I love the idea of rechargeable batteries. I started buying Eneloops, and they work alright.

Now I own 16 more electronic devices (8 AA, 8AAA), and I have to keep track of what device they're in, their charge state, and their long-term health. I don't have a great way of tracking ANY of those things.

Part of my motivation was to use them in camera flash units, where a small change in the battery life can result in the flash cycle time changing from ~1s to ~10s, without any warning - while I'm trying to take a photo of something quickly - so this sucks. This is a minor pain, because I can swap out for some fresh alkalines, but in that case, why even bother with the rechargeables?

They're still nice in most other devices.

Chargers like a LaCrosse BC-700 can give you an approximate capacity measurement for a battery, you could use that to bin them into rough capacities and color code with stickers.

But if the charge time is changing that drastically, it sounds like more of a maximum current issue. I've been under the impression that NiMH batteries can deliver higher current than alkaline, but I've never tried them for something like a camera flash.

EDIT - higher end chargers can measure the internal resistance, which I think is the number you need for issues with limited power draw. With a BC-700 you can apparently approximate this by using its discharge mode and seeing how a battery's voltage changes when you're drawing power from it. Discussion here: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?338786-Qu...

Or a BC-1000 will do it for you.

I still have the set of 8 eneloops I bought a decade ago, and they still fulfil their duty. I wrote my name of them because I didn't want people to take them. It was one of those great purchases I never really stop to think about.

I've had so many leaking alkaline batteries, particularly the Duracell brand, that I've replaced almost all my batteries with NiMH Eneloops, the LSD white ones. Even for low current applications (e.g. remote controls) where the simple calculations say that alkalines are cheaper, if I include the cost of the damaged electronics, I probably save money with the NiMHs.

That's exactly what I do.

I was surprised this wasn't mentioned anywhere in the article.

they should have a big red X in "long term use" or something with alkaline.

With alkaline, they will leak and corrode or destroy the device.

as to the brand of batteries I just get the amazonbasics rechargeables - are eneloops that much better? more expensive?

The leak warning is in the very first table on the front page, in two different places.

This is a great tip. I started to do the same thing after having been bit by the same problem with Kirkland batteries, which are also made by Duracell.

Michael Bluejay is one small piece of the quirky charm of Austin. It has been somewhat sad watching Austin's charm get diluted and steamrolled over the past decade.

That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me. With the exception of, "You know, you an all-right n**a."

I’d be curious to know how lithium ion batteries compare given that they’re now available in AA.

Wouldn't they be the wrong voltage?

A typical lithium ion "14500" battery has that issue, yes.

There are some more unusual ones such as Kentli, which have built-in buck converter to give you 1.5V as a substitute for normal AA batteries. It's a clever design where the top of the cell has two separate contacts, the normal button-top gives you 1.5V, and a recessed ring around that hooks up to the actual battery cell for charging purposes. So you need a special charger for these.

Images and more info here: https://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Kentli%20AA%20280...

I've never actually seen any of these (have a bunch of NiMH cells and one fancy charger already) but it's a cool system. I don't think the capacity is significantly better, but devices that have trouble with NiMH's lower voltage would do better with these.

LiFePO4 chemistry is at about 3.2VDC so a blank/filler will make it a drop-in for 2X alkaline which is what I see a lot of devices use. You can get "AA" size ones in the garden light section of home centers as they're used for solar path lights.

Lithium primary batteries are available in 1.5V nominal — not sure if they have any circuitry.

There are tiny little converters inside.

sometimes they go in packs together with "blanks" so that in total they provide similar voltage as 3xAA

Nice but the page looks like it's old and somewhat stale.

I agree; no mention of Ikea who are thought to build their NiMHs in the Eneloop factory (same capacity at 2.450 mAh for AAs, made in Japan) but much cheaper.

The price in the US seems to be $7, for a pack of four.

The chatter on slickdeals.net forums (yes, Someone on the Internet Told Me...) is that Ikea has switched to a lower-quality Chinese supplier, and theirs are not white-labeled Eneloop anymore.

Ikea used to sell two different versions of the Ladda battery.

The brown versions with lower capacity / higher cycle life did switch from Japan to China, but they've discontinued those(or at least no longer stock them @ my local store) for some years now.

The white Eneloop Pro comparable ones were and still are made in Japan.

Okay, hadn't seen that (I'm not really that far into battery geekdom). That's kind of depressing, I thought it was a fun fact (or assumption, perhaps) about their batteries that made me a bit more happy to buy them. :)

No way to tell country of origin from their web, and obviously I don't visit their stores all that often right now.

I guess I will have to include some the next time we order stuff for safe pick-up and have a look at the packaging. :)

Gah, I meant 2,450 mAh of course, sorry. I hope nobody got minimalist-tech visions of an AA holding less than 3 mAh. :)

The cynic in me wants to point out that IKEA doesn’t have affiliate links.

I didn't know about IKEA batteries. I'll add this to my to-do list. I list stuff and link out whether there's an affiliate program or not. As I say on the Advertising page of my Easy Vegas site:

"I'm going to steer you to a lesser-quality site in an effort to make more money. For example, I'd get paid if I steered you to Travelocity for airfare booking, because Travelocity would pay me, but instead for I steer you to Skiplagged, even though they wouldn't pay me a thin dime. I link to Skiplagged because they're the best site for finding airfare, and at Easy Vegas the reader always comes first."

Thanks for replying. I appreciate that approach and find it extremely believable/understandable.

I added a blurb about the IKEA batteries today.