given that censorship on the site is so prevalent. I agree, keep with the science, but it alone my not attract attention to give a balanced opinion, and certainly would be censored on those sites. But hey, EE's are also human, they are not all Mr. Spock.

[Simon]

They are REALLY grasping at straws, i do not believe AT ALL they have any UL certification or testing.
And what kind of "answer" is that, no data, no nothing, just a stupid (fabricated looking) UL report saying THE SAME as their "test".
Also one more thing, every body says it takes some time getting a UL done, so why are they using the RED sleved batteriser they recently posted on not the original stainless steel only batteriser ones from 1+ mouth ago. ?

I'm going to guess that the whole thing is a fabrication, UL do NOT test to manufacturer claims, they test to say it is safe, and that would not include particular cases where a peice of safety equipment needs to see a gradual run down so that it can warn of battery failure before its too late. Surely UL can be contatced and asked to provide any testing they carried out.

Any decent product would have a boost converter built in and therefore also be able to monitor battery level. a bunch of batterizers in series is not even a clever idea...... so much waste.

[FrankBuss]

I'm guessing they started with fresh batteries, and their logger has 1-2 ohm shunt, and the burden voltage caused the brightness warning to come on a 2 hr mark, and that's where they called it and lied and said that the unit shut off.  (which we all know is BS)

I did a Google image search for "current data logger" and on the first page was a device that looked like what they used, probably a Hantek365, a low cost USB multimeter. The manual (you have to create an account to download it, but eMail is not verified, then you have to rename the downloaded ZIP file to PDF, pretty horrible website) doesn't specify the shunt resistance. This is a screenshot of the software in the manual:

Looks exactly like in their video. With a 2 ohm shunt it would be up to 500 mV voltage drop with the spikes, but this would be a very high shunt. At least they are using the A input, not mA, so it should be much lower than 1 ohm, even with the additional cables and connectors. Of course, they didn't show the voltage curve in their test video with the "fresh" batteries.

[photon]

May I say conspiranoid and even more crazy than usual if I think about the following?

Yes, you sound like a 'conspiranoid'.  This is why I've been keeping out of this whole thing.

What it shouldn't be: a witch-hunt against Batteroo, with people leaping on every new statement, tearing it apart, looking for the tiniest apparent inconsistency (even when there isn't one) and crying victory.  It makes you look petty, like you have some agenda that you haven't declared, and (when you see supposed failings that have other explanations) like you don't know what you're talking about.

I must confess I do have a specific agenda. I do not like to see reputable EE/VC get away with a scam.

[jippie]

With a 2 ohm shunt it would be up to 500 mV voltage drop with the spikes, but this would be a very high shunt. At least they are using the A input, not mA, so it should be much lower than 1 ohm, even with the additional cables and connectors. Of course, they didn't show the voltage curve in their test video with the "fresh" batteries.

My main multimeter has a 1.5mV/mA burden voltage in the 500mA range, resulting in 1.5 ohm. So I guess order magnitude for such a range is viable. Of course the calculated "shunt resistor" includes the difference in wiring between the two tests. I agree that it looks from the video that they've set up the Amps input jack. Of course we don't have a test protocol that actually describes which ranges, equipment, inputs, battery age, ... are used (would've been nice if the voltage at the GPS terminals was measured too). There is no way to tell if they changed the setup for the published duration tests. But maybe we should allow them some credit, we might be missing something.

[Fungus]

What it shouldn't be: a witch-hunt against Batteroo, with people leaping on every new statement, tearing it apart, looking for the tiniest apparent inconsistency (even when there isn't one) and crying victory.  It makes you look petty, like you have some agenda that you haven't declared, and (when you see supposed failings that have other explanations) like you don't know what you're talking about.

I also agree, and I give thanks to all members on the forum who have been doing their own testing to try and replicate Batteroo's claims, and have stuck to arguing the science and engineering aspect of this entertaining campaign.

I'm in the middle.

I mean...these guys are thieves. Plain and simple. Their product is a lie, they know it, but they're still going after people's money. Venture capitalists first, now IndieGoGo users, next up: Government+taxpayers (they've mentioned they want to "support the troops" by lightening the heavy load of batteries they carry around).

You'd hope a government/military would be smart enough to figure out the scam but they don't exactly have a stellar record. If Batteroo have an impressive board of directors, successful crowdfunding behind them, UL certification, slick salesmen... who knows whether or not the rigged demos will get past the top brass or not? Do you want to see crates full of Batterisers being shipped out to war zones on the taxpayer dollar? I don't.

So I say: No name calling or personal attacks, but, yes, look for the tiniest inconsistencies. You never know where it will lead.

