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Everything with a battery should have an off switch

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Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#161

Post by lhoff »

rightbyte wrote: post #135
CogitoCogito wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kitchen scales, bit more use, at least once a day but again 2 button cells a year I had a kitchen scale that would eat through its battery pretty quickly (within a month) even when not being used. I figured it could be an interesting project to open it up and try to figure out where the stray power draw was happening, but the obviously correct solution was just to leave the battery cover off and pop it in and out f…

I have Sony WH-1000X M3 noise cancelling fancy pancy wireless headphones and they can't charge and be used at the same time either! It is lunacy. Is there some cracy cheap charging chip that has this drawback? The headphones were very expansive still ...

I have the same headphones and that is not the only quirk thats driving me nuts. It doesn't remember the last noise canceling setting i used. I almost always use them at home so i don't need NC but every time I turn them on its in NC Mode and I have to press the button twice.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#162

Post by Beltalowda »

donatj wrote: post #142
icelancer wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reset the counter. https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1135439789090574338

Quoted post unavailable.

"Fix" what? That the medium or style they choses to express themselves doesn't work well for you? Well, tough; that's your problem, not his. They're not your bitch. The entitlement...

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#163

Post by benhurmarcel »

lapsis_beeftech wrote: post #136
Nanite wrote: post #4

Examples lying around in my house: Bathroom scale: lovely it powers up when you tap it, but eats up 2 button cells a year for a few dozen uses a year Kitchen scales, bit more use, at least once a day but again 2 button cells a year electronic caliper: Same, eats up 1 button cell a year, just sitting in my toolbox Strangely enough none of our kids toys with batteries seem to suffer from this problem How much extra cos…

Get Vernier calipers! The scale is easy to learn and use and measurements will be at least as precise as electronic calipers. With no batteries required the tool has much less of an environmental impact and you never need to worry about whether the calipers will work or not.

There are also calipers with a dial.

https://www.otelo.fr/waroot/images/products/600/40130350_A.g...

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#164

Post by JoeAltmaier »

abofh wrote: post #55
ggm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is special pleading. At the volume we're discussing a surface mount flow solder on off device is not going to kill the BoM, and could be designed not to be ugly. It's no different to any other bad design. It could be better. All phones and computers can be completely powered down. They're hardly ugly switches.

Ermm, most phones and computers cannot be completely powered down. Either by nit-picking (CMOS clocks) or soft-switches (ACPI, soft button power-on), there's always some voltage in the system unless your PSU comes with an actual hard power switch (and even then, again, CMOS). They consume a lot less power, but leave an 'off' phone in a drawer for a month starting at 100%, it will not be 100% when you 'turn it on'.

In low-power mode even those microcontrollers are using just nA (yes that's nano-Amps). Vs 100's of mA in operation. So the battery life goes from hours to what should be decades.

I'm thinking the battery goes dead because of leakage currents through the rest of the circuits, which were probably not designed to the nA standard.

A solid-state Off switch would also need a good silicon device to cut current consumption at the battery. Which also costs something.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#166

Post by Beltalowda »

teekert wrote: post #10

…And, one should be able to turn of every led even when powered on… At Ikea I almost bought a nice brushed steel extractor hood, except it had this obnoxiously bright blue led on the front. Why? I know when that thing is on without it drawing my attention constantly. Same with my Lenovo X13 gen 2, there is a bright white led next to the power button… just why…???

I don't know about the X13, but a lot of ThinkPads you can control the LEDs with some settings; /sys/class/leds/tpacpi::power/brightness on Linux (also some other knobs/LEDs in there).

Thus far this has worked on every ThinkPad I've had; but again, I don't know if it will work on your X13 (or how to do it from Windows or other systems), but something to look at if you haven't already.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#167

Post by pards »

mod wrote: post #88
lultimouomo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> electronic caliper: Same, eats up 1 button cell a year, just sitting in my toolbox Had the same problem; got a good Vernier caliper, never looked back. Some things just don't need batteries!

I did the same! And now every time I go to use the thing I have to look up how to read it again. I don't do highly accurate work very often, obviously. I don't like buying non-rechargeable batteries, though, so cell batteries are out.

I bought an RF pet tracker last year that comes with rechargeable CR 2032 batteries and a charger [0]. The rechargeable batteries factored highly in my decision-making process.

[0]: https://www.girafus.com/en/products/charger-batteries/

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#168

Post by teekert »

layer8 wrote: post #139
teekert wrote: post #10

…And, one should be able to turn of every led even when powered on… At Ikea I almost bought a nice brushed steel extractor hood, except it had this obnoxiously bright blue led on the front. Why? I know when that thing is on without it drawing my attention constantly. Same with my Lenovo X13 gen 2, there is a bright white led next to the power button… just why…???

Agreed, i put https://www.lightdims.com/ or electrical tape on those. That doesn’t really work with transparent cases though.

Ha! Nice to see someone actually was annoyed enough to make a product out of this annoyance :)

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#169

Post by bluesquared »

pveierland wrote: post #67

Related to the topic, besides the energy argument and the ability to cycle system state, I'd argue the huge importance of being able to power things off for personal freedom, especially for things with connectivity. We still have the power to shut off devices and largely the ability to block their connectivity (e.g. routing TV ads through a network filter). With 5G and future connectivity, it feels as there will be p…

In a somewhat similar manner, my CPAP has a 4G modem that's a huge double-edged sword (for Americans only, you can see where this is going...).

On one hand, it is nice to have an app that shows my stats, and my doctor can also remotely access how my therapy is going.

On the other hand, it also phones home to the manufacturer & my insurance. When I don't hit my usage target for a specific time period, insurance stops paying for it and I have to personally pay out of pocket. So now you add the stress of not only complying with sleeping with an uncomfortable apparatus on your face but also if you don't keep it on enough (I take it off unconsciously in my sleep) you start paying thru the nose for it. Vicious cycle...

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#170

Post by buescher »

progbits wrote: post #119
narag wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this ultracheap made-in-China big kitchen clock, with a single AA that I've replaced twice in eight years. I don't buy expensive batteries, more like in line with the clock. It has second hand (the kind that doesn't tick but appears to move uniformly) so there is some extra mechanical work.

I think the quality is hit and miss, even with premium batteries. I had enough devices damaged or entirely ruined by a leaked battery so now I remove them from anything not actively used. If anyone knows a reliable model for AA/AAA cells that will absolutely not leak when left unused in a device for year+ I would love to hear it.

Energizer lithium. It's what I put in nice things I use infrequently.
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