EEVblog #751 - How To Debunk A Product (The Batteriser)

[Kean]

Clicking on LATEST is till acting strange for me, often giving just a couple of results, must be an interweb network thing

That's just modern (distributed/no-sql) databases for you

[JiggyNinja]

The problem is that they claim a 5.5x improvement in their video, by arbitrary choosing 50% lux and carefully positioning the beams etc.,

Well of course...they are going to cherry pick devices to test and make up whatever rules they decide to show their product in the most favorable light.

Why is this surprising?  Do you guys believe everything you see in other advertising?

Sure, on the bell curve of inflated claims this is quite a ways out there, but it's not like I would expect them to show something that only showed minimal or no benefit (even though I'm sure their "labs" are littered with tests that didn't perform adequately and were rejected.

Because there is a difference between picking the best test cases for a demo and trying to polish a turd like Batteroo is doing. They are LONG past the point where their bullshit and deception is inexcusable. The sleeve is a dud on basically every single metric with a large range of products, and everyone who actually knew shit predicted that long before it went on sale. It is exactly what was predicted.

[JiggyNinja]

Why is this surprising?  Do you guys believe everything you see in other advertising?

Also, I REFUSE to consider the status quo of bullshit slinging and misinformation to be considered acceptable. Portions of this country are so deluded that they have a strong desire to have the government repeal Obamacare but keep the Affordable Care Act in place (THEY'RE THE SAME FUCKING LAW!), or will send a letter to the president saying: "I don’t want government-run health care. I don’t want socialized medicine. And don’t touch my Medicare." (Medicare is a government program).

The US right now and over the past year is a perfect example of what happens when that kind of shit is allowed and a "post-truth" society is created.We're going to get a hard and painful lesson on the consequences of that.

[EEVblog]

The usual result of using the Batteroo if you don't "believe"

[EEVblog]

And the usual physical result:

[dr_frost_dk]

They found another special camera



Edit:
Lots of complaints about battery life
https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B00CD9JNDQ/ref=acr_dpx_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=avp_only_reviews&showViewpoints=0

found on walmart customer reviews:

[Kalvin]

Why the tinfoil hats, people? The sleeves performed exactly as expected. The outcome is exactly what we'd expect to see, showing a boost in voltage, and a slower decline in voltage, then a sudden dropout at the end, while the bare Alkaline trailed down in a more gentle curve.

True. The problem is that they drew lines down to the horizontal axis at the point where Batteriser looks best and claimed "5.5x battery life".



Joe public will watch this video all wide-eyed because he wants to believe.

Pointing out:
a) The error in the math
b) The fact that nobody who cares about battery life or brightness would be using an incandescent torch
c) If we put in two modern LED flashlights the Batteriser would lose out BADLY in both brightness and lifetime.
d) etc.
will be a long and painful process. Again.

The only bright side to that video is that the woman's voice is so awful it will make people feel slightly depressed after watching it.

Human eye's perception is logarithmic, not linear. So the Batteroo's claims about 5.5x longer doesn't really hold here due to the human physiology. Yes, the flashlight without the Batteriser may be somewhat dimmer, but even a dimmer flashlight will outperform a dead flashlight.

[dr_frost_dk]

And again they tested to separate cameras, yes same brand/model, but can have slight differences that will favor one better, only way to do it is like dave's train test

[FrankBuss]

They found another special camera

Ok, it works with a few products with crap dropout voltage, no one doubt this, but this happens when you use the sleeves

[samgab]

They found another special camera



Edit:
Lots of complaints about battery life
https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B00CD9JNDQ/ref=acr_dpx_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=avp_only_reviews&showViewpoints=0

found on walmart customer reviews:

Pretty okay test, not too bad, except for the same awful narrator. Now: key question. How long would that same Kodak camera go for in the same test with eneloop pros powering it (no batteroos obviously)?

[EEVblog]

Pretty okay test, not too bad, except for the same awful narrator. Now: key question. How long would that same Kodak camera go for in the same test with eneloop pros powering it (no batteroos obviously)?

They will NEVER tell you this of course.
Only a fool, someone absolutely desperate, or special niche case uses Alkalines with a camera.
For example, my mum has a AA camera for special occasions. e.g going on holidays were she takes a handful of snaps. She doesn't want to dick around with chargers etc. So I give her Lithium AA's to use, but at a pinch she can buy Alkalines from a shop to get those handful of snaps.

[StillTrying]

"Brand new. Straight out of he box. As soon as it turns on it says the batteries are low(3 different sets of brand new name brand batteries) and as soon as the camera flash goes off, so does the camera..."

I think it's very good of Batteroo to be going through Amazon's products and compiling a list of which gadgets are faulty. 

[Hensingler]

Pretty okay test, not too bad, except for the same awful narrator. Now: key question. How long would that same Kodak camera go for in the same test with eneloop pros powering it (no batteroos obviously)?

I already suggested that the FZ43 which Amazon show as a newer and cheaper version of the FZ41 be tested with AA batteriseroo sleeves.

