Batterylife Activator Reviewed 213
Daniel Rutter writes "Slashdot chewed over the BatMax Battery Life Booster - a nanotechnomagical sticker that's meant to rejuvenate lithium ion batteries - a while ago. Now I've reviewed the strikingly similar Batterylife Activator, and subjected it to actual empirical testing, with automated datalogging and everything. The results confirmed my original suspicion -- that the local Batterylife branch made a serious error of judgement when they decided to send me their product."
They should be in jail (Score:2, Insightful)
not on slashdot, they are just fraudsters and your local trading standards should be stopping these types of scam companies from operating in the first place and protect the consumer/citizen
truth in advertising should be all they need to shut them down, all of the products are false and provably so
Good job (Score:5, Insightful)
Here in the US they just recently started looking into the "Enzyte" (penis growth stuff) people, I knew it was a scam 4 years ago when I saw the first commercial. I read the enzyte people have made 50 million dollars so far (and that was sometime last year). Would you goto jail for a couple years for 50 million dollars? I would.
Re:Cheap is best (Score:1, Insightful)
Also, many modern rechargable batteries and their chargers contain sophisticated circuitry (RTFA) which can vary considerably from mfr to mfr. This probably won't have much impact initially but may greatly increase the life of the battery or simply make it safer.
Flawed Results (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to say it, but he has flawed results that do not demonstrate that the sticker is a placebo.
He used only one battery to do his test. He should have used two; one with the sticker and one without. By only using one battery, running 3 tests, then putting the sticker on and running a 4th test, he's introduced an additional variable into the equation. It could thereofre be argued that his graph (http://www.dansdata.com/images/batterylife/activ
Quick! Call the government! (Score:4, Insightful)
Ya know, while I'm not one to worship at the altar of free market and deregulation and all that crap, I really have to wonder at this statement. If people are stupid enough to pay money for something like this, maybe they deserve to loose their money. It isn't like there's a big potential for collateral damage here. Stupid people get punished, smarter people make some money, and maybe with time people will start learning to think for themselves for a change.
Re:Quick! Call the government! (Score:3, Insightful)
Reminds me of when i was in college -- the flunk courses were graded on a curve. And there were these fuckers who were always cheating and I could never score half as well as they did. So i worked hard for C's and D's, while people who were cheating were getting easy A's and B's. Then I realized -- the people who were cheating were *SETTING* the curve which I was being judged by. So I became a cheater to.
Inconclusive (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Charging/Discharge period between inital tests and activator test were completely random.
2. Only one battery was used.
3. The setup was not similar to the conditions under which the activator would be used.
4. The battery type was not similar to a cellphone.
5. The device handling the charge and discharge of the battery was not a cellphone.
I certainly don't think this product is any good but a more controlled test would have been better.
Also, according to his test the activator gave a 3% boost to the battery. What is interesting is that it is 13 discharge cycles away from Run 1. The first three charge/discharge cycles clearly showed a dependency between # of cycles and battery life. To help clarify, it would have been nice if he kept the data from the intermediate 10 runs.
Maybe it did do something? I find it hard to believe though.
Re:Quick! Call the government! (Score:5, Insightful)
But what if it was something that was fraudulent but not so obvious? Should there be a difference in how they are handled? Obvious or not, fraud is fraud. These guys shouldn't be cut any slack just becasue their fraud is a little more obvious.
Re:Well, at least this time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then it wasn't exactly a waste of time, was it?
Part of the reason people read Dan's stuff [dansdata.com] (just in case anyone missed the main link to his site) is his entertaining writing style. I almost always learn something from his articles, even if it's got nothing to do with what the article's supposedly about. Dan is obviously fully in on the joke himself or he wouldn't even be linking to things like cow tasers in his articles. It's people like you - who think reviews have to be a "waste of time" simply because the products in question are such obvious bunk - who don't seem to quite get it.
In a world where product reviews often offer little or not information at all, and where the strongest and most specific statement you might read is how one product or another is vaguely "generally good" [pcmag.com], writers like Dan are a refreshing change - he writes pieces that are always entertaining in and of themselves, often more informative than they need to be, and with plenty of useless but interesting trivia to keep you interested when the product in question is less than worthwhile. I only wish he'd review more stuff that I'm actually interested in buying (though I've become interested in buying a few things I would never have even known about but for his review).
As for this particular review, I think it's worth reminding the Slashdot crowd of the dangers of pseudo-science every now and again - pseudo-scientific articles do occasionally slip through the editing process here, and are often accepted as fact.
