I replaced them in April. Should have had another 6 months or more but instead the charge is now at 1%… previous batteries lasted almost 18 months.
No particularly interesting history. Automations locked or unlocked it about 6 times over that 2 day period.
Not a question, just a frustration.
You must log in or register to comment.
I have a google doorbell cam and when it has wifi issues, it will eat through the battery in a couple of days (normal charge lasts 3-5 weeks at least).
The doorbell connects via Bluetooth to a gateway about 2m away through a wall, but I did wonder if it’s using more power to maintain the connection for some reason.
Looks like a graph of nvidia stock
Either your current batteries are a worse brand the last one, or your hardware has developed a problem. The strong loss within a few days points into that direction. Condensate, maybe?
Two questions, what battery chemistry, and what’s the temperature outside?
All batteries struggle in the cold, but NiMH have it really bad because they start at 1.2v charged instead of an alkaline 1.5v. So most devices think they are half dead to begin with. And the cold is going to make that worse.
My lock was never this bad but I now own an ostation charger with their lithium AAs and the battery life is great. The only downside is they are obviously using a buck converter to get 1.5v so there’s no voltage curve to indicate when they get low, they just cut off when dead. If you rely purely on the smart features and don’t carry a key as backup you’ll want to set a reminder to change and charge them on a schedule so you’re never locked out.
I never even realised they make lion battery in aa size. Its pretty cheap too, gonna buy a bunch of them soon.
just be careful what you use them with
Some brands have unusual voltage graphs over the battery life, which can confuse devices that rely on the alkaline/NiMH voltage drop to detect if they are low on power
Some of the lithium ones set their voltage to a fixed value and abruptly die when they run out. This is especially problematic for devices like smoke detectors, as they can’t notify you if they are running low
I did some research comparing them but I think I am gonna stick with usual nimh batteries for my use case. Unless the device is very picky about voltage level, NiMh seems to be recommended over Li ion, for battery life and cost ig. Maybe I will get 1 just to test it out, some claim to have a proper voltage drop but I am sceptical. Quite annoying how hard it is to find good ones outside of Amazon -_-
They are great for stuff that you’d regularly recharge with NIMH. Things like game controllers etc
Longer lasting use cases don’t benefit much (see the latest technology connections video on the topic)
I haven’t taken it apart to replace them yet so not sure what batteries are in it. I used to use rechargeables but haven’t the last couple of times as they don’t last very long in comparison. Is there a type of battery I should be looking to replace them with?
We are heading into summer here. The last couple of days have probably been only 20C but some days they may have 30C temps when the door is in the sun.
Is this your charger? I didn’t even realise such a thing existed, I might ask Santa for one for Christmas!
Yes! That is what I have and I absolutely love it least fiddly charger experience ever. Just drop them in any old way and there’s always charged batteries in the bottom tray. And also I used a Christmas gift card to buy it.
But if that’s overkill they make a regular sized more traditional 4 battery charger that also works with their lithium batteries. But I really am a fan of the full ostaton.
Be warned they don’t make lithium AAAs so the ones bundled are just NiMH. Only the AAs are lithium. I got the one without the screen that you linked and the freaking thing has WiFi and Bluetooth so it’s now integrated into my Home Assistant instance. 😆 A battery charger.
You can find the integration on HACS/Marketplace
Oh wow, i saw a guy DIY something like that charger, but i didn’t know it existed as a proper product, now i want one too
I think I know the exact project you’re talking about, I was actually considering building one when I heard about the original ostation. So glad I didn’t DIY one.
Something is going on. I would remove and re-add the integration.
Jesus, that’s bad. I just installed an Ultraloq Bolt SE and it’s still reporting 100% charge after 2 weeks of daily use. I bought mine explicitly for battery life, I hope I don’t have the same thing happen…
Last set of batteries got me almost 18 months. Really not sure what happened here!
Dang, what lock is it?
It’s an Elok, which I think might be an NZ specific brand, but the hardware inside is the Chinese TTLock. It’s probably not the locks fault, it’s been fine up to now. This might be an issue with the batteries or it might be to do with the bluetooth connection to the gateway 🤷
Does it have WiFi fallback if the Bluetooth signal is bad? WiFi would obliterate batteries if it’s maintaining a connection.
