Seen on HackADay: Philips headphones "require" Philips branded AAA batteries

[wosser]

I'd love to know what people think about this...

http://hackaday.com/2011/03/30/headphones-use-standard-sized-but-proprietary-rechargeable-batteries/

Seems like a cynical marketing move to me, but doesn't this strange use of AAA "standardised" batteries contravene some kind of safety regulations somewhere?  Looks a bit dodgy to me.

[Simon]

well they certainly won't sell to many of those. I become ever less impressed with philips. As for their special batteries they can go jump off the nearest cliff for all I car.

There should be legislation preventing this sort of manipulation although plenty of us will be laughing at philips for their pathetic antics

[metalphreak]

As per the comments, this was pretty common back in the old portable CD player days. It's usually just an exposed section of the battery casing (which is connected to the negative terminal), and there is an extra contact terminal in the battery compartment. It's basically just a really cheap and easy way to distinguish a rechargeable battery from a regular alkaline. I'm sure there are better ways of detecting the difference but this is old school, and cheap

If you watch dave's review of the agilent OLED multimeter, you'll see it dedicated an entire minute (or 3?) to determine what kind of battery is installed before charging


I find HaD is full of sheeple. Article says Philips is doing something dastardly so it must be true... Half the comments are "BURN PHILIPS ALIVE" while the other half is "um, its a legitimate design feature/necessity".

[Zero999]

They're using inferior batteries and making the customer pay more for them. The Phillips batteries which come with it are only 550mAh which is rubbish compared to 1000mAh cells commonly available now. Fortunately this is easy to fix.

[ziq8tsi]

doesn't this strange use of AAA "standardised" batteries contravene some kind of safety regulations somewhere?

They probably tell you not to use their "insulation peeled" batteries in non-Philips devices and chargers, to avoid the risk of shorting.  Would you prefer they used a non-standard size to increase costs and force you to buy their batteries?

I find HaD is full of sheeple. Article says Philips is doing something dastardly so it must be true... Half the comments are "BURN PHILIPS ALIVE" while the other half is "um, its a legitimate design feature/necessity".

Not so different from this thread then.  Throw them off a cliff!

[grenert]

Put me in the camp of: They're not sinister, they're just trying to protect people from themselves.  This is a common way to prevent charging of non-rechargeable batteries.  There are more sophisticated ways of doing this, but they would be too complicated for a "dumb" device like a pair of headphones.

[Simon]

If people are too stupid to try asnd recharge a non rechargeable more fool them. It would seem this is to force people to use a specific battery. Not my game thank you !