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

[edy]

New sleeve design.... The Dickeriser! 



EDIT:  Are you confused?  For those of you playing along at home who didn't view this thread in the past few hours, somebody (user "EEVBlag") posted a bunch of ASCII-art penises spamming the thread. They have since been removed. But that's why the thread suddenly derailed into dick jokes. Sorry for my bad Photoshop job. 

[Galenbo]

... the newspaper, they clearly want some technical (aka not marketing bollocks) input.  Give them a chance!

Where did you read or hear that?
Why do you presume they have the right characteristics to be able to receive un-marketing details?

Magazines and journalists do not have the judgement power to decide what's true or not.
They are on the "Volt=Current, bad contact=short circuit and Power=Energy" side of the story, unless proven differently.

[Godzil]

Damn, they must have small dicks.

It's AA's one, but they are also going to make a sleeve for AAA's one.

800% more hardness and power using that marvelous tool!

[Simon]

[A crude ASCII drawing of a dong]

Batteriser, is that you?

no, the names chang, mojo chang.

[meeder]

I'm fairly sure I just got one of their standard form replies. I don't think she even read my email, just saw "G3... battery life... hmm, okay, send form letter on using NiMH or Lithium batteries."

I replied, pushing for an actual considered response:

"Thank you for your reply, I appreciate your time.
However, I find that my question hasn't been answered. I understand that the recommended cells are Lithium metal or NiMH and I understand the difference between Lithium metal primary cells and Lithium ion cells, however; the Approach G3 has an Alkaline setting, so it was clearly also designed with the ability to be run on those. Sometimes, for different reasons, the only batteries available are Alkalines, such as Duracell Power Plus, and my question was: How much battery life could reasonably be expected using Alkaline cells without the use of some device to boost the voltage? Is it less than 2 hours as claimed by the Batteriser people in their media campaign? Or about half a round of golf per set of Alkaline batteries?"

Their response is clearly the standard response. Garmin support is quite terrible. I had to deal with them a couple of times and they never seem to read your email the first time. When you report a problem and you clearly state that you have performed a factory reset and the latest firmware is installed they will still ask you to do a reset and a firmware upgrade....

[samgab]

I'm fairly sure I just got one of their standard form replies. I don't think she even read my email, just saw "G3... battery life... hmm, okay, send form letter on using NiMH or Lithium batteries."

I replied, pushing for an actual considered response:

"Thank you for your reply, I appreciate your time.
However, I find that my question hasn't been answered. I understand that the recommended cells are Lithium metal or NiMH and I understand the difference between Lithium metal primary cells and Lithium ion cells, however; the Approach G3 has an Alkaline setting, so it was clearly also designed with the ability to be run on those. Sometimes, for different reasons, the only batteries available are Alkalines, such as Duracell Power Plus, and my question was: How much battery life could reasonably be expected using Alkaline cells without the use of some device to boost the voltage? Is it less than 2 hours as claimed by the Batteriser people in their media campaign? Or about half a round of golf per set of Alkaline batteries?"

Their response is clearly the standard response. Garmin support is quite terrible. I had to deal with them a couple of times and they never seem to read your email the first time. When you report a problem and you clearly state that you have performed a factory reset and the latest firmware is installed they will still ask you to do a reset and a firmware upgrade....

Yes true, but fortunately a different person responded very quickly to my followup email with a much better reply:

"Thank you for contacting Garmin International. I can help you here.

Quick question, are you planning on tapping on the screen of the device every 15 seconds like they do in the sample video?

If your answer is "yes" then I can say it may be likely that you can drain the batteries very quickly.

Under normal use however, the device will last 3 or possibly 4 rounds of golf before they are too drained. So 12 - 16 hours.

I've had a set of energizers in my G5 for months and it still has enough power for me to troubleshoot situations.

Finally, I don't think I have ever heard of Batteriser or Batteroo so I'm not sure I would find any claim from them towards another companies product to be of any value.



Let us know if you have any other questions. "

[Fungus]

The lab setup is hard to spot for untrained eye, there is a lots of complicated things on the table, so it looks genuine (for an untrained eye ONLY)

The Super Batteroo Bros World is made only of people that are not EE or at least EE aware.

OK, so don't look at the table. Just ask the questions.

