[LoganDark]

Everyone's been talking about breakthroughs for batteries for years. Until I see one on the shelf, it doesn't matter. Go make them better, and come back once they actually are!

I've even seen ceramic batteries being tested on YouTube as long as 7 YEARS ago [0], but I still can't actually buy one.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJXRyWQgOY4

[ac29]

> Everyone's been talking about breakthroughs for batteries for years.

Lithium iron phosphate has quietly gotten price competitive with lead acid and its wildly better tech. Not particularly sexy but its having a real world impact (LFP is commonly used for solar storage among many other uses).

[konschubert]

I think CATL bringing sodium-ion to industrial scale should count as "on