Right to be sceptical, but .... (Score:4, Insightful)
He also fails to repeat the experiment at all or do a control experiment, and even the one test run he does isn't exactly thorough. Also, he does appear find some improvement when using the sticker, just not as much as the company claims, so I don't see how he thinks he has shown that it doesn't work at all (except through his scientific arguments with which he apparently convinced himself even before he did the test of the impossibility the thing could work).
Most importantly - according to the company's website the device has been tested by TÜV and found to work! I'm MUCH more likely to believe the results of TÜV certification than some hobbyist's tests (TÜV is a government body which tests + approves almost everything in Germany - cars, buildings etc. People trust it to tell them if their car is fit to drive, so it is presumably capable of sufficiently thoroughly testing in determining whether some battery enhancer works as claimed.
Of course, given the incredibility of the claims regarding the device, I'm still not neccessarily convinced. I'm just saying lets not discard the possibility that it might actually work to some degree so quickly.
Instead of doing some quick hack-up test of the device, it would be much more useful if someone could start by looking at the TÜV and A-U-F tests (A-U-F is another independent body which allegedly found it to give a 31% increase in battery life to an old Nokia phone) and seeing whether they are for real, or whether there were any flaws in their method etc etc.
Re:Quick! Call the government! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Inconclusive (Score:3, Insightful)
With a smart charger that cuts all input once the battery is charged, that should have a negligible effect. Of the order of 1% total difference in run time, if any
2. Only one battery was used.
It's not conclusive evidence, but given the data failed to show any dramatic changes before/after the sticker was applied, I don't blame him for not repeating it with more batteries.
3. The setup was not similar to the conditions under which the activator would be used.
Yes, there were replicable conditions and measuring equipment. Pity that Pons and Fleishman didn't have those either.
4. The battery type was not similar to a cellphone.
Different form, similar internals. Ok, technically it has two cells where most mobiles will only have one. And that'll change the results how?
5. The device handling the charge and discharge of the battery was not a cellphone.
And his reasons for not using a phone were clearly explained. 20c worth of testing equipment is immensely easier to obtain than a dedicated laboratory with a GSM cell costing several hundred thousand dollars at a minimum. Charge/discharge of Li-I is reasonably well understood. The device and battery don't really matter, within reason.
I certainly don't think this product is any good but a more controlled test would have been better.
Possibly, but not worth the extra effort.
Re:how could they be wrong? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Good job (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps you're just not bothering to type out a long explanation, but it looks like you've fallen for one small part of the commercial. Technically, it's not a penis growth product. It's a "male enhancement" product. And that's part of why these people are so hard to nail to the wall.
(Side note for those not in the know: "Smilin' Bob" is the star of all their commercials; he's the supposed archetypical Enzyte customer, a guy whose ceaseless unholy grin sits in the gray area between smile and rictus.)
Not matter how often the Enzyte hucksters show you ads featuring people amazed at Bob's off-camera naked body, or women fingering tall, wet drinking glasses, they don't say it will make your penis longer. It's just for "male enhancement".
No matter how often they show the 'villain' of the ad holding a flaccid water hose, or with "LIMPS" emblazoned across his chest, they don't say it will make your erection harder. It's just for "male enhancement".
No matter how often they show lines of eager women desperately waiting to sit on "Santa Bob"'s lap, they don't say it will increase your stamina or reduce your refractory period. It's just for "male enhancement".
"Male enhancement" could just mean you burp louder or your nails grow faster - technically, that's an "enhancement". Or maybe your mouth muscles lock into a parody of Bob's grin, which perhaps is seen as an "enhancement" by Batman fans going to a costume party dressed as The Joker. They leave the target so nebulous that, if there's legal problems, the company could use ANY change to the person's health or even personal life as the "enhancement".
They also make Altovis, a nonsexual thing which is for giving you "more energy". Same deal there. Evidently they're just fancy caffeine pills. Sleeping less? It must be MORE ENERGY!
And even now, they're not in trouble for their ads. They're just being prodded a bit by the feds for stuff like sending you more and more of their crap (and charging you) after the "free trial" is up.
And rumor has it that once Enzyte took off, anyone who tried to take them to task over their other products, like Altovis, would have to do all their snail-mail and bank/credit card dealings with things proudly emblazoned "From the makers of Enzyte" or somesuch, in an attempt to shame people into silence, lest their bank tellers and mailmen see "Enzyte" and think they can't get it up.
bad science against bad product (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, at least this time... (Score:3, Insightful)
Who cares if he turned off the charger after a certain time or if it automatically shut off after a certain time?
--
Evan "Note the 'if he is correct' part"
Are people really this stupid?! (Score:2, Insightful)