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

[Fungus]

My guesstimate is that

- 1 person out of 100 will mention receiving the Batterisers on the internet.
- 1 person out of 1000 will make a some sort of video and publish it on the internet.

My figures may be optimistic.

Sure, but:
a) We know there's several EEVBLOG readers among the recipients (I forget exactly who)
b) They've shipped $130,000+ worth of Batterisers (according to Bob)
c) Bob hasn't asked people for their shipping addresses (IGG comments is full of people desperately posting their addresses).
d) Why manufacture them in China then post them from the USA at $20 per parcel. China post will send them for a fraction of that direct from the factory.

[ez24]

d) Why manufacture them in China then post them from the USA at $20 per parcel. China post will send them for a fraction of that direct from the factory.

To keep us in suspense

[EEVblog]

I agree that it seems like deliveries are occurring at a glacial pace - but not everyone is going to announce their arrival to the world ... especially with the sort of reception they might expect.
I can see the average Joe wanting to try them out in private - and if they don't measure up, discreetly forget about them.  Saves the embarrassment.  Those who do find benefit from them are more likely to say so - but even then, they may be reluctant for fear of being howled down.

Sure, only a small percentage will reply. But I know a lot of people on here who ordered these just out of interest, including someone with one of the first order numbers in teens. Not a single one of these people has gotten an email shipping notice or the units. Something isn't right, statistics would have guaranteed that someone on here would have gotten theirs by now.

[Ontaelio]

I personally prefer to stick to the facts. And the facts, after reading the last 30 or so pages of this forum, are:

1. There is absolutely NO evidence of any backers receiving Batteroos as reward for the campaign;
2. There is absolutely NO evidence of any attempt on Batteroos part to actually send them (no address requests);
3. No independent reviewer has managed to lay hands on a single Batteroo unit EVER;
4. In fact, there is NO evidence of any mass production of these sleeves to cover all the orders.

These are solid facts. There are two pretty dodgy cases of someone actually receiving something, but
a) these guys are shop owners;
b) the stuff they 'received' bears the Batteriser logo, so it can be (and, I am sure, is) early prototypes;
c) they are strangely elusive, even when money is on the table.

My opionion: there are NO Batteroos, nor there will be unless Bob & his cronies actually secure this Wallmart deal. And all the recent noise is aimed at this particular target. And one of the important things for them to do is to make independent busting/debunking at least questionable.

[EEVblog]

But IMHO this is serious, they are perfectly capable of ruining Dave's reputation if he doesn't take any countermeasures.

 

[Fungus]

I agree that it seems like deliveries are occurring at a glacial pace - but not everyone is going to announce their arrival to the world ... especially with the sort of reception they might expect.
I can see the average Joe wanting to try them out in private - and if they don't measure up, discreetly forget about them.  Saves the embarrassment.  Those who do find benefit from them are more likely to say so - but even then, they may be reluctant for fear of being howled down.

Sure, only a small percentage will reply. But I know a lot of people on here who ordered these just out of interest, including someone with one of the first order numbers in teens. Not a single one of these people has gotten an email shipping notice or the units. Something isn't right, statistics would have guaranteed that someone on here would have gotten theirs by now.

Yep. Bob is definitely messing around.

Most (all?) of the people posting "I got mine!" on IndieGoGo are people who have posted in the past defending Batteroo.

My latest $0.02 is that Bob has a few dozen prototypes form last year and is sending out a couple of parcels per week to people he thinks/knows are Batteroo friendly. Just enough to keep the IGG comments section alive. Not enough that there's a real danger of any landing in the enemy camp.

Why? I just don't believe he's done a new batch. Why would you play games if you were sitting on the goods? Wouldn't you hold a "Batteroo is here!" press conference with plenty of pictures then start shipping as fast as possible to silence the critics?

PS: Regarding the venture capital money... I just remembered that Bob is working from the SK building. If he really had a huge pile of Batterisers in the office he could simply show them to SK(!) No need to play games down at the post office.

[Fungus]

It seems to me that the circus is suddenly turning into an evil ugliness.
I'm a journalist, and hopefully a good one, and from Russia to boot, so I guess I'm pretty good at detecting hoaxes when I see them. And in here I clearly see an ugly hoax meant to discredit EEVblog, so that these 'serial interpreneurs' get their Wallmart contract and consequently sell their 'business' to some unsuspecting fat wallet. I see an obvious case of black PR, and sadly I also see that the forum members (Dave included) fell for it.
Come on! Wake up! People, you're being had!
I would have liked to dissect this hoax in clear detail, but Dave asked to avoid mentioning the Australian person that can not be mentioned. But IMHO this is serious, they are perfectly capable of ruining Dave's reputation if he doesn't take any countermeasures.

I've read this post four times and I still don't understand a single word. I think you need to retype it in CAPITAL LETTERS With random changes in font size.

