they have the same form factor, and they have not changed much over decades in capability and certainly not size.
Phone batteries do not do this - they are designed to fit in a certain (few) phones, and market change on phone sizes mean there is no standard size.
When phone batteries get higher density, then it's likely a readeoff between adding more other features and keeping the same battery size - and as other features change, so do battery needs. The rapid evolution of phone tech, in every aspect, makes it cheaper (and wiser) to re-eval each piece quickly, or you get beat in the market place.
Maybe in decades this will settle down, like it took for the disposable batteries to standardize over decades...
It would be nice if that wasn't the case.
I've seen power tools from certain companies adopt the same battery type across multiple of their tools, so that they are interchangeable. I can imagine something like that happening industry-wide with a bit more lawmaking, like happened with USB types.
Actually, it would be even better if we had a few common phone battery standards and every manufacturer had to use those (ideally with removable batteries). This might mean that phones would have to be built with the batteries in mind, not vice versa, which doesn't seem like a bad thing to me.
Then again, personally I wouldn't even mind if there were like 10-20 common phone form factors in the first place.
Mostly industrial/professional tools so far but I hope it will continue to grow. Yes, I have Bosch stuff. :)
https://www.protoolreviews.com/power-tool-manufacturers-who-...
That's because electric power tools are sold as a platform: you choose a brand and buy in to their platform. For example I mainly use a driver + drill so bought in to Milwaukee. Ended up buying a lot of other kit from them too.
No thanks. Things like this almost always have unintended consequences.
Why isn't it done? Where's the catch?
For powering iPhones, you can buy a few 18650 with a type-C/lightning case from AliExpress, but most people will prefer just buying a powerbank.
How does that compare with NiMh, or whichever is the current standard chemistry for rechargeable AA/AAAs? I may be misguided here, but I generally avoid regular single-use AA/AAAs, as it feels like a complete waste of energy - even if properly disposed of, I don't imagine they get recharged by some factory and put back on the market, so all the embodied energy that went into making them is lost.
> For powering iPhones, you can buy a few 18650 with a type-C/lightning case from AliExpress, but most people will prefer just buying a powerbank.
At least some of the power banks I've disassembled in the past were just 18650s with a case, USB port and charging circuitry, so I can't blame people for buying it already pre-assembled.
What's the minimum voltage we could get without intervention? I'm not well-versed in batteries, but I do recall that a typical Li-Ion cell has 3.7V on output, which might be tricky to fit into one AA/AAA, but isn't that far from two AA/AAAs.
While there's no standard way for devices to accept multiple AA/AAAs, to a first approximation, a Li-Ion cell reformatted into a shape of two AAs with ~1-2mm "space" between them, would fit all my remotes and a third of my children's toys - so I could see a "Li-Ion double AA" working as a product, provided it could shed that 0.7V somewhere. The biggest problem would be devices accepting odd number of batteries.
This specific battery is unlikely to work for other devices because the controller has an extra connector, presumably to detect it and control charging (which happens over a USB cable). You'd at least need an XBox controller to charge it.
Some manufacturers also make Li-Ion replacements for multi-AA devices, but thats then specific to manufacturer and device and the exact placement it expects.
I do have devices where the 2xAAs are in a column configuration.
Edit: Replaced remote with devices (it's a keyboard not a remote)
But the voltage remains the same: 3.7 discharged and 4.2 volts fully charged.
I really don't care if the outer dimensions of the battery are sloppy by 5 mm or if the capacity is smaller (or larger) by a few hundred or even a thousand mAh - so long as I can replace the _absolutely dead_ battery already in the device. I'll pad out the rest with styrofoam or even just squeeze some tacky clay in there to prevent it from rattling.
