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Batterylife Activator Reviewed

Posted by timothy on from the grandly-mocked dept.

Daniel Rutter writes "Slashdot chewed over the BatMax Battery Life Booster - a nanotechnomagical sticker that's meant to rejuvenate lithium ion batteries - a while ago. Now I've reviewed the strikingly similar Batterylife Activator, and subjected it to actual empirical testing, with automated datalogging and everything. The results confirmed my original suspicion -- that the local Batterylife branch made a serious error of judgement when they decided to send me their product."

6 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Cheap is best by HermanAB · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actual tests of batteries always show that the cheapest batteries are the best value for money, in terms of watt hours per dollar.

    --
    Oh well, what the hell...
  2. Re:You really should read this article by pigpogm · · Score: 5, Informative

    I hadn't noticed, until your post made me go back to look, that it was Dan's Data - the source of one of the best reviews I've ever read...

    http://www.dansdata.com/kitten.htm ...of a kitten. Even compares it against a puppy, a baby, and a new video card - kitten wins, of course ;)

    --
    PigPog.
  3. Bit-Tech did reviewed this product days ago by Quietas · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.bit-tech.net/review/395

  4. From the article . . . by jhylkema · · Score: 5, Informative

    Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the Activator doesn't work, how come so many people say that it does?

    It's very simple, really. Placebo effect and confirmation bias. These things drive all manner of quackery (naturopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, etc.) and other pseudoscience. Confirmation bias is particularly powerful here as people don't want to admit they're stupid enough to have been duped into buying an overpriced sticker, even though they are.

  5. Re:Flawed Results by rainwalker · · Score: 3, Informative

    Except that, if he used two batteries, then he can't compare the results of the batteries to each other. Using two different batteries, you are introducing a much larger amount of experimental error than serial tests of the same battery. Can you guarantee that the internal chemistries of two old batteries will cause them to perform in *exactly* the same manner? The differences he saw in the runs were very small, less than a standard deviation (at least it looks like it to me, I wish he'd done some statistical analysis).

  6. Re:Well, at least this time... by Daniel+Rutter · · Score: 3, Informative
    > His four tests used 3 different charging times. The first two trials he did an overnight charge. The third test was the official charge time.

    You misunderstand how LiI batteries work. As you say, I did a run with the battery after it'd been sitting uncharged in my camera bag for N weeks, then I gave it an overnight charge before testing again, then I charged it again right after that run - which presumably accounted for its not-so-good third-run result.

    I gave the battery a decent chance to recover from its 10 cycles before doing the final, "Activatored", test, which is (again presumably) why it did reasonably well - in fact, just as well as you'd expect if the sticker were just, um, a sticker.

    The important point here is that overnight charging of a LiI battery should be no better than shorter "full" charging, because LiI chargers pump lots of current into the battery in constant current mode over a relatively short time, then tail off in constant voltage mode, then sit and do nothing - no trickle charge. It's plausible that a LiI charger will report a full charge before the constant voltage mode is quite complete, but that mode will _not_ take more than an hour or two. Any further benefit is solely due to giving the battery time to rest and cool down.