A Walmart listing for it says :

Photo shooting - 120 shots ( alkaline batteries )
Photo shooting - 360 shots ( NiMH batteries )

That indicates it is intended for use with NiMH batteries and won't have a ridiculously high cut off voltage (which is what I exepect the Vivitar crap they tested has).

It obviously hammers batteries resulting in poor life from alkalines, but, with batteriseroo sleeves it is going to hammer them even more. I am really doubtful that batteriseroo sleeves are going to increase life in this camera and am much more suspicious of foul play, like the left camera was recording 720p and the right 320x240.  Why did they switch from photo with flash in the Vivitar test to video recording in this one?

Also the cameras are numbered #3 and #2. How many cameras did they have and why? If they are supposed to be identical why did they need numbering?

My suggestion that AA sleeves need to be tested in a FZ43 and now FZ41 is still I think a good one.

[Luminax]

And the usual physical result:

Hey I recognize that guy! he's the one I messaged on twitter warning him about the demerit of batteroo on critical application like bike taillight.
Luckily it #fail -ed before he got into any serious trouble

[Hugoneus]

I just tweeted at them to see if they are willing to send me a few sleeves. 

[ez24]

I call it a tie.

Two videos from Battero that shows it works and one from Dave and one from Frank that shows it does not.

[thm_w]

Hey I recognize that guy! he's the one I messaged on twitter warning him about the demerit of batteroo on critical application like bike taillight.
Luckily it #fail -ed before he got into any serious trouble

Good point, its very hard to check if your rear light hasn't shut off mid-ride unless you pull over. Also a bike headlight/tail-light on a hard road frame is one of the most punishing shock environments. Without locktight screws will work loose, snap together battery enclosures can pop open from big pot holes, etc.

But don't worry, if he uses campagnolo he has plenty of cash to burn

[mikerj]

I call it a tie.

Two videos from Battero that shows it works and one from Dave and one from Frank that shows it does not.

The big difference being that Dave and Frank did not hand select products they knew would show bad results, but Batteroo have clearly hand picked a couple of particularly crappy products because they do show an improvement (maybe).

Even Dave has stated that the sleeves could show an improvement on badly designed devices, but these are likely to be in a small minority.

[EEVblog]

I call it a tie.
Two videos from Battero that shows it works and one from Dave and one from Frank that shows it does not.

And the two extra MP3 players we tested, plus what others have tested.
Plus the fact that it's been demonstrably proven that Batteroo either deliberately doctored the UL test of the Golf GPS, or they are completely incompetent in testing.

[dr_frost_dk]

damm many people are getting upset as they are finding out that Batteroo does nok work as advertised/getting worse results then without and apparently many shipping problems

[kalleboo]

They just sent out a mailing about that contest to find something, anything, that works with the Batteroo https://www.batteroo.com/contest

We would like to wish you a happy new year and start 2017 by showing our appreciation to our customers! We are officially starting the Batteroo Customer Appreciation Contest! We are giving away $500 every month to the customer that comes up with the most fun and creative photo or video using our Batteroo Boost sleeves.

In addition to the photo/video contest, we are also choosing 10 winners every month who submit written testimonials, describing how they've benefited from Batteroo Boost. Each of these 10 winners will receive a $50 reward for their Batteroo Boost testimonial!

February’s contest, which is our first, will begin today. Since it is our first month, we are giving everybody an early start! At the end of every month, we will announce the winners. The first day of the following month, the contest begins again!
Submit videos, images to www.batteroo.com/contest, and written testimonaials to contest@batteroo.com

 For full contest rules, visit www.batteroo.com/contest

Their website is down though...

[StuUK]

They just sent out a mailing about that contest to find something, anything, that works with the Batteroo https://www.batteroo.com/contest

We would like to wish you a happy new year and start 2017 by showing our appreciation to our customers! We are officially starting the Batteroo Customer Appreciation Contest! We are giving away $500 every month to the customer that comes up with the most fun and creative photo or video using our Batteroo Boost sleeves.

In addition to the photo/video contest, we are also choosing 10 winners every month who submit written testimonials, describing how they've benefited from Batteroo Boost. Each of these 10 winners will receive a $50 reward for their Batteroo Boost testimonial!

February’s contest, which is our first, will begin today. Since it is our first month, we are giving everybody an early start! At the end of every month, we will announce the winners. The first day of the following month, the contest begins again!
Submit videos, images to www.batteroo.com/contest, and written testimonaials to contest@batteroo.com

 For full contest rules, visit www.batteroo.com/contest

Gives:- SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (111)

Batteries must have run out....

[Blocco]

In addition to the photo/video contest, we are also choosing 10 winners every month who submit written testimonials, describing how they've benefited from Batteroo Boost. Each of these 10 winners will receive a $50 reward for their Batteroo Boost testimonial!

Now they're trying to buy positive reviews.

[drussell]

Now they're trying to buy positive reviews.

Indeed.... 

[Domagoj T]

Their email went straight into my spam folder.
Anyway, how am I supposed to sing praises when they still haven't shipped my sleeves I ordered over a month ago?