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.
I sure hope not, the only devices more than a few years old that still function are those with replaceable batteries. Removable batteries make devices simpler, more robust, and longer-lasting. Rechargeable, replaceable, removable, standardized batteries are the sweet spot for sure.
Mimd blown:
I prefer the regular ones. Seems weird to have a port on my battery
Yeah that extra circuitry costs 400mAh vs my rechargeables with a base, plus it makes them more stealable.
Putting the charger circuit inside the battery takes away battery capacity, so I still buy the external chargers
2400mah? No way they’re that small, that’s basically the size of a phone battery, hell an iPhone 16 has a 3600mah battery.
Fun fact: amp hours are a measurement of discharge over time… I can probably explain this better with an example actually. 48v100ah is four times the capacity of 12v100ah, they can both put 1 amp for 100 hours but at different voltages that’s a different amount of… power? Energy? I always get them mixed up. Anyways the AA guys are 1.5v vs the ~3.7v of a phone battery, so the same amp-hour measurement is a little less than half as much juice. Hope that helps, I’m a little stoned tonight lol
These standard AA rechargeables are 2500, from what other users are saying about losing capacity for the charging circuit, seems accurate:
D and C are almost obsolete already.
AA and AAA I have bought things that require them this year so I doubt it will happen in our lifetime.
As for rechargeable it’s twice the effort to find the charger every two years instead of just using the one time batteries.
As for rechargeable it’s twice the effort to find the charger every two years instead of just using the one time batteries.
I recommend keeping some charged spares and the charger in the same place.
Yeah, OP surely has a place they keep batteries so they don’t make a trip to the store every time a remote dies.
Anyway, I’d recommend that charger be one that charges AA/AAA individually instead of requiring pairs. Mine is a Panasonic BQ-CC17 that came with a set of Eneloops.
That does raise another issue: some of the retail-grade chargers are pretty terrible and may have led some people to a bad impression of how rechargeable batteries perform.
A charger should charge cells individually, at a reasonably fast rate, and terminate correctly to prevent overcharging. Yours hits two points out of three: it’s individual and correct, but slow.
I’ve seen that site before and) but can’t remember if it influenced my decision before purchase or just confirmed it. But good link. I acknowledge it’s slow, but at this point I have enough extra batteries, I can handle it as long as I charge the dead ones upon swap. Still, I’d say a 4th consideration is price point, at which I think these were acceptable. Somewhere above fictional company items on Amazon, below RC hobby grade
It’s a good charger if you’re not in a hurry - fast is just a user experience benefit.
But if I only need one every other year I’ll have to charge the thing before I use it anyway. Besides should you not store rechargeable Li-batteries at 50-80%?
I had NiMH batteries in mind since we’re talking about types that come in alkaline, and low-self-discharge NiMH batteries (e.g. white Eneloops) are generally fine to fully charge before storage.
You might end up with a bit shorter runtimes storing charged batteries for years than charging them right before use, but it doesn’t matter much when your runtimes are measured in years.
There’s one potential snag with certain low-power devices though: a few only work in the 1.3-1.5V range. That’s terrible design since it doesn’t use most of the power in an alkaline, but some of those won’t work at all with NiMH.
Obsolete would imply a better in every way alternative. Kinda think they fall into the technology category of timeless and always useful. It’s hard to think of a safer, cheaper, higher capacity, disposable and more utilitarian form factor. Kinda like asking “will shovels ever become obsolete?”
The main reason that they’re nearly impossible to obsolete is that AA, etc. are just shapes (and voltages).
- Zinc-Carbon AAs have become functionally impossible to find because alkaline cells are better in basically every way.
- Lithium disposables beat alkaline in longevity, but lose in cost
and are only 1.2V. - NiMH are
also1.2V, but are rechargeable; they last longer overall, but are much more expensive and have much worse self-drain while not in use - Li-Ion cells are far too high-voltage for AAs, but they’re also so much higher-density that it’s sometimes worth putting a step-down circuit in the battery to get it to 1.5V. That removes most of the density advantage, but it’s the only way to use rechargeable batteries to power devices that can’t run at 1.2V.
Lithium disposables beat alkaline in longevity, but lose in cost and are only 1.2V.
They’re about 1.6V open-circuit, and maintain 1.5V under light load for a large portion of their discharge cycle. They maintain 1.5V much longer than alkaline.
They’re terribly expensive for regular use compared to pretty much any other option though.
My mistake, fixed.
Carbon-Zinc batteries are basically impossible to find, yes. They were pretty much entirely superseded by Zinc Chloride batteries, which are fairly easy to find. They’re often marketed with the phrase “heavy duty” though they’re lower in capacity to alkalines.
