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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

#151

Post by jsjohnst »

birdman3131 wrote: post #73
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…

All of those are ones I would argue the best design is to eat a few batteries a year. Calipers need to hold memory specifically. But more generally most of those are using alkaleak batteries and you really wanna be changing those out on at least a yearly basis. So it actually makes since to let them have a small always on drain. (Some might be using a 2032 lithium but I can almost guarantee at least the calipers are…

> Calipers need to hold memory specifically.

You don’t need power to retain a tiny bit of settings data.

I believe the real reason is because most of them have the “helpful feature” of turning on when you move it. Without something monitoring the sensor, no way to know to turn on automatically.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#152

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

andreareina wrote: post #145
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #134

>> (Our design team will never listen. This is because they, one, don't listen to anyone ever; and two, never use the products they design. Oh, sure, there might be a user study or two. But they never actually have to live with or work with the damn things.) This is so obvious from everyday life that someone really ought to write a paper about it and have it published in Nature. Because it will certainly be published…

It's a book actually: The Design of Everyday Things

That book, IMNSHO, should be required reading for anyone that designs anything to be used by anyone.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#155

Post by wongarsu »

jokoon wrote: post #125

Lithium batteries, even when they don't provide power, slowly lose power. They can also "degrade" when they're not in designated voltage range. This is one reason why most batteries are soldered, because they need to be regulated at all times. So no, you cannot "turn off" a battery. A battery should either provide power, or be plugged to a charger.

Sure, the battery degrades once its voltage drops to low or rises too high. But it also degrades from charge/discharge cycles. And without the ability to turn the device off the battery loses power even more quickly, either causing more charge/discharge cycles or bringing the battery quicker into the unhealthy zone.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#156

Post by aphroz »

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 ...

Maybe that's a security feature, as you probably don't want the lithium battery to explode near your head.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#157

Post by Beltalowda »

hexo wrote: post #124
chrisandchris wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty sure the market disagrees with you.

Environment disagrees with "market". "Market" takes whats available. Not producing ewaste means "market" cannot consume it. Simple.

Sure, but the point is that you can keep making these things and people will keep buying them, so "noone wants another e-waste" is clearly not true. Discussions about "the market", its effects on the environment, etc. are all important and worth having, but don't really have much bearing on whether or not "people want another e-waste".

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#158

Post by paulcole »

exmadscientist wrote: post #3

(Background: I work in product design/new product development, and conceivably might have designed this thing! If any of those were still designed in the Western world. Which they aren't. I have designed some stuff like it, though!) Oh, great, this debate again! I shall use this post as ammunition next time I am arguing with our stupid design team about why we need an off switch on the stupid product we are designing…

> I shall use this post as ammunition next time I am arguing with our stupid design team

So many red flags here.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#159

Post by frosted-flakes »

Buttons840 wrote: post #17
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…

Both bathroom and kitchens scales are large enough they can run on AA / AAA batteries and casually go a decade (or more) without replacement. Tangentially: I used to have a 3 button timer, it was a little LCD countdown display and 3 buttons. One button set hours, one minutes, and one starts / stops the countdown timer. I found this timer when I was a kid, used, and the 1 AAA battery it had lasted into adulthood, lite…

> Both bathroom and kitchens scales are large enough they can run on AA / AAA batteries and casually go a decade (or more) without replacement.

For bathroom scales, sometimes the design doesn't permit batteries larger than button cells, since the entire scale is a piece of tempered glass with four 1/4" tall feet and a lighted LCD display that shines through the glass. I like this particular design because it's thin enough to fit under a door as it swings. Batteries in my scale last over a year with near-daily use, and mine has a very bright display.

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