What Happened To Duracell PowerCheck?

What with the weird freebooting article? This ‘article’ is just a description of Alec’s video with the clickbait cranked up to ten. Gotta love a major corporation using small creators’ work for free ad revenue…

Video on technology connections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsA3X40nz9w

But the video purports that normal people don’t really test batteries.

Yeah, it was a novelty that increased the price to manufacture and didn't actually add anything of value to users.

Either you put batteries in something and they worked or they didn't, and if they stopped working the next step is try different batteries whether or not the little gauge showed it had charge left.

Now if it was added to rechargeable batteries, it would be pretty useful because tou could do something with the knowledge of a battery being at 50%. But a lot of systems with rechargeable batteries have them built in and some other way to show remaining charge like a percentage on a screen.

I was a kid then, but I remember that I had to push so hard my fingers hurt... I used a multimeter.

It turned out that batteries randomly lying around are always empty. Functioning batteries are still in the device it's operating or in the box it was sold in.

It broke too many thumbs.

This guy is great. He can make anything sound interesting.

He used old batteries, but I actually had new Duracell batteries with this feature very recently, in 2022 or so (Germany).

Did the power check work or was it snakeoil I remember trying to see it while hurting my hand.

It never went away. I have a duracell battery with power check sitting next to me on my desk

Does anyone remember the battery testers that were built into the packaging? I think they were based on the same concept.

I have a really distinct memory of finding a bunch of these in a friend’s house when I was a kid and every one was empty. After watching the TC video I think it’s more likely I just wasn’t pressing hard enough and had no way to know that. Anyway, I can see why they stopped making them.

I remember those.

Would be nice to have them on my 18650s

If they are not rechargeable, they don't make sense, you just use them and throw them in the used up recycle pile. And if they are rechargeable, you already have a charger that does it.

It failed often enough that it wasn't all that useful. A cheap battery tester is better. And for 9volts you can also use the tongue test, lol (don't really though). My grandfather used to do that all the time.

There were cheaper ones with a tester attached to the box, maybe they were energizer?

My dad used to just put them on his tongue for a power check. Not entirely sure how that worked. Personally I just use a multimeter.

Just use your $200+ Fluke to check the batteries, problem solved.

We just can't have nice things

They checked out