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Comment on An out-of-warranty battery almost left this paralyzed man’s exoskeleton useless

HurlingDurling@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

Honestly, the law should be that the batteries need to be designed to be replaced by off the shelf options. Basically, add instructions on how to relatively easily to replace the battery cells with the same ones found inside laptop batteries that can be ordered off Amazon or similar places.

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skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
But people don’t want that. They want small, sleek devices that don’t weigh much. Imagine what smartphones would look like if they still had to be powered by AAA batteries.

From what I can tell the battery in question wasn’t the one powering the exoskeleton itself, but the battery inside watch controlling the device.

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- corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  
  Imagine what smartphones would look like if they still had to be powered by AAA batteries.
  
  That’s a false comparison. We have Lithium and NiMH batteries available off the shelf for common things that aren’t phones. The technology is available for a COTS phone battery replacement, as long as it matched a common form-factor.
  
  And if phones can’t work around a common battery form-factor but yet all look like fucking candy-bars, then I call bullshit.
  
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- kent_eh@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
  
  But people don’t want that.
  
  Until something goes wrong and they discover (usually too late) that they actually did want that.
  
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  - skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    Exactly. Everyone wants the cheap and easy solution when something breaks, but nobody wants to pay the price for the cheap and easy solution to be available upfront, because what are the chances they run into a problem like that?
    
    In this specific case, there is a credible ulterior motive for the company not to make cheap repairs available: the government will pay the bill if they sell a new expensive product and all the training/rehabilitation that comes with it. On the other hand, there is a very valid reason why things like batteries are so expensive to replace and why you can’t find replacement batteries for a lot of products a certain amount of time after production ends.
    
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    kent_eh@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago
    
    On the other hand, there is a very valid reason why things like batteries are so expensive to replace and why you can’t find replacement batteries for a lot of products a certain amount of time after production ends.
    
    On the other other hand, there are tons of commonly available industry standard batteries that a manufacturer could choose to use, if they wanted to.
    
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