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

[Brumby]

** Batteroo - please prove me wrong.  PLEASE!

[Fungus]

...and what about all that stuff about their offices being burgled for their intellectual property??!! 

They may have been burgled, but it wasn't Big Battery desperately trying to get their hands on Batteroo technology.

[Fungus]

If you don't know much about batteries, or the difference between voltage and power, and you make the mistake of measuring the unloaded voltage of a 'dead' battery thinking it's the cut-off voltage of the device, and you don't stop to think "wouldn't someone have done this already?", then it sounds like a great idea.

That, and watching too many "joule thief" videos on Youtube.

But it must have become clear to them long ago that it couldn't possibly work.

It must have been clear long before the IGG campaign, and long before they started going around tech magazines showing off their prototype.

This is why I say it's deliberate fraud.

I don't know what they're doing now.

There is a chance that they actually do have a product (just not one that will do what they claim).  And it's not without value - if they can find an application for a tiny boost converter that runs down to 0.6V, their investors could still make some money. 

I dunno. How many microscopic* 0.6 volt power sources are out there? (0.6V with plenty of current...)

And if they exist, why wouldn't you just put two or three of them in series? 


(*) I assume the power source must be microscopic otherwise saving a few cubic millimeters in the boost converter doesn't make any sense.

[Fungus]

Seeing as I'm posting summaries, it descends into the following Q1 2016 lowlights:
Feb 10: "While facing the challenge of working during the Chinese New Year holiday season, two of our executive team members have been in China and Taiwan working very closely with our contract manufacturer these past few weeks" ... "As a result of this productive collaboration and our team’s diligence...."

Manufactured in China and Taiwan? A device with four components on a PCB?

(or was it five components? Their chip, an inductor, two capacitors...)

Maybe they went to Taiwan for the local nightlife, spend some of that hard-earned VC money.

[SL4P]

Does anyone here on the forum, live or work near Batteroo in CA?
Perhaps a bit of subterfuge, acting like a naive 'general' exporter/agent, or similar that has read the'good' press, and would like to discuss opportunities with Batteroo...

Of course, you know nothing about batteries, but like the commercial potential if it's as good as they say it is.  Ask for a demo, appear impressed, check on availability, models AA, AAA, C etc.  What devices does it work with (toys, cameras etc).

Ideally with a pen recorder or similar, or at least a notepad to take notes - just like a really interested businessman, or investigative journalist.

[timb]

Does anyone here on the forum, live or work near Batteroo in CA?
Perhaps a bit of subterfuge, acting like a naive 'general' exporter/agent, or similar that has read the'good' press, and would like to discuss opportunities with Batteroo...

Of course, you know nothing about batteries, but like the commercial potential if it's as good as they say it is.  Ask for a demo, appear impressed, check on availability, models AA, AAA, C etc.  What devices does it work with (toys, cameras etc).

Ideally with a pen recorder or similar, or at least a notepad to take notes - just like a really interested businessman, or investigative journalist.

Except someone over there reads this thread, so the jig would be up.

[timb]

...and what about all that stuff about their offices being burgled for their intellectual property??!! 

They may have been burgled, but it wasn't Big Battery desperately trying to get their hands on Batteroo technology.

Leave it to Bob to take "Joule Thief" literally.

[SL4P]

Greed and ego are powerful forces!

[janekm]

Seeing as I'm posting summaries, it descends into the following Q1 2016 lowlights:
Feb 10: "While facing the challenge of working during the Chinese New Year holiday season, two of our executive team members have been in China and Taiwan working very closely with our contract manufacturer these past few weeks" ... "As a result of this productive collaboration and our team’s diligence...."

Manufactured in China and Taiwan? A device with four components on a PCB?

(or was it five components? Their chip, an inductor, two capacitors...)

Maybe they went to Taiwan for the local nightlife, spend some of that hard-earned VC money.

I understood that update as implying that their CM is HQd in Taiwan but actual manufacturing would take place in China... so a visit to Taiwan to talk business and then to China to talk to the manufacturing team on the ground. I suppose that's probably what Bob is used to from his work at Flextronics...

[ccs46]

If we can get him to talk openly on video it might restore his career prospects. 

Uncle Bob probably made him along with others sign an NDA.

[drussell]

Not relevant to pre-production prototypes, but still my favourite smoking gun quote:
Dec 22nd 2015: "The Batteriser final assembly is underway and packaging is nearly complete."