[Fungus]

incidentally the cheapest they are selling the batteriser for is $1.92 each for the AA and AAA size

I struggle to comprehend how they could possibly make that widget for such a low price and still turn a profit.
The IC alone costs 1.44$ in bulk (3,000 units) at Digi-key. If they rolled up their own (huge development cost), I doubt they could produce it for much cheaper than Analog Devices can sell theirs for.

The small package ADP1607 is rather impressive: More than 85% efficiency between 1mA and 100mA load current at Vin 0.8V.

That's not the impressive part. The impressive part is the list of matching miniature inductors. There's one which measures 2.0x1.6x1.0 mm and can handle 1.2 amps.

3.2 cubic millimeters, 1.2 amps, 12 cents each on Digikey.

(adjusts internal model of what inductors can do)

[ziq8tsi]

So the batteriser test CLEARLY stops the test when the brightness warning appears on the screen, and they call that the point at which is "shuts down and the screen dims to black"?

Attention consumers!  Do you discard batteries at the first sniff of a warning message, or when the battery display goes down even one bar?  You could be wasting up to 80% of your cells' voltage power energy.

Batteriser's patented technology effectively disables the battery gauge on all of your favorite products, thereby saving you money!

[Chris74656]

Don't forget they are making AAA, C and D sizes as well.

Will all that circuitry fit onto a AAA? What about the higher current for C and D cells?  100mA D cell anyone?

[LabSpokane]

And yet ANOTHER claim:  one cannot refute Batteroo's claims without possession of a Batteriser.

Oh contraire, young Ali, we can.  The premises upon which your technology is based on are faulty, i.e. completely wrong. We have thoroughly, utterly, and completely refuted the premise that a battery that has depleted 90-95% of its energy, can suddenly supply 4X to 7X more energy by attaching your device.  The energy is not there.  The only way that your device can "work" is through gerrymandering the tests in order to artificially force the device to power off earlier than normal and leave enough energy remaining for your test to "work." 

[LabSpokane]

incidentally the cheapest they are selling the batteriser for is $1.92 each for the AA and AAA size

I struggle to comprehend how they could possibly make that widget for such a low price and still turn a profit.
The IC alone costs 1.44$ in bulk (3,000 units) at Digi-key. If they rolled up their own (huge development cost), I doubt they could produce it for much cheaper than Analog Devices can sell theirs for.

I think we should be careful about using Digikey or Mouser pricing.  It is very common to negotiate pricing directly with the manufacturer when buying in very large volume.  If Flextronics was/is the CM on this, they have considerable negotiating power.  Even with that, one has to be careful with a CM's book pricing because the component suppliers will offer rebates to the CM so that customer's think the CM's margin is lower than it really is.

That said, I think it is a very reasonable conclusion that Batteroo is in deep trouble with their BOM costs and their tooling costs. 

[Halcyon]

Oh Ali Roohparvar... swing and a miss matey! I particularly loved his "UL is a lot more credible than some teenagers making inaccurate blog videos", which thankfully is not what has been occurring. The only teenager making inaccurate claims is Batteriser's "Fan Club" (AKA David Jonez or whatever he wants to call himself this week).

If UL have legitimately performed any kind of testing, there will be verifiable proof of it (such as the original test report). So far, nothing has surfaced and once again, Batteroo are digging themselves into an even deeper hole. Their credibility has been shot to pieces long time ago so no matter what they post is usually false or will be picked to pieces.

If Batteroo had even the smallest shred of dignity left, they would simply mail a sample of the Batteriser sleeve to the EEVblog. For the benefit of Roohparvar et. al. that address is:

Batteriser Debunking Competition
c/- Dave Jones
PO Box 7949
BAULKHAM HILLS   NSW   2153
AUSTRALIA

[mikeselectricstuff]

You won't get parts by AD, TI etc. for vastly less than Digikey etc., however it's quite possible that  similar devices exist in the Chinese market at very low prices.
If you look in Chinese mass-market products you won't often see run-of-the-mill functions like regulators from big-names like TI,Maxim,LT etc.

[JSnyder]

"UL is a lot more credible than some teenagers making inaccurate blog videos" Wow. Uh. We haven't even seen a PROPER UL report, we don't have a PROPER UL reference number to look up, "batteriser" and "batteroo" return no results in UL's database. And this is the leg they want to stand on, good call. At this point that "teenager making inaccurate blog videos" is an order of magnitude more transparent and definitive in his test setup/parameters then anything batteriser have released thus far. And contrary to popular belief (ahem Roohparvar) comparing a device's battery life with just plain 'ol (new) batteries (to their published figures for the batteriser-less test) doesn't actually require a batteriser sleeve to do. 

