We are all aware that a smartphone becomes largely unusable after a few years.
Assuming you didn’t break it yourself, it’s very likely that the battery will fail. It may not die completely, but it will deteriorate to the point where it will become annoying to constantly carry a power bank in your bag.
Same thing with computers. Although my old MacBook Pro from 2019 is still fast enough for what I do in my daily work, the battery doesn’t last more than 45 minutes. Essentially, it’s completely useless unless you’re near a power source.
I had a period two or three years ago where I collected Ryobi gadgets. I bought a bunch of very expensive 18V batteries and soon the garage was full of tools, fans, lights, and cleaning machines that all relied on my battery collection.
How do you think it’s going three years later? Not great. Two batteries recently completely gave up and I’m dreading this summer’s off-grid renovation project. I was also stupid enough to buy cheaper drum copies on Amazon. They all died within a year…
But the worst thing for me is always all the IP cameras that start to fail one after the other.
My Arlo cameras suddenly no longer hold a charge. We’re talking about 8-9 of them, all of which became completely unusable after just 2-3 years.
Some are due to the fact that the seal does not withstand northern bad weather (resulting in water leaks). The one who suddenly didn’t want to talk to the base station anymore. But the rest is due to battery death. And then I didn’t let the batteries completely discharge, which I had to learn the hard way was the right thing to do.
I forgot one of my two drones for six months and I wanted to recharge the four batteries I had. Two of them had died and could not be restarted.
Now I have to set reminders in the calendar and have a recharge party at home once a quarter. My wife can’t believe it when I install 50-60 batteries in different stations and charge like there is no tomorrow. But apparently that’s what needs to be done to keep batteries alive, which are in many cases one of the most expensive components of a product. It’s not easy to be an early adopter of new technologies.
It seems that the entire electronics industry takes it for granted that we can buy new every 2-3 years. I understand that battery technology limits many products, but this needs to be made clear from the moment we purchase the products. Like how you should take care of your lithium-ion darlings.
I buy new Arlo batteries more often than laser toner for my printer. It’s not good !
This article was originally published on our sister publication M3 and was translated and adapted from Swedish.