[ez24]

It seems to me that the circus is suddenly turning into an evil ugliness.
I'm a journalist, and hopefully a good one, and from Russia to boot, so I guess I'm pretty good at detecting hoaxes when I see them. And in here I clearly see an ugly hoax meant to discredit EEVblog, so that these 'serial interpreneurs' get their Wallmart contract and consequently sell their 'business' to some unsuspecting fat wallet. I see an obvious case of black PR, and sadly I also see that the forum members (Dave included) fell for it.
Come on! Wake up! People, you're being had!
I would have liked to dissect this hoax in clear detail, but Dave asked to avoid mentioning the Australian person that can not be mentioned. But IMHO this is serious, they are perfectly capable of ruining Dave's reputation if he doesn't take any countermeasures.

I've read this post four times and I still don't understand a single word. I think you need to retype it in CAPITAL LETTERS With random changes in font size.

Whew  I was on my third so now I can stop 

[f4eru]

It seems to me that the circus is suddenly turning into an evil ugliness.
I'm a journalist, and hopefully a good one, and from Russia to boot, so I guess I'm pretty good at detecting hoaxes when I see them. And in here I clearly see an ugly hoax meant to discredit EEVblog, so that these 'serial interpreneurs' get their Wallmart contract and consequently sell their 'business' to some unsuspecting fat wallet. I see an obvious case of black PR, and sadly I also see that the forum members (Dave included) fell for it.
Come on! Wake up! People, you're being had!
I would have liked to dissect this hoax in clear detail, but Dave asked to avoid mentioning the Australian person that can not be mentioned. But IMHO this is serious, they are perfectly capable of ruining Dave's reputation if he doesn't take any countermeasures.

I've read this post four times and I still don't understand a single word.

Well, I don't belive you. You seem to understand English well enough to understand about 800% of the words in this text.
Get less Alcohol, and read on more. You'll manage it.

[Brumby]

My latest $0.02 is that Bob has a few dozen prototypes form last year and is sending out a couple of parcels per week to people he thinks/knows are Batteroo friendly. Just enough to keep the IGG comments section alive. Not enough that there's a real danger of any landing in the enemy camp.

Why? I just don't believe he's done a new batch. Why would you play games if you were sitting on the goods? Wouldn't you hold a "Batteroo is here!" press conference with plenty of pictures then start shipping as fast as possible to silence the critics?

With the evidence currently at hand, this view of the situation is difficult to challenge - and as each day passes without a significant change in the number of Batteroo sleeves reportedly delivered, it will become even more so.

It's been said we don't know what's been going on behind the scenes - and that is true - but that is a problem if we are expected to believe this is a genuine product roll-out.

It's all about the vibe ... and the vibe is just not right.

[timb]

My latest $0.02 is that Bob has a few dozen prototypes form last year and is sending out a couple of parcels per week to people he thinks/knows are Batteroo friendly. Just enough to keep the IGG comments section alive. Not enough that there's a real danger of any landing in the enemy camp.

Why? I just don't believe he's done a new batch. Why would you play games if you were sitting on the goods? Wouldn't you hold a "Batteroo is here!" press conference with plenty of pictures then start shipping as fast as possible to silence the critics?

With the evidence currently at hand, this view of the situation is difficult to challenge - and as each day passes without a significant change in the number of Batteroo sleeves reportedly delivered, it will become even more so.

It's been said we don't know what's been going on behind the scenes - and that is true - but that is a problem if we are expected to believe this is a genuine product roll-out.

It's all about the vibe ... and the vibe is just not right.

Yeah, I've been saying this since the guy in Greece received his units.

These are clearly prototype parts, thrown together, boxed and hand shipped to give the illusion the product is actually shipping.

My thought is they need to show they're shipping to get additional VC funds or to fulfill some sort of requirement of a new investor or large retail outlet. I think they've run out of money and can't actually finish production without it.

[SL4P]

One of the nice things about dealing with the 'engineer mentality' is that on the basis of probability, we can extrapolate *most likely* conclusions based on physics and the limited input we have seen from Boob and his 'customers'.

Whether it's IGG, Probes, orders, landslides, shipping, prototypes, marketing fluff or parallel testing of the concept by individuals - nothing leads to a legitimate conclusion that Batteroo/Batteriser have manufactured or released *anything*.

Of course, nothing is *impossible* within the realm of science & history, but as each day and additional leak of BatterooBS is exposed, the odds of Batteriser being a viable possibility are shrinking - perhaps waiting for the day when nuclear fusion power becomes a consumer product.

[madires]

I'm curious if we'll see the delivery of tons of production sleeves to the IGG backers soon, or if the current shipping of prototypes or pre-production units is the last "big thing" from Batteroo. Everything has to happen fast now, since Bob can't delay the shipping much longer with new excuses. This Bob and Batteroo Show is so entertaining, much better than anything on TV

[fubar.gr]

Yeah, I've been saying this since the guy in Greece received his units.

These are clearly prototype parts, thrown together, boxed and hand shipped to give the illusion the product is actually shipping.

My thought is they need to show they're shipping to get additional VC funds or to fulfill some sort of requirement of a new investor or large retail outlet. I think they've run out of money and can't actually finish production without it.

