So, it’s basically a boost circuit in the form of a sleeve that fits over your alkaline batteries to let you drain the last bit of life out of them. It doesn’t actually make them last longer. It makes them useful longer in devices that don’t already incorporate boost circuits.
sounds like a miniaturized “joule thief”, i guess?
Yeah, basically, except technically, a “joule thief” is a complete LED light circuit, including the LED. Here’s a link to the website of the guy who claims to have invented the “joule thief” torch.
Yes, this is interesting from a “civilian” point of view, but we, a hard core flashaholics, know this is just a nicely packaged joule thief 
Wouldn't this just make alkaline's leak faster?
Hmm, seems interesting!
Imagine this with primaries extending your flashlights life for some time.
Not sure if high or turbo modes would get any boost, but low or moonlight could give some nice runtime boost.
If only this thing was thin enough to get into regular flashlights tube! Now, use it with AAA inside AA light, perhaps?
This actualy sound to me like : Loose 20 pounds in just 2 days
I suspect some will jump at such a product….not me. The claim “extends the life of your batteries up to 8x,” is really stretching the truth.
I don’t think they are stretching the truth, as much as they are simply not telling all the details. It’s kinda like the FL1 ratings for flashlight run-time. A manufacturer can have a 1000lm light that steps down to 100lm after one minute, and claim 10 hours run time, because of how the rating is measured. They are making the same kind of claim here. In low drain devices, you can run a 1.5v cell down to basically zero where it is truly unable to give any more. The whole time, the circuit is boosting it to a usable voltage for the device it is powering. What they’re not telling you is that this thing isn’t designed for high drain loads.
The link I gave above is from the guy who claims to have invented the “joule thief” and he says that a “dead” cell can power an LED continuously for a week! There is no black magic or snake oil needed. It’s just doing what it is designed to do. Just don’t expect to use it in your latest pocket rocket flashlight. It might extend your run-time on lower modes, but that’s about it.
“It might extend your run-time on lower modes, but that’s about it.” - and IMHO that is alot, given some folks affection with sub lumen modes, good for SHTF gear as well :)!
In this thread, HKJ suggests that alkaline-only devices may be able to use NimH cells with this sleeve. I think, if it works that way, it might be useful for some things, still mostly low-drain devices.
I have bunch(58 to be exact) of Chinese Pairdeer AAA Ni-Mh’s that just sit unused, bought them on sale for 0.09 euros per pack of two, some were pack of four, cost the same, all had voltage way below what would be considered fit for Ni-Mh, charged them up to normal, so Im eager to put them to good use and see how long they can handle rough usage :D!
That plus I have no place to use AAA’s either, only Thrunite Ti and thats it.
So, yeah, for the price I would be interested in this tool to power up AA lights on their lowest mode!
I can’t get the company’s site to load, but I wonder if the author misinterpreted what they said. I gather from this quote in the article that it is able to extract 80% of the REMAINING energy after the battery would normally be considered to be depleted.
“The physics department of San Jose State University also reviewed the Batteriser. “We tested the Batteriser sleeve in our lab and we confirmed that the Batteriser taps into 80 percent of energy that is usually thrown away,” said the university’s Dr. Kiumars Parvin in a statement given to PC World.”
KuoH