[5ky]

I have interesting results!  The discharge test of the gps unit using two boost converters (one for each AA battery) in series just finished.  It ran for 10 hours, which is almost exactly what batteroo got in their video using batteriser.  Very interesting!

I think the reason the AA's without boost converters ran for 17 hours if because the firmware dims the screen at a certain voltage for alkaline batteries, so it gets lower current draw for the last half of the battery, allowing it to go really long.  I think I might retest WITHOUT boost converters tonight, only I'll set the battery type to lithium in the firmware so that it doesn't dim the screen to give it an apples to apples result against batteriser.

[samgab]

I have interesting results!  The discharge test of the gps unit using two boost converters (one for each AA battery) in series just finished.  It ran for 10 hours, which is almost exactly what batteroo got in their video using batteriser.  Very interesting!

I think the reason the AA's without boost converters ran for 17 hours if because the firmware dims the screen at a certain voltage for alkaline batteries, so it gets lower current draw for the last half of the battery, allowing it to go really long.  I think I might retest WITHOUT boost converters tonight, only I'll set the battery type to lithium in the firmware so that it doesn't dim the screen to give it an apples to apples result against batteriser.

Good stuff. That is very interesting. Of course, the plebs at Batteroo would just refute any testing not using their device as irrelevant because of their magical uniquely designed chips, they claim. Of course, we know better. Even if you did testing with a real batteriser, they're refute that too, because of some little detail they'd pick on. Even though as you pointed out in your video, you're using equipment orders of magnitude better and more accurate that what they used.

[6581]

Thanks 5ky! Very interesting results indeed. Comparison with battery type set as lithium - yes please! That'd definitely give interesting data point.

Also thanks for the forum member that supplied those boost converters. Nice team work!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[5ky]

Thanks 5ky! Very interesting results indeed. Comparison with battery type set as lithium - yes please! That'd definitely give interesting data point.

Also thanks for the forum member that supplied those boost converters. Nice team work!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No problem.  After doing this again on lithium mode with normal batteries I'll throw them into a quick video with the time lapses and upload it for all to see.

And thanks goes to Mr. Jay_Diddy_B for sending me the butterisers 

EDIT: typos

[drussell]

I have interesting results!  The discharge test of the gps unit using two boost converters (one for each AA battery) in series just finished.  It ran for 10 hours, which is almost exactly what batteroo got in their video using batteriser.  Very interesting!

I think the reason the AA's without boost converters ran for 17 hours if because the firmware dims the screen at a certain voltage for alkaline batteries, so it gets lower current draw for the last half of the battery, allowing it to go really long.  I think I might retest WITHOUT boost converters tonight, only I'll set the battery type to lithium in the firmware so that it doesn't dim the screen to give it an apples to apples result against batteriser.

Precisely.  This is not surprising, this is the expected result!

This GPS unit is ALREADY DESIGNED to maximize battery life!  The designers even went to the trouble of providing optimized settings for three different types of batteries.  Using an added boost converter will not add any battery life, it will always decrease it due to the additional losses in the unnecessary additional DC-DC boost converter.

The designers of the GPS intentionally added the feature which limited backlight usage on alkaline cells to maximize the battery life!  All that adding a Batterizier will do is defeat this intentionally engineered-in battery life extension which can already be accomplished with the settings provided on the unit if one really desires the backlight to stay fully functional at the expense of battery life! 

5ky, I would expect you to get, perhaps, 11-12 hours at best with the GPS set to a low-cutout, non-alkaline setting which disables the backlight power saving feature.  It should likely be just slightly longer than using the external boost converter to "fool" the GPS due to the reduced losses from not having an extra DC-DC converter in the power supply chain, only using the one which is already in the GPS.  This will really just depend on the exact cutoff voltages of the various DC-DC converters being tried, etc.

There seems to be every indication that the Batterizer folks know exactly what they're doing, how they're saying it and how misleading it all is to make some money.  This type of thing is not a new strategy, it is done all the time in many industries and often gives people who make honest products and breakthroughs a tough hill to climb for public acceptance.  This one is just ridiculously easy to dismiss as crapola by anyone who actually understands how this stuff works.

