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Tag Archives: Batteries

OhGizmo! Review – USBCell AA Batteries

By Chris Scott Barr on 07/16/10 • 1 Comment

By Chris Scott Barr

Batteries. Let’s face it, you probably can’t live your daily live without relying on them. They’re in your car, your laptop, and even the remote to your TV. It’s likely that the most common ones that you actually have to change are of the AA and AAA variety. These tend to power smaller devices like keyboards, mice, game controllers and the like. They also tend to run out of juice when you need them the most.

If you rely on AA and AAA batteries for a lot of your gadgets, then you’ve no doubt invested in a few sets of rechargeables. This is a great economic way to make sure that you always have a fresh set around (without having to keep buying new ones all the time). Now if you’re on the road a lot with these battery-loving gadgets, you don’t want to clutter up your luggage with another charger, do you? Of course not. Instead, what you need are batteries that can be recharged without a special adapter. These USBCell batteries seem like just the thing.

At first glance, these seem like the perfect solution for the road warrior. They are a set of AA batteries, which have built-in USB adapters. You simply insert each into a free USB port on your computer, and they will start charging up. The question is whether or not they’re actually worth buying.

… Continue Reading

Microsoft Instaload Lets You Install Batteries In Any Direction

By Chris Scott Barr on 07/02/10 • Leave a comment!

By Chris Scott Barr

How many times have you gotten a new gadget and had to squint to decipher the little diagram that tells you which way to insert the batteries? Sure, sometimes it’s pretty obvious which end is negative thanks to a little spring coil, but not everything has one. While this is only the most minor of inconveniences, it could actually be a thing of the past next to Microsoft.

Microsoft isn’t the first company that comes to mind when I think about AA batteries. However, they have developed a new technology called InstaLoad that will allow you to insert these (and CR123, AAA, C and D) batteries in either direction.  You might not find this to be terribly important for yourself, but those with poor vision and fine motor skills will no doubt find this invaluable. Microsoft is currently working with a number of companies, including Durcell, to get this technology into various consumer electronic products.

[ Microsoft ] VIA [ Gizmag ]

Sony Introduces Their Own Portable USB Power Supply Adapter

By Andrew Liszewski on 06/18/10 • Leave a comment!

Sony USB Portable Power Supply (Image courtesy Sony Europe)
By Andrew Liszewski

Sony continues with their ‘me too!’ mentality with last week’s announcement of their new Portable USB Power Supply Adapter. It’s apparently available now, though a 20-minute search of Sony’s various sites around the world returned no indication of its existence besides this vague press release on the Sony Europe site. But from what I can tell, it features a modular design with one half serving as a charger/ac adapter, while the other features a rechargeable Li-Ion battery and a USB port for topping off any gadgets that can charge over USB. Unfortunately I’ve no idea what the battery’s capacity is or just how many devices it can recharge, or even how much it will set you back.

[ PR - Never run out of power with the new USB Portable Power Supply from Sony ] VIA [ Newlaunches ]

BioLogic ReeCharge Is Another Dynamo Powered Charging Solution For Your Bike

By Andrew Liszewski on 06/15/10 • Leave a comment!

BioLogic ReeCharge (Image courtesy Dahon)
By Andrew Liszewski

There are many benefits to biking instead of driving a car or even taking public transit, but just because it’s a fairly low-tech mode of transportation doesn’t mean you still can’t enjoy your electronic amenities. The BioLogic ReeCharge from Dahon is another dynamo powered charging solution for bikes that features a 1600 mAh lithium polymer battery and a single USB port allowing you to charge your cellphone or even power a GPS device.

The electronics that buffer the “incoming and outgoing current so it’s safe for all electrical devices” and the battery are all housed in a splash-proof silicon case so you don’t need to disconnect it when you get caught in the rain (your other electronics are another story) and for reference it’s able to fully charge the iPhone in about 3 hours. The BioLogic ReeCharge should be available next month for $99, but you’ll already need to have a dynamo system installed on your bike since that’s not included in the price.

[ Dahon BioLogic ReeCharge ] VIA [ Bike Hugger ]

Get Some Extra Life Out Of Those Old Non-Rechargeable Batteries

By Chris Scott Barr on 04/22/10 • 4 Comments

ReZap

By Chris Scott Barr

With the sheer number of wireless devices in my house, rechargeable batteries are a godsend. Unfortunately, they’re also rather expensive. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just take those old, cheap batteries and stick them in a charger? Apparently with this new ReZAP charger, you can.

According to the company, you can take any regular battery and with this magic device, recharge it up to 10 times. This is done by using intelligent microprocessors and software to regulate the charging process. It can detect what type of battery has been inserted (AA, AAA, AAAA, C, D or 9-volt) and automatically determine the right charging algorithm to give it a fresh charge. If you’re wanting to get the most out of your cheap batteries, then this $60 gadget might suit you when it comes out next month. However, if the quality of the product is anything like the company’s website, I’ll definitely pass.