I'm the one who contacted the Greek guy. He said right up front that these are samples, and that real shipments will start sometime after new year. So there's no question about that. These are samples, possibly early prototypes, sent to select people, potential retailers, etc.

Now, if I recall correctly he also mentioned that some issue has to be "ironed out" in the US before shipments start. Could it be some legal issue with Energiser, production issue, or did they simply ran out of money as you say? The guy sounded kinda defensive and reluctant to give too many info, so I didn't press any further.

[Fungus]

I'm the one who contacted the Greek guy. He said right up front that these are samples, and that real shipments will start sometime after new year. So there's no question about that. These are samples, possibly early prototypes, sent to select people, potential retailers, etc.

Hah! That basically confirms everything we've been saying.

a) The Greek guy must be well known to Bob (if he knows all that insider info).

b) Wayne told us that Bob has shipped 30% of the IGG orders so that puts everything Wayne has said in doubt.  To me Wayne is definitely buddies with Bob, everything Wayne has done/said smells fishy.

[quad]

If you add to that theory that they have shipped a handful of units to a Average Joes, just to add a sense that "normal" people are getting them... then I'm on board with that theory.

[quad]

I wonder if this will survive for very long.

[EEVblog]

b) Wayne told us that Bob has shipped 30% of the IGG orders so that puts everything Wayne has said in doubt. 

Bob implied here that most have been shipped.
Given there over 7000 backers, "some" must mean maybe 1000 tops not sent?


And they are clearly not sending low order number backers as a priority like they promised they would from their "First Shipment" perks.

[FrankBuss]

Bob implied here that most have been shipped.
Given there over 7000 backers, "some" must mean maybe 1000 tops not sent?

Mathematically speaking, "some" means "at least one", but doesn't imply an upper limit. And in the last update Bob said "the rest of our supporters  will receive their shipments throughout November", but he didn't specify a year

Looks like as mentioned by others, nobody got a production unit. "started shipping" means only that they manually sent some pre-production units to selected backers. They try to get more VC money and then maybe they are going to start the real production. I guess shipping might start in some months, if the company doesn't go bankrupt meanwhile and Bob starts the next company.

[EEVblog]

[SL4P]

Sadly - as many have pointed out before - IGG and KS exist for people like Bob to explore sometimes impossible fantasies, and/or take investors money without any real intent of delivering.
The old saying "that you should spend 'other people's money'" is now an online reality.

I doubt that Bob & Frankie started out to create this mess, but they certainly didn't handle it well...  whether it was greed, stupidity or blind bravado 'that we can do this impossible thing' - they have shown clearly they have very little idea of product development, battery technology,  consumer product placement or customer relationship management.  The pillars needed to make BatterPoo work from the very start.

Well run business will do their tech research, market investigation, legal due-diligence and R&D before discussing a product.  IGG / KS bypass all these logical principles, and go straight to the 'show me the money' phase.

Good luck in your next role Boob.

[timb]

Batteroo isn't even an impossible thing... Members of this very forum have made tiny boost converters on tiny round PCBs that fit on the end of a AA battery!

Batteroo's problem is they over hyped the performance of the device, so now they need some expensive custom IC instead of an off the shelf chip from Linear or TI...

[SL4P]

Batteroo isn't even an impossible thing... Members of this very forum have made tiny boost converters on tiny round PCBs that fit on the end of a AA battery!

Batteroo's problem is they over hyped the performance of the device, so now they need some expensive custom IC instead of an off the shelf chip from Linear or TI...

...for people like Bob to explore sometimes impossible fantasies...

[AG6QR]

Batteroo isn't even an impossible thing... Members of this very forum have made tiny boost converters on tiny round PCBs that fit on the end of a AA battery!

It's not impossible to make a small boost converter.  It's not impossible for that to add some performance under some circumstances.  But that's not what Batteroo claimed.  They claimed that they could take a dead battery that was otherwise headed for the trash heap, and extract four times as much energy out of it as that battery had delivered during its working lifetime.

That's impossible.  Furthermore, they said it would work at any level of current draw.

Batteroo's problem is they over hyped the performance of the device, so now they need some expensive custom IC instead of an off the shelf chip from Linear or TI...

It's not a question of efficiency.  Today's dead batteries simply don't have enough remaining energy in them in order to live up to those claims, no matter how efficiently one tries to extract that energy.  So an expensive custom IC isn't going to help. 

Saying the device just needs a more efficient custom IC is like the perpetual motion free energy slimeballs saying that they've got a machine that works very well, but it just needs a slightly better lubrication system or a smoother bearing before they can put it into production.  If the principle were sound, they wouldn't need to tweak every last half-percent of efficiency out of it.  But if the energy isn't there to begin with, it's not going to work even if you could somehow achieve 100% efficiency.

[Luminax]

You know this might all comes back to Boob and his ability(or inability) to read graph properly?
The heat has dwindled down a bit around here it seems... but a lot of us are still twiddling our thumbs waiting for the miracle that is a proper shipment of proper product to proper person.

And three improbabilities makes for one good probability yes? (or do I suck at probability math... hmmm........)