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

[firewalker]

They didn't fail. They "must" send a product. They asked for 30k and they got 400k. More that 800% .

Alexander.

I wonder how they will pay for that 'customised ic'...

How much for sandpaper and a sharpie?

Alexander.

EDIT: Spelling.

[Fungus]

PS: some eBay buyer are learning:

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=hksells&iid=121498553553&de=off&items=25&which=negative&interval=365&_trkparms=negative_365

Yep. You'd think people would go as far as looking at the seller's feedback, but nooooo...

This page is classic:

http://www.ebay.com/gds/18650-Battery-Buying-Guide-/10000000177628747/g.html

Consumers ...  find that eBay is a wonderful place to shop for the batteries.   

[Godzil]

This nice red stick battery look more like a stick of TNT to me than a battery

[f4eru]

you can allow bank transfer payments for that. No need to do the transfer, ebay is not in the loop.

Could. Might. Maybe. Theoretically...yada yada.

Have you any proof of this?

Yep.
http://pages.ebay.de/help/pay/bankpay-faq.html
http://pages.ebay.com/HELP/POLICIES/ACCEPTED-PAYMENTS-POLICY.HTML

You sell an item and propose bank transfer. I do it often, it's current in germany, not so much in other countries.
The buyer receives an email with the IBAN of the seller, and just transfers the money directly to the buyer. Ebay is not involved, so you can just skip the paiement entirely if the goal is to do fake reviews between two complice accounts.

[Fungus]

Could. Might. Maybe. Theoretically...yada yada.
Have you any proof of this?

Yep.

Nope. I mean do you have proof that people are actually doing that to inflate their ratings?

Besides, even if you pay outside of eBay you still have to give them their 10%. I can't imagine sellers creating 3500 fake sales and paying 10% to eBay just to get a higher rating

[ruffy91]

It's 4% provision for 1-100$ and you pay 10% less provision when you are a Top Rated Seller (less than 0,4% unresolved cases). So there are edge cases where you will get cheaper when you fake ratings.

[Kilrah]

I can't imagine sellers creating 3500 fake sales and paying 10% to eBay just to get a higher rating

It's a business like another even if a dishonest one, "invest" a bit in fake sales and fees to get a good rating, then you can sell crap products you got for peanuts or took out of a trash can.

[Chipguy]

Sort of related to this topic: I was looking at 18650 batteries on eBay yesterday. There's sellers on there that have sold thousands of them, all with good feedback. No problem, right?

...except:
a) AFAIK there's no 18650 with more than about 3400mAh capacity but they're all 6000mAh, 9800mAh...etc.
b) The internet is full of 18650 tests that show all those batteries have dismal capacities (200-300mAh is common).
c) There's hundreds of pictures of battery teardowns where they're half full of white powder with a tiny battery inside, etc.



ie. The tiniest bit of research will will let you know you'd have to be insane to buy a cheap 18650  on eBay.
Question: Why are they selling so many and where does all the positive feedback come from?
And back on topic: Will all the imbeciles who buy Batterisers be able to tell if they work or not?

I had some of these as well and tried to open them. But when I put the saw to it some fluid leaked out and bubbled.
They were still shit, stating 4800 mAh but only had around 1000 mAh. Utter garbage.
That was a while back and I should have shared that info back then, thought it was not important enough.

I found one seller on ebay though who sells Panasonic cells with that got 3200mAh on theird spec.
I checked them and the results were promising with 2900mAh at 1/3C load as well as 1/3C charge.

[Fungus]

I found one seller on ebay though who sells Panasonic cells with that got 3200mAh on theird spec.
I checked them and the results were promising with 2900mAh at 1/3C load as well as 1/3C charge.

Yes, there's some good ones.

"Panasonic 3200mAh" is a real battery. They cost about $7 each.

"Surefire 9000mAh", four for $6.99? Not so much.   

[Fungus]

Still nothing from Batteroo? I'm intrigued as to what happens next.   

Obviously they can't give anybody a Batteriser before they go for the big contract - they might actually try it to see if it works!!

But ... now the pressure is on to do something. I guess they have until November 30th to make an announcement though.


Edit: Oh, wait, apparently they're going to be selling them direct through the Batteriser web site now... 



IMHO their only chance was to get them in a place where people would buy them on impulse, eg. a Walmart checkout. This completely kills that...

[AF6LJ]

Still nothing from Batteroo? I'm intrigued as to what happens next.   

Obviously they can't give anybody a Batteriser before they go for the big contract - they might actually try it to see if it works!!

But ... now the pressure is on to do something. I guess they have until November 30th to make an announcement though.


Edit: Oh, wait, apparently they're going to be selling them direct through the Batteriser web site now... 

Me thinks this is a stalling tactic.
 

[Chipguy]

I found one seller on ebay though who sells Panasonic cells with that got 3200mAh on theird spec.
I checked them and the results were promising with 2900mAh at 1/3C load as well as 1/3C charge.

Yes, there's some good ones.
"Panasonic 3200mAh" is a real battery. They cost about $7 each.
"Surefire 9000mAh", four for $6.99? Not so much.   

$7 sounds about right for the Panasonics
And everything that has "fire" in the name and states more than that: Hands off!!! 

[edy]

I'm surprised they are not already converting over to "InDemand" status to collect more money.

Have a look at another campaign for the "Airing" on IndieGogo:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/airing-the-first-hoseless-maskless-micro-cpap#/story

They originally captured $896,000 (which is 896% funded over their original flexible funding goal of $100,000). Over the past few months they've continued to climb up to $1,053,945 by using this "InDemand" feature of IndieGogo to effectively continue and scam people for more money on this impossible device (see this thread: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/the-airing/).

So why is Batteriser not using "InDemand" funding? This should be the first thing they do.... especially since this is the SECOND ROUND of IndieGogo for them after their first campaign wasn't enough money. Unless they plan on a THIRD ROUND?

[apis]

IMHO their only chance was to get them in a place where people would buy them on impulse, eg. a Walmart checkout. This completely kills that...

Yeah, I agree, people would then buy on impulse just to see if it works. They would eventually just end up in the trash but people wouldn't mention it because they were cheap and no-one likes admit they were fooled. A dedicated website like this will require buyers who are looking for them, who heard from a friend how great they were, and that's not likely to happen in this case.

Anyway, will be fun to see the final verdict when(/if) Dave gets his paws on one.

[Fungus]

Anyway, will be fun to see the final verdict when(/if) Dave gets his paws on one.

Is anybody expecting any surprises?

(Apart from Dave actually getting his paws on one...)

[Delta]

I'm surprised they are not already converting over to "InDemand" status to collect more money.


So why is Batteriser not using "InDemand" funding? This should be the first thing they do.... especially since this is the SECOND ROUND of IndieGogo for them after their first campaign wasn't enough money. Unless they plan on a THIRD ROUND?

As has been mentioned, the IGG money is a piss in the ocean, they alread had Venture Capital funding.  The IGG campaign is simply to drum up publicity such that they find a big retail contract. (or just sell the company)

Trying to crowdfund 30k when you've already got millions from the VCs?  Yeah, that's a legit campaign...

[EEVblog]

Anyway, will be fun to see the final verdict when(/if) Dave gets his paws on one.

So, whatever happened to those "Press Kit" units?
Weren't they like one week away from shipping those after some "exclusive" with some website?

[Stonent]

Anyway, will be fun to see the final verdict when(/if) Dave gets his paws on one.

So, whatever happened to those "Press Kit" units?
Weren't they like one week away from shipping those after some "exclusive" with some website?

DealExtreme, TaoBao, or AliBaba surely!

[AF6LJ]

Anyway, will be fun to see the final verdict when(/if) Dave gets his paws on one.

So, whatever happened to those "Press Kit" units?
Weren't they like one week away from shipping those after some "exclusive" with some website?

That was until someone (Dave and others here) was on to their game.

[Galenbo]

...
IMHO their only chance was to get them in a place where people would buy them on impulse, eg. a Walmart checkout. This completely kills that...

The difficult aspect in 'building' that webshop is controlling the kind of 'related videos' automatically appears on the sides as publicity...

[Godzil]

Anyway, will be fun to see the final verdict when(/if) Dave gets his paws on one.

So, whatever happened to those "Press Kit" units?
Weren't they like one week away from shipping those after some "exclusive" with some website?

DealExtreme, TaoBao, or AliBaba surely!

I will not talk about TaoBao and AliBaba that I don't know, but DX sell much more qualitative product than this stuff

[Godzil]

I'm surprised they are not already converting over to "InDemand" status to collect more money.

Have a look at another campaign for the "Airing" on IndieGogo:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/airing-the-first-hoseless-maskless-micro-cpap#/story

They originally captured $896,000 (which is 896% funded over their original flexible funding goal of $100,000). Over the past few months they've continued to climb up to $1,053,945 by using this "InDemand" feature of IndieGogo to effectively continue and scam people for more money on this impossible device (see this thread: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/the-airing/).

So why is Batteriser not using "InDemand" funding? This should be the first thing they do.... especially since this is the SECOND ROUND of IndieGogo for them after their first campaign wasn't enough money. Unless they plan on a THIRD ROUND?

Something I don't understand with this Airing product (sorry to hijack this topic about this unrelated thing) but, apart maybe to prevent snoring (even if I'm nearly sure it does nothing) how can this stuff could replace a normal mask with a tube that bring pure oxygen!

[Delta]

Please discuss that on the The Airing thread in the crowd funding section.

Spoiler: posters on there have already pulled it to pieces!

[LabSpokane]

So, Batteroo now has the e-commerce site up for *pre-orders* through a pre-order site called Celery.  When doubling down isn't enough, I guess you triple down. 

[Fungus]

Anyway, will be fun to see the final verdict when(/if) Dave gets his paws on one.

So, whatever happened to those "Press Kit" units?
Weren't they like one week away from shipping those after some "exclusive" with some website?

There's a "press kit" button at the top of their web site.

Apparently you have to email "dan@jprcom.com"