[timofonic]

May I say conspiranoid and even more crazy than usual if I think about the following?

Yes, you sound like a 'conspiranoid'.  This is why I've been keeping out of this whole thing.

What it shouldn't be: a witch-hunt against Batteroo, with people leaping on every new statement, tearing it apart, looking for the tiniest apparent inconsistency (even when there isn't one) and crying victory.  It makes you look petty, like you have some agenda that you haven't declared, and (when you see supposed failings that have other explanations) like you don't know what you're talking about.

I must confess I do have a specific agenda. I do not like to see reputable EE/VC get away with a scam.

Yes, I agree. I try to avoid that thinking and question myself certain ideas, shifting to the kickball side and real data. I often do personal introspection about my thinking was, beliefs and knowledge. But never if enough.

 Thanks for checking my wrong thinking, it's really appreciated. I really miss it from loved people that I see or contact them daily or very often and help them very often too, but they prefer to be polite instead.

But I already see technical careers are often very underestimated in the mainstream world. Tons of people see us as weird people that must solve their "important" problems, and do it fast. It doesn't matter if it's a family member, your boyfriend girlfriend, a friend or your narcissistic boss.

People underestimate our skills, efforts and problems. We are often seen as one if those tools they have no damn clue to understand our repair, something I dislike and fight against that defensively write often. I'm somewhat of a grumpy geeky guy.

That's not enough. Average people are even more illiterate about technology than other topics, at least in my country. I understand not everyone want to be an engineer, but I consider  stuff such as Ohm's Law a lot more useful for everyday than insanely detailed topics in geography and history.

This is a great opportunity to skilled scammers to theft money from too many of those unfortunately very ignorant people about technology and science basics.

This is a shame and a curse to all of us. I'm having a very hard time learning electronics due to very diverse reasons and would love to someday be at least something near an EE. This kind of shit makes things even worse.

I consider scammers in science field to be dangerous criminals a lot more than those persecuted "intellectual property" infringers, because they can involve health risks up to very dangerous legend and can damage the reputation of professionals to get their jobs

What it shouldn't be: a witch-hunt against Batteroo, with people leaping on every new statement, tearing it apart, looking for the tiniest apparent inconsistency (even when there isn't one) and crying victory.  It makes you look petty, like you have some agenda that you haven't declared, and (when you see supposed failings that have other explanations) like you don't know what you're talking about.

What it should be: taking testable claims, and testing them.  That's what Dave has been doing, and that's what whoever it is doing the GPS tests is doing.

I agree.
There are plenty of testable claims, either via actual physical test, or via inspection and whiteboard and datasheet analysis using industry standard procedures and figures.
The GPS one is now thoroughly busted, although other people to confirm will add even more weight.
Want to verify the big thing in their latest "technical" video about power drops causing products to drop out? Simple - take a dozen random products and hook a datalogging multimeter on the battery terminals. Operate device until dead and get the plot.
See if:
a) There are any spikes at all
and
b) If there are, do they cause any problem?

Want to make that test quicker and easier?, that's easy, just discharge some batteries so only 10-20% energy remains (so it's worst case spikes due to high ESR) and capture the battery voltage on a scope. Maybe a few hours work for half a dozen products.
Claim either confirmed, or busted for half a dozen or a dozen typical products.
A few people do that and you have a lot of product data points.

I agree hard scientific data is the most important thing here. And not only because authentic testing and EE knowledge is the most solid reason, but because this has a very important didactic value.

But I think it's important to know the legal and institutional sides of this:

-  What do UL think about this and if that testing is real? Are they reliable as a testing organization? Do they really care about their reputation in a professional and strict way?
- What about professional background? What were their real times at companies such as Micron?
- What's the reputation of that university? Are there some background about them?

[edy]

But I think it's important to know the legal and institutional sides of this:

-  What do UL think about this and if that testing is real? Are they reliable as a testing organization? Do they really care about their reputation in a professional and strict way?
- What about professional background? What were their real times at companies such as Micron?
- What's the reputation of that university? Are there some background about them?

I am curious to know as well. The Roohparvars are both highly educated and know the performance expected out of the Batteriser. Where I think it went all wrong was a poor decision along the way on how to market this device and what words and numbers were chosen to represent the utility of the Batteriser.

I'm not sure if once they got caught with egg on their face, they had too much pride to change the story, or if they were knee deep into financial obligations to be able to alter course. So they decided to fight the claims and hide things or continue confusing everyone to just buy time.