9V batteries are absolutely obsolete and only exist still because of smoke detectors and theyre always low on charge even right out of the package. Same with C and D batteries. AAA and AA still have their uses though.
Obsolete but still in use, hmmmmmm
I would really hope we will start replacing them with 18650s and the like soon. Rechargeable NiMh batteries just suck in comparison to Li-Ion batteries
I’ve only recently stumbled on 18650’s potential (lol) by using the 4Ah Kobalt 24v batteries for some experiments with solar, 12v loads, and inverters. Holee hell nuts. Theoretically around 44amp continuous draw in 4Ah arrangement (though I’m aiming to be well under 30 in most circumstances).
Also need to mod kids power wheels with these.
Wait until you hear about 21700s.
I was looking into them! Basically I’m just trying to utilize what I already have with my kobalt batteries for odd-end projects and camping, etc. The price-to-performance for the XTR line that has the 21700s just isn’t justifiable for my use-cases.
A already is and D and C seem on their way out. AA and AAA will likely need an equivalent that’s worth it to change over. 9v for smoke detectors is unlikely to be replaced by a battery, but I swear by mains connected smoke detectors.
Ultimately I wish these were being replaced by standardized rechargeable. Take common voltages/amperages and sizes and just make RA,RAA,RB… for simplicity. I love my rechargeable AA and AAA cells until then
Smoke detectors that use replaceable batteries are illegal in some places already.
Basically a modern smoke detector should have a non-replacable, 10 year sealed battery, and be discarded when it’s dead. The rest of the detector goes bad after that so it’s better to just have it all die at the same time.
18650 would be nice
The A battery has been obsolete for a long time now.
C, D, and 9v are on their way as what’s left of their dwindling niche use cases that are progressively being replaced by rechargable ones. Think of boombox, or flashlight. Maybe the 9v is still solid for something like multimeters, and I’ve seen that automatic room sprayer with C or D batteries.
For AA and AAA, tho? They’re not going anywhere for a long time. Even when all the flashy fun stuff all have their batteries in Lithium, or whatever comes next, a lot of the boring stuff would still be having them. I have this portable microphone I got from late 2010s that still use AA, and so are all my wall clocks. Also, there are good reasons why the walkie talkies have them as options.
Some rechargable forms have become universal now, like the 18650, but I think they won’t replace the smaller ones.
9v are on their way as what’s left of their dwindling niche use cases that are progressively being replaced by rechargable ones.
guitar guy here. 9v is here to stay, almost every peripheral or active pickup uses them.
Yeah, you’re right, they’re not going anywhere as well, they’re just so niche, a lot of people would probably spend their entire lives without seeing one.
C & D are definitely on their way out tho.
My hope is that the size/voltage standard lasts forever while traditonal alkaline pile chemistries become obsolete and fade away. Seems like that’s kinda what’s happening too, love seeing all the rechargable AA fans in this thread :)
I’m going to say no. The standard is really old and there isn’t a standard lithium battery yet. I can see built in rechargeable battery becoming more prominent
No. Primary cells are easy and cheap to manufacture, and hold much more charge than rechargeable equivalents.
And so much of everyday tech is already built around the form factor and voltage. You cannot change one without also changing the other. While I’m sure some battery sizes will go away with time, as some already have (Type B, anyone?), I’m willing to bet AA batteries will still be around in some form 100 years from now. Internals might change a little, and capacity might increase, but we’re still going to see 1.5V packed into those dimensions.
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.
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.
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.
I Hope C cells specifically do.
Eventually, everything becomes obsolete given enough time. I recently heard the reason these kinds of batteries are still around is because lots of things use them and the reason things use them is because they’re widely available. In other words, these batteries won’t be going anywhere until it becomes cheaper or more viable to ship low-powered devices with their own batteries built-in.
something something my cold dead body
Are you trying to charge a lithium primary? That seems… unwise.
gotta make sure there’s a cold dead corpse to pry the rest of them from
If this charger is like my NiteCore, it can charge each of the 4 banks individually.
Yes, this looks like a dual-chemistry slot charger that handles both NiMH and 3.6/3.7V Li-ion, which would charge each battery independently.
The battery in the third slot looks to be an Energizer L91 lithium-iron-disulfide primary battery. Those are not rechargeable, and attempting to charge one may cause it to explode.
Do you not have a tv remote?
I haven’t owned a TV in 20 years 🤷🏼♀️ I gave up on TV when it became all shitty programming & commercials.
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I don’t watch movies or shows, and I’m not a gamer, and I live alone, and I have no desire to own a TV 🤷🏼♀️
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YouTube + Smartphone
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At some point they can just stick a lithium cell inside the remote and add a charge port
Apple TV remote has a USB C port for charging
Depends on the version of the remote, my old 1080p only one had a lightning port.
ome can only.hope
