Most devices & gadgets are rechargeable nowadays. The only thing I have that still requires batteries is a headlamp but even those are available in rechargeable varieties. House smoke detectors need a battery too.

  • Zak@lemmy.world
    11·
    9 hours ago

    Primary cells are easy and cheap to manufacture, and hold much more charge than rechargeable equivalents.

    This is half-true at best. Consider these tests of an alkaline primary, lithium primary, and NiMH rechargeable AA battery.

    The alkaline has more energy than the NiMH at 0.1A load, but not above that. It will last longer in something like a TV remote or wall clock, but not in something like a flashlight with even moderate output or anything with a motor. Low-self-discharge NiMH, which has better shelf life beats alkaline once the load reaches 0.5A, which represents a device that will drain the battery in 4 hours of continuous use. Lithium primaries win the benchmark here until reaching a very heavy 3A load, but they cost as much as NiMH and only work once.

    Allow a different voltage range in the same form factor and lithium-ion rechargeable 14500 cells now equal or slightly exceed the 5Wh capacity of lithium primary AA.

    • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksMEnglish
      1·
      4 hours ago

      You can’t just mix and match battery chemistry and call one superior. If you could, they’d all be inferior to a nuclear reactor in the right packaging anyway. But since you absolutely have to be pedantic about it, I’ll make this revision specially for you with emphasis in the right place:

      Primary cells hold much more charge than an equivalent rechargeable battery with the same battery chemistry.

      And you can’t just allow for different voltage ranges without all the electronics also being adjusted for that.

      • Zak@lemmy.world
        1·
        3 hours ago

        You can’t just mix and match battery chemistry and call one superior.

        Superior is a value judgment I wasn’t making there. You made a claim about cost and capacity between different chemistries (unless you meant something else by “rechargeable equivalents”), and I said it only holds up for cheap (alkaline) primaries under light loads.

        you absolutely have to be pedantic about it

        I’m trying to share additional information, not win an argument on a technical point.

        And you can’t just allow for different voltage ranges without all the electronics also being adjusted for that.

        That’s true. The broader topic of long-term obsolescence ought to include device design though. Someone designing a device today that could potentially use AA batteries should think about whether they’re obsolete for the use case.