I said it before, the Batteriser has some specific utility. But the list of good uses would confuse the heck out of people.... So marketing just said "up to 8x" and generalized it, without putting a disclaimer listing at all for when and where it should be used. Someone already mentioned smoke alarms may not warn users when the battery is getting low with a chirp and turn off immediately, creating a safety hazard.

The marketing is mostly to blame. If the Batteriser does exist, I have no doubt the Roohparvars worked hard to make it, and probably believe that they accomplished something awesome... and rightly so. But once the smoke and mirrors started to come out to justify the bad marketing exaggerations, Batteroo didn't know when to quit, and for whatever reason continue on this ridiculous charade. I want to know when and why and who decided on the marketing copy and whether it was one of the Roohparvars or some external marketing firm, or the VC firm, and why nobody wants to start toning down the exaggerations on how much battery capacity is used normally by most devices (and don't give me this 20% B.S.) and what really the Batteriser is beneficial for.

[MrRobSteel]

I took one look at thier UL test report and I'm pretty sure I can smell the BS from here.

One quick search for 'UL TEST REPORT AND PROCEDURE' later, shows plenty of legitimate test reports. None of them look remotely like the one they claim to have.

I agree if it's fake it's about the worst thing they could do, could be marketing dumbing it down for the public though.

[amyk]

I took one look at thier UL test report and I'm pretty sure I can smell the BS from here.

One quick search for 'UL TEST REPORT AND PROCEDURE' later, shows plenty of legitimate test reports. None of them look remotely like the one they claim to have.

I agree if it's fake it's about the worst thing they could do, could be marketing dumbing it down for the public though.

Indeed. Observe in particular that none of the reports actually have the UL logo in them, except those for which they've stated to have completed the testing successfully; here's one example of that: http://www.ultralevel.com.tw/upload/files/PRL1201%20safety.pdf

Those that are authorised to use the UL logo will have the accompanying file number too, which can be looked up on the UL website.

[onlooker]

In a way, Batteriser's claimed UL performance test was a test of Garmin's GPS. Could this be legally done without the consent and cooperation of Garmin? After all, only Garmin can officially provide the  proper test conditions and the meanings of the modes, messages  and powering levels/stages.  Did Garmin know about the tests?

[samgab]

In a way, Batteriser's claimed UL performance test was a test of Garmin's GPS. Could this be legally done without the consent and cooperation of Garmin? After all, only Garmin can officially provide the  proper test conditions and the meanings of the modes, messages  and powering levels/stages.  Did Garmin know about the tests?

I'm pretty sure you're allowed to test any product that you own. But I would love for Garmin to go to media with factual info about their (discontinued) G3 product's battery life, and the 1000's of happy customers they have of that product who are regularly getting many times more than 2 hours of usable life with Alkaline cells while they play golf using it. Yet another nail in the coffin, that would be.

[Muttley Snickers]

Batteriser Debunking Competition

So that there is no bias I would also love to see The Signal Path let the cat out of the bag on this one but I did not see his name on the list, obviously they have some huge support based on the backers list particularly from the one pictured below.

And does anyone know what percentage IGG or KS get from these promotions, if it's not much then it's cheap advertising.

Simon says clap your hands, silly monkey.

[AmmoJammo]

Oh. So I've been arguing with another fake youtube profile. Lmao.

[samgab]

I'm very curious to get Garmin's take on this G3 GPS test, and the claims of their device getting 1 hr & 43 mins on a new set of Alkalines.
So I emailed their support department:

"The company startup "Batteroo" with the pending product "Batteriser" have published a video in which they claim to test a Garmin Approach G3 using new Alkaline batteries, and they state that it only lasts 1 hour and 52 minutes before it dies. this claim has been widely spread on youtube, their own website, and other parts of the internet.
Can Garmin confirm or refute whether the Approach G3 will only last for under 2 hours on new Alkaline Duracell batteries, and then the batteries would need to be changed?
Thank you for your assistance.
Best Regards,
Sam
PS Here are the relevant links:
(Links to the youtube videos and the batteriser site removed.)

And a picture which shows, they claim, a UL test confirming their test findings that the Approach G3 runs for less than 2 hours on new Alkalines (1 hr 43 mins this time!):
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/COGdNPQUcAA8XuS.jpg

I appreciate your comment on this."

It will be interesting to see their take on it. I don't know if this email will make it past the first level support pleb at Garmin, get a form reply, or if it will get elevated. Will report back. I'm taking this step, because if I was involved in the design of the G3, I would want to know if something like this was being circulated. Presumably someone at Garmin wants to know this too.