As for them now asking for feedback about what devices they should optimize for, etc. etc...  You would think this should have been done long before a claim to the mass media to have "solved" the horrible "wasted battery capacity" issue which doesn't really exist.  This is the kind of basic product project engineering that should go on long before anyone even goes for a patent but of course the patent system is now more used for something along the lines of "here's an idea nobody has patented before, lets patent it with a patent so broad that so nobody except us can ever produce anything like it without us still making money, even if it's a fundamentally flawed idea".  I'm sure this is not how the patent system was envisioned when it was created but it's also certainly not the first time this kind of thing has happened over the past, oh, couple hundred years...    The concept of a DC-DC boost converter is not new, the design is somewhat obvious and the only thing they claim to have done is make one as a sleeve that a battery will snap into and still fit into most products.  I have a difficult time believing it's going to even fit properly into most products, but that's really their only properly possible claim.

The most useful kind of "Batterizer" would be one which changes the discharge curve of a NiCd or NiMH to mimic an alkaline battery to make them a drop-in replacement for an alkaline.  The rechargeable battery companies could even build that INTO these special rechargeable cells without any problem (they could shrink the actual cell size to make room for the electronics) kind of like a typical rechargable Lithium chemistry battery pack will have control electronics in it.  It can include short and deep-discharge protection, adjust the voltage output to vary like an alkaline so battery meters would still function, etc, etc.  Why the rechargable companies never did that already, I don't know, though with todays use of DC-DC converters in most devices that would benefit from that, it's really a moot point, there just aren't that many cases where it's necessary or desired.  This kind of idea should be obvious to anyone with basic understanding of the subject matter and so should be non-patentable, though various actual implementations could be protected by patents, industrial designs, etc. if new and novel.

This whole debacle is SO[/b] aggravating to watch for those of us "in the know!"  Grrrrrr.... 

[onlooker]

I think I might retest WITHOUT ...

Li or NiMH? please  use the type with lower cut off. Thanks.

[5ky]

I think I might retest WITHOUT ...

Li or NiMH? please  use the type with lower cut off. Thanks.

If i remember correctly, all three modes cut off at the same voltage.  The only thing that differs between lithium and nimh is the low battery warning level.  I may test first before I get it going to ensure that's really the case.

[drussell]

From post #1320:

alkaline:
2.61v brightness dims (with warning on screen)
2.31v low battery warning
2.11v powers off

lithium:
2.82v low battery warning
2.16v powers off (screen still max brightness)

nimh:
2.59v low battery warning
2.16v powers off (screen still max brightness)

You might want to double and triple check those for extreme accuracy, though... 

Batterizer seems to think nobody will notice the difference between when a low battery warning comes on (or just a a backlight battery-saver feature warning, FFS) and the actual runtime of the device.

Much of their gameplan seems to revolve around fooling people by delaying low battery warnings and fudging battery gauges to misleadingly show greater capacity than is actually remaining (like full capacity on an essentially dead cell,) etc. into thinking they've actually added significantly to the available, usable battery capacity when in actual fact they've essentially just disabled the battery gauge. 

Happy testing! 

[apis]

Ask her if she's seen all the videos, what she thought of them. Any remaining doubts? You'll be happy to clear them up.

She wanted a phone call.
I said I was happy to answer any questions by email (so I have proof of the exact correspondence of course)
Haven't heard a peep.

Yeah, email sounds good.

I don't know anything about this magazine or the journalist but they typically care a lot about what their advertisers say. The batteriser people have obviously been able to bedazzle journalists before, considering the initial press release coverage. This journalist could be legit, but better not take any chances. If it's as someone said, she's normally doing puff pieces for new products but have no technical competence, then I would be very sceptical. And the batteriser people have shown they are not below sleaze tactics.

[apis]

It is interesting how the Batteriser Fan Page has access to Batterisers and signs their post "Batteriser Team" yet claims no association with Batteroo. And in their post to Dave offering a test kit (on his Maker Faire video no less) talk as if in the first person like they are from Batteriser. Yeah, they are very definitely very linked to Batteriser and have access to all the videos and inside information.

With respect to the test kit, why not do what EVERYONE ELSE has done which is send one in the mail to Dave Jones that crazy Aussie bloke, not Austria, and mail it to his mailbox PO Box. No strings attached. We don't need any video chat between Batteriser and Dave. We need a no strings attached Batteriser (or several Batterisers) in Dave's hands so he can independently test them, do a teardown and circuit analysis and review the merits of this product. I trust Dave to tell it like it is, and if the Batteriser has any usefulness in certain cases I am sure he will point it out.

