Batteriser

Batteriser ([bætəɹɑɪzəɹ] BATTER-eyezer) is a line of products designed by Batteroo, Inc. that is claimed to significantly extend battery life by using a miniature boost voltage regulator. It was crowd-funded on Indiegogo. ^[1] The Batteriser has received both positive and negative reviews.

Product details

Claims

A patent was filed by Fariborz Frankie Roohparvar with the priority date of September 20, 2010.^[2] The Batteriser is claimed to extend the life of both new and used batteries. Batteroo has said that Batterisers are non-toxic, reusable, and coated with a non-conductive coating to prevent any risk of shorts.They also claim that a built-in reverse polarity protection mechanism eliminates dangers of inserting a battery into the Batteriser the wrong way.^[3]

Initial funding

Crowdfunding completed between July 2015 produced $394,459, while the initial goal was $30,000.^[4] During the crowdfundig Batteroo announced they would be producing Batterisers for AA, AAA, C, and D batteries.^[1]

Production

The shipping date for the product has been delayed for various reasons, but photos from the manufacturing process have been made available.^[5] As of early May 2016, the company was months overdue to ship to its Indiegogo backers, with some backers accusing Batteroo of running a scam.^[6]

Product tests

San Jose State University's Kiumars Parvin claimed, "We tested the Batteriser sleeve in our lab and we confirmed that the Batteriser taps into 80 percent of energy that is usually thrown away." ^[7]

In the test by UL (safety organization), a Garmin Golf GPS using Batteriser was shown to have a lifespan of 10 hours and 12 minutes, in contrast to the 1 hour and 43 minutes of operating time without a Batteriser.^[8] However, later the test was independently duplicated by TechnologyCatalyst to demonstrate that Garmin runs OK for over 17 hours on ordinary AA batteries, and the report by UL was based on the sloppy test design.^[9]

PC World's Jon Phillips demoed the Batteriser operating on 'dead' batteries in an Apple Inc. keyboard. The 'power meter' on the computer's screen showed the batteries as being dead without the Batteriser, and as having 100% power remaining with the Batteriser.^[10] Brian Dipert at EDN called into question the strain on the keyboard being caused by the 'power meter,' and suggested that this test might not be representative of the Batteriser's effectiveness in other applications.^[11]

Controversies

Effectiveness

Voltage of an AA alkaline battery during constant-current discharge at 100mA. Energy extracted from the battery is proportional to the area under the graph:

  energy extracted before V=1.3V

  energy extracted from V=1.3V until V=1.1V

  energy not yet extracted in battery when V=1.1V

The Batteriser's efficacy in consumer applications has been challenged by a number of sources.

A source of contention surrounds the brownout voltages for battery-operated devices. David L. Jones in his EEVBlog used a programmable power supply to determine that nearly all devices function in some respect until around 1.1V, or roughly 80% of a battery's life due to the non-linear discharge curve of batteries. This stands in contrast to Batteriser's claim that using a Batteriser will unlock the remaining 80% of power (from 1.3V downwards).^[9] Batteriser has counter-argued that the bench power supply test is flawed, because of the definitions used by Jones to define device functionality, the inherent differences between power supplies and batteries on the basis of Equivalent Series Resistance (ESR), and different measures of voltage (confusion between open circuit voltage and closed circuit voltage).^[12][13]

A further source of controversy is whether or not the Batteriser may shorten battery life in devices that undergo only intermittent use, because the Batteriser is always drawing power to boost the voltage, even when the device is idle.^[14]

Roohparvar noted that many critics have drawn conclusions without actually having tried the product.^[15]

Potential dangers

David Jones on EEV Blog raised the concern that because the Batteriser acts as a ground for the boost converter circuit, any nick in the insulation might result in a direct short, and potentially a fire.^[16]

Internet controversy

In the wake of Dave Jones' video about Batteriser, his video was disliked by a torrent of IP addresses located in Vietnam.^[17] Other bloggers with Batteriser-related videos experienced similar activity from addresses in Vietnam. The bloggers involved suspect that either a click farm in Vietnam was engaged to disrepute those attacking Batteriser, or a single computer with many fake or stolen YouTube accounts utilized proxied IP addresses to cover its tracks.^[18] Due to the anonymous nature of the attacks, it is currently unknown who was responsible.^[19]

Lawsuit regarding name

On July 25, 2016, Energizer Brands LLC filled a federal lawsuit, saying that the name Batteriser violates a variety of its trademarks on the word “energizer.” The lawsuit said that "... despite advertisements, solicitation, and pre-orders, Batteroo has not delivered a single Batteriser product to a consumer in the ordinary course of business.” According to the lawsuit, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ruled June 27 in favor of Energizer and refused registration of the Batteriser and Batterise marks. According to Energizer, Batteroo also tried to falsely implicate Energizer in the product delays of Batterizer.^[20]

References