[ PC Treasures ] VIA [ Coolest-Gadgets ]

Win A RichardSolo 1800 Battery Backup

By Chris Scott Barr on 04/16/10 • 37 Comments

By Chris Scott Barr

I know you guys are pretty excited about the HP Touchsmart that we’re giving away, but as we all know, there can be only one winner. Of course that doesn’t mean you can’t have a shot at winning something else. This week the folks at RichardSolo wants one of you to get their new 1800 battery backups that we mentioned a little while back.

The RichardSolo 1800 will charge up your mobile device at least once, with a little juice to spare. It’ll also give you a flashlight and laser pointer when you need them. Just drop us a comment and next Friday I’ll pick one of you at random to take home the prize.

(The giveaway is only open to US residents)

[ RichardSolo ]

Universal Wrist Charger

By Evan Ackerman on 04/05/10 • 3 Comments

universal-wrist_charger_gaming

By Evan Ackerman

I’ll be honest… I usually carry around three (yes, three) different mobile charging apparatuses when I know I’m going to be out with my gadgets all day: one of these, one of these, and this. Is it overkill? Probably. But being a ::cough:: professional journalist, running out of batteries is simply not an option. Even I, however, would not wear a universal wrist charger. It’s just too dorky, and I’m really more of a geek. Or I like to think so, anyway.

If you just look at the numbers, this universal wrist charger is actually pretty decent: it has a 1500 mAh battery, weighs 82 grams, and will charge anything that only needs 5 volts (same as a USB port). Since most of your gadgets are probably hand-held, it’s a convenient way to be using something and charging it at the same time. Problem is, there’s really no getting around the utter dorkiness of this thing. If it also had a little LCD on it or something, you could at least pretend that it was some kind of ridiculously fancy watch, but as it is, it just has 4 little lights to indicate what level of charge it has. Wait a sec… Random lights? Weird design? I’ve got it! Just tell everyone that you’re sporting the latest and greatest from Tokyo Flash, and wear the universal wrist charger in anonymous pride. Problem solved!

The universal wrist charger is available now from ThinkGeek for $35.

[ ThinkGeek ] VIA [ Craziest Gadgets ]

RCA Airnergy Now Called AirPower, Shows Off New Designs But No Details

By Evan Ackerman on 03/30/10 • 5 Comments

airpower

By Evan Ackerman

Remember the Airnergy WiFi power harvester that we showed you last January at CES? You know, the thing that charges your gadgets out of thin air that several commenters pointed out was (mathematically speaking) at best impractical and at worst impossible? Well, it’s now called AirPower, and while RCA still won’t provide details on how it actually manages to pull substantial amounts of electricity out of the air in what seems to be a violation of the first (I think) law of thermodynamics, they have designed some new cases for it.

So, yeah. Looking good. But does it actually work? RCA reiterated that the AirPower will charge itself “with around five to six hours of Wi-Fi exposure” by “regurgitating and converting the 2.4GHz Wi-Fi signal,” which is the same sort of thing we heard at CES… I really want to believe that RCA wouldn’t keep showing this thing off and making the same impressive claims if they didn’t have a working one in a R&D bunker somewhere, but at the same time, here’s a quote from a commenter on our original article:

“By my calculations, 100% efficiency and absorption at 5 feet away from a 100mW home router, (reasonable figures), it would take 34.5 years to charge that blackberry battery.”

Also, the release date of the AirPower charger has been pushed from this summer to the holidays, and the pricing has gone from $40 to “has yet to be determined.” C’mon RCA, laws of physics be damned, I want this to be real.

VIA [ DVICE ]

New Lithium Ion Batteries Increase Lifespan To 20 Years

By Evan Ackerman on 02/08/10 • 7 Comments

oolong

By Evan Ackerman

Lithium ion batteries are way, way better than nickel metal hydride batteries or (shudder) nickle cadmium batteries. But still, batteries are batteries, and they have a way of going from cool to sucks in a matter of only a few hundred charging cycles, whatever their supposed lifetimes are purported to be. The six cell battery on my netbook, which incidentally cost about a third as much as the entire computer, was advertised as being able to last six hours, lasted four brand new, and is now (a year later) down to three on a good day.

By doing something clever involving keeping tin particles bonded together, a Japanese company called Eamex is saying that they’ve been able to develop a battery that can be charged and discharged some 10,000 times, which means that they should last about 20 years if you recharge them about 1.3 times a day. Also, they’re talking about having a battery with a power density of 10,000 W/kg by the end of the year. Most of this stuff is probably headed for electric cars and such, at least initially… Guess it’s time to go buy one of those, then.

Oh, and I spent 20 minutes looking for an interesting picture of a lithium ion battery. I couldn’t find one, so instead here’s a picture of a bunny with a pancake on his head.

[ Eamex ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

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