It's obvious Dave tries to be as unbiased as possible. I think in the first debunking video he mentions that it might have uses in certain applications but those applications are far and few between. The biggest [technical] issue is their original claim of 800% more battery life which then changed to 80% more. The former being absolutely ridiculous and the latter also  ridiculous but to average Joe they perhaps thought it would seem "plausible". It might be a good product for incandescent flashlights for instance, but it will NOT give you 80% more battery life. If anything, it will ensure that you have constant brightness at the expense of reduced battery life. if they came out with a claim such as this I'm sure no one would care and we might have though it would have been a great product.

If anything Dave has been too nice. But then again, there's nothing to be gained from a "pie fight" with these guys, it's as the old saying says: never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

[5ky]

Time was 9 hr 38 min from start until it shut off.  What's interesting is that even while using boost converters, the bare GPS without using the boost converters went almost nearly as low in voltage before it shut off, so I have a feeling if I re-run this with teh battery mode set to lithium (so the screen never dims), batteries will probably run longer due to avoiding the losses in the boost converters.  I'll probably test that tonight for fun.

Using boost converters (in series):


Without boost converters:


Link to the timelapse:

[apis]

Great work! Boost converters reduce battery-life as predicted. Math, physics and data are all in agreement, who would have thought.

[LabSpokane]

Wow. So after all that, we were correct and thermodynamics reigns victorious once again. 

[drussell]

Sorry, I just couldn't resist...  <Sarcasm mode ENABLE!>

Introducing the Fuelerizer!!!

Are you tired of today's high gas prices and smelly, messy fill-ups?
Are you tired of that pesky "Low Fuel" light coming on all the time in your automobile?

Now with our patented Fuelerizer you can extend your car's range on a single fill-up by 80%, 5x, or even 800%!
Say goodbye to messy fill-ups and environmental impacts!  It works just like magic!

Independant lab tests agreed with our demonstration of driving our test car for a 200 kilometer round trip and the gas gauge still reading completely full when we returned.
The savings are virtually limitless!  We've proved it!

When asked how this amazing new breakthrough works and why this has never been done before, inventor and CEO of Fueleroo Corporation, Mr. I. Foolayou, stated "It's very complicated but simple enough for any university professor and serial entrepreneur like myself with hundreds of patents bearing my name to understand.  We don't break any laws of physics or common sense, we simply took today's standard fuel system wiring and minimalized it."

Pure genius!  Everyone should order one today at Fuelerizeme.com!

Of course, we all know the device is just one of those 3M "Scotch-Lock" connectors shorting the fuel sender wire that runs to the gauge and the low-fuel light wire to +12v battery power.  It does make the circuit shorter, so they've "minimalized it" all right and technically they're not lying, per se, but all they've really done is disable the gauge and make it always read full. 

People will, of course, eventually figure it out when they actually run out'ta gas but by then Mr. Foolayou will have mumbled something incoherent about "suckers" and moved on to a new venture, all while sipping some kind of slushy coctail on a vacation beach somewhere....

[edy]

And to think Batteriser was bad... This fuel saver is even worse! Very sad indeed that these crooks can go to work every day and swindle money from people.

[samgab]

Yeah, this sort of crap has been going on for ages:




Which is nuts because all it is, is a tiny 2200uF capacitor and an LED!


At the end of the day, Caveat Emptor is an individual's own responsibility.
But it's great that people like Dave try to give fair warning...

[LabSpokane]

Meanwhile, back on topic...

[edy]

Seeing all these crap products makes me mad, but mostly sad... Sad that for every Batteriser that you expose for bring a scam, you have 10x more types of garbage products out there that continue. It is an impossible task to challenge them all, and even if you did, people would still buy them and swindlers will continue to make a living.

So what has this entire Batteriser drama taught us (besides a nice refresher on proper electronics testing and measurement and battery and boost circuits performance).... Well, sadly, that we may as well just give up because if every one of these crap scammy product companies fight like Batteroo, it is just going to be too tiring.

We can discuss and debate it all in the forums, Dave can call it B.S. and do a video, but this going back and forth just gets pointless very quickly when you realize there is no way to argue with the scammers, and it is hard to reach the potential victims of the scam also. I guess caveat emptor is right.