What happened to the Batteriser?

MNByChoice@midwest.social to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 31 points –

While looking for uses for old disposable AA batteries, I ran across the Batteriser from 2015. Clearly, it was a flop of some sort, as I am posting in 2024. What happened? Are there any iterations that do work?

https://money.cnn.com/2015/06/02/technology/make-battery-last-longer-batteriser/index.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batteroo_Boost

Also, are there any uses for old batteries?

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Because rechargable batteries before NiMH sucked for many use cases - they were good for the Gameboy as you charged and used them straight away at high draw, but try using one in a low power device like a remote or wall clock and you'll find it is dead in a week despite minimal actual usage

You're saying before NIMH, which I assume is the current standard? Because I also use them for everything, and while I also have to swap them more frequently (just barely a noticeable amount) in the controllers (not remotes, those are fine, but Xbox controllers) I just... stick them on the 24ct AA+AAA recharger. I have 2 dozen of each, so it's not like we ever have a battery shortage.

Saved a TON of $$$ on batteries.

NiMH has been common in consumer batteries for around 15 years (in my experience, although Wikipedia shows the chemistry is way older) but you can still buy the other chemistry (NiCd), and there may be newer lithium rechargables but I haven't seen them in standard sizes (AA etc)

Eneloops set the standard for good quality NiMH batteries for a while, but IKEA Ladda batteries are also NiMH, and probably plenty of others now