That one was more typical Batteroo weasel words...  They imply that they are building the actual product and putting it in the packaging to ship.  What they really meant was that the design of those plastic cases that you get to hold your shiny new Batterisers when not in use (or en route to the landfill, for example) was nearly complete and that they were entering the "final assembly" phase of making their actual product. 

Of course, we all know that  the "final assembly" phase for them seems to be everything including designing the final product, sourcing the final silicon, getting it built, etc.  Pretty much everything after the "brilliant idea bulb coming on" phase and "viral marketing wankery" phases.... 

[quad]

Saying he's going to China personally buys him another couple of months. He can keep sprinkling vague updates (no photos) over the coming months, giving the appearance progress is being made. Then, disaster strikes! Something went horribly wrong in the production process! We ran out of money, sorry.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

[ChunkyPastaSauce]

Saying he's going to China personally buys him another couple of months. He can keep sprinkling vague updates (no photos) over the coming months, giving the appearance progress is being made. Then, disaster strikes! Something went horribly wrong in the production process! We ran out of money, sorry.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I think he's teaching courses this semester, he can't stay long

[rich]

Not relevant to pre-production prototypes, but still my favourite smoking gun quote:
Dec 22nd 2015: "The Batteriser final assembly is underway and packaging is nearly complete."

That one was more typical Batteroo weasel words...  They imply that they are building the actual product and putting it in the packaging to ship.  What they really meant was that the design of those plastic cases that you get to hold your shiny new Batterisers when not in use (or en route to the landfill, for example) was nearly complete and that they were entering the "final assembly" phase of making their actual product. 

Of course, we all know that  the "final assembly" phase for them seems to be everything including designing the final product, sourcing the final silicon, getting it built, etc.  Pretty much everything after the "brilliant idea bulb coming on" phase and "viral marketing wankery" phases.... 

He may have only wanted to imply "final assembly is underway" but he accidentally said it out loud.
"packaging is nearly complete" could refer to case design if it wasn't for his much older statement:

Late Oct/ early Nov: "We have also finalized the protective cases (recyclable material) that your Batterisers will be shipping in."

so the 2nd clause may have only meant protective case manufacture was nearly complete but it's still a statement that they had Batterisers and Cases in December.

[meeder]

There is still hope for them... They could follow these people and do what is right.

https://gearjunkie.com/refunded-triton-artificial-gills-campaign-update

[Marcel_X]

There is still hope for them... They could follow these people and do what is right.

https://gearjunkie.com/refunded-triton-artificial-gills-campaign-update

Well unfortunately, these guys just re-started their campaign. They did refund all backers of the original campaign. But after explaining they were using liquid oxygen containers, they at least gave backers the option to pledge again if they still felt confident about the campaign. (Even though I still doubt that this thing will ever come to life...)

Too late for Bob to do the same I guess. Money's probably already gone...

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/triton-world-s-first-artificial-gills-re-breather/x/10890115#/updates

[AF6LJ]

SO;
At this point; is this guy just plain stupid thinking his idea would work?
OR;
Was his intent to rip off his backers?

He has a BS, MS, and PhD in electrical engineering, is a professor at a Uni, and was in the tech sector for a while, his brother has a BS CE and a MS EE and is in the tech sector. Not so knowledgeable PhDs do exist though (really it's not that uncommon, especially if they're outside of their PhD work which is usually pretty narrow). A 3rd possibility is inventor blindness or whatever (believing it works because one wants it to work despite reality). That is actually really common. But at this point, most people would be aware I'd think.

Also, the concept probably does work at some level... but probably not on devices that were properly designed in the first place.

I do believe the concept does work to some degree; perhaps just enough to make the nearly perfect scam.

80% of the people on the planet work from the assumption that ALL PEOPLE are basically good and have good intentions; I on the other hand believe that 20% of the population pray on the other 80%. This is based on my own experience over the last six decades. I think it was a well thought out scam from Day One. 

[AF6LJ]

SO;
At this point; is this guy just plain stupid thinking his idea would work?

Yes, demonstrably so.

OR;
Was his intent to rip off his backers?

He likely thought people would never to do the proper testing required to show it's claims are BS. They'd get something out of it and then just toss them.
He did not count on the entire engineering community taking him to task over the grossly exaggerated claims, and becoming the laughing stock of the industry.

I was very interested in seeing what you thought Dave.

I could believe your theory for what transpired regarding the evolution of this product. I have seen otherwise smart people suffered from impaired judgment from drinking their own Kool-Aid.

I suppose we will never know as this person has walked a long distance on his current path and saving face would require him to not admit he was wrong.

