New Battery Technology – Hybrio

I haven’t seen these before today, myself, so I hope I’m also enlightening some others on here.

Uniross have designed and have just started marketing a new rechargeable battery technology called Hybrio.

The advantage is that they have a very slow self-discharge rate. This means that if you have a camera you don’t use very frequently (or other battery powered device) the batteries will hold their charge much much longer than standard NiMH batteries.

At the moment, I think they’re only available in AA and AAA sizes from

http://www.batterylogic.co.uk/hybrio.htm

It is certainly worth looking at if you have a camera you don’t use very often, but want to keep hanging around. After 1 year the batteries will still be holding 70% of their charge – yet they’re rechargeable!

In pure BBC style, I suppose I should add that alternative battery technologies and retailers exist, and you might get a better deal by shopping around. But at £18.50 for 8 AA batteries and a charger (including delivery), I doubt it!

And here’s another reason for using them: –

One HYBRIO battery produces less waste than 500 ordinary batteries. The waste produced by one HYBRIO is 30g, the waste produced by 500 disposable batteries is 12.5Kg! By using one HYBRIO battery you are potentially saving 499 disposable batteries from your local landfill site!

One pack of AA disposable batteries costs approximately £3. One HYBRIO charger supplied with 4 AA HYBRIO batteries costs approximately £15. Rechargeable up to 500 times, with HYBRIO you could save a whacking great £1485 when compared to using disposable batteries!

There’s just one caveat that I can think of right now; I’m not sure how much charge they hold. So you might find that when you are using them, they might only last as well as alkaline batteries (which isn’t as good as NiMH), but you could – I suppose – afford a couple more sets to keep as spares for that sudden burst of activity.

I still think NiMH or Li-ion (rechargeable) is better for frequently used cameras. But my DV Camcorder sees little use, relatively speaking, so I’ll be looking for the technology to appear with other battery styles and delivery voltages.