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Comment by tirant | Hacker News Reader

What about typical AA and AAA batteries? They’ve been everywhere for decades.

Are they really more sustainable that these one-time -used lithium ones?

I think if we sold daily short-term use items with sealed AA/AAA with the amount of sales as disposable vapes, we'd be having the same discussion about AA/AAA batteries now. But we don't. Aside from anomalies like, say, the Gameboy or Game Gear, traditional batteries are used in things like remotes or smoke detectors, where you might need to replace the batteries every few months.

> Aside from anomalies like, say, the Gameboy or Game Gear

And at the time there weren't good rechargable options. If modern NiMH had existed a few years earlier, lasting just as long as alkaline for a dollar each, they would have been the normal power source for those hungry devices.

Even back then, people I knew would use NiCad in those devices to save money.

I had an external battery pack for my Gameboy, could play and charge off the wall at the same time.

IIRC, no indicator of charge, just had to guess based on the contrast setting. I think it did eventually fail to hold a charge, but it lasted several years, at least. Not as good as NiMH from several years later though, but it was better than buying batteries all the time.

I've only used rechargeable AA/AAA batteries for a decade.

Not having to buy new ones is very convenient.

My favorite are the ones with built-in USB-C charging - they are so handy to have around! Posting here to help more people discover them:

https://www.amazon.com/MXBatt-Rechargeable-Battery-Capacity-...

I’m nervous that they’ll have poor or defective BMSes and catch fire.

Yeah, this worries me a bit! Never seen any issues, and I'm only using them in low-impact environments (keyboards + mice), and only charging while present.

Someone in the reviews posted test results and found they only had a 253-333mAh capacity at 1.5v (so 0.5Wh). 10440 lithium-ion cells (which closely match AAA size) have 250-350mAh at 3.7v (say, 1.295Wh).

If they actually had the 1200mAh capacity they say they'd have 1.8Wh which is much higher than a straight lithium-ion cell without the charging and voltage regulation circuitry taking up space.

I believe the review knocking the capacity, but I'll note the label says 1200mWh, not mAh.

Though even at their promised capacity, that's barely better than a normal rechargeable AAA.

Not powerful enough to power an ecig coil... they would die after a few pulls at most.

When was the last time you saw a AA/AAA battery on the ground ?

I see discarded disposable vapes multiple time a day every day, I don't remember the last time I saw a battery.

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