[ez24]

I think he's teaching courses this semester, he can't stay long

If so then he will be able to "prove" that he can get 800% out of a battery.

What school would hire him?  (ie what school to avoid ?)

[zal42]

I have seen otherwise smart people suffered from impaired judgment from drinking their own Kool-Aid.

I suppose we will never know as this person has walked a long distance on his current path and saving face would require him to not admit he was wrong.

You seem to be assuming a "good faith" error, that the problem is one of stupidity or delusion rather than fraud. Personally, I think that all of the available evidence points emphatically to intentional fraud.

[Delta]

I have seen otherwise smart people suffered from impaired judgment from drinking their own Kool-Aid.

I suppose we will never know as this person has walked a long distance on his current path and saving face would require him to not admit he was wrong.

You seem to be assuming a "good faith" error, that the problem is one of stupidity or delusion rather than fraud. Personally, I think that all of the available evidence points emphatically to intentional fraud.

I agree.  There is simply no way PhD EEs could be so completely clueless about alkaline cells to even think that this product could work as claimed.

Scam.

[EEVblog]

“When we get a new battery it is 1.5 volts, when we use it in a device it goes down to 1.3 volts under load condition, at that point we consider it to be dead and throw it away,” explains Dr. Kiumars Parvin, Professor of Physics at San Jose State University. “We tested the Batteriser sleeve in our lab and we confirmed that the Batteriser taps into the 80% of energy that is usually thrown away.”

What a way to ruin your credibility 
Even Frankie had to later admit in a video that it actually requires a special case of a 1.1V dip from a pulse under load at the 20% discharge point in order to get the BS 80% unused they have used from day one
https://youtu.be/622uCZ_pE0w?t=37m

Thus embarrassing his friend Dr Parvin and showing his professional testimonial to be laughably wrong.
It seriously couldn't get any funnier if Batteroo was run by the Three Stooges.

[apis]

Yeah, of course it's a scam. Well, one can't be 100% sure of anything, but all the evidence pointed in that direction from the start and the more information we got the more certain it got. I don't understand why a lot of people tend to insist on believing scammers, it seems to be a common phenomenon. I've seen it happen to people who really should know better. Maybe it's not wanting to admit one has been fooled, not wanting to believe people who seems ordinary can be lying or just wanting to believe in fairytales because they are more exciting than the truth.

Then there's always the apologists, trying to come up with excuses of how they didn't really do what they obviously did and so on, also a weird phenomena. I believe in "assumed guilty unless proven otherwise" and all that but in this case everything points to them simply trying to scam people on indiegogo with a bs product. Looks like lots of people do that successfully and get away with it. These guys decided to try their luck.

[lpickup]

At the risk of not adding anything substantial to the discussion (because we've covered this countless times before)...I'm willing to give the guys the benefit of the doubt and think that initially they thought they were onto something they could sell...certainly they had to REALLY stretch things to get the stats they claimed--assume worst case scenarios, use junk science and math to come up with their (1.5 - 0.6) / (1.5 - 1.4) = 800% (or however they did get that number) claim.  Nobody can claim to know what their intentions were at that stage...

...but I think one thing is 100% clear.  Once Dave exposed the flaws in their methodology, design, and claims, and the EE community backed him up, it was at that point that it unequivocally moved into scam territory.  Sure, the Roos probably felt they had to save face (what with their 500 patents and PhDs and awards, etc.), but every day they perpetuate the illusion that their invention will actually do what they claim and that they are actually building & eventually shipping something, is a flat out lie.  They have long since passed the point where they could get out of this mess with at least some dignity intact.  But at this point, it's impossible.  They are going to have to run this thing into the ground, or maybe they'll just silently go away and hope the backers eventually get bored of posting, since they know they have no redress.

[zal42]

I don't understand why a lot of people tend to insist on believing scammers, it seems to be a common phenomenon.

It's basic human nature. Nobody wants to admit they got taken, because they are afraid that they'll look stupid. And lots of people seem to assume that about people who get scammed, too. It completely ignores two other truths about people: that everyone can be scammed, and that the smarter you are the more effectively you can be scammed.

This is so fundamental that people engaging in fraud count on it, of course, but so do lots of businesses that aren't straight-up thieves. For example, people who buy an expensive "elite" stereo system only to find that it's not any better than a cheaper one will generally react not by getting mad about overpaying, but by hardening their commitment to the correctness of their choice -- and even try to talk others into making the same choice.

This effect is pretty much the entire reason that "boutique" stores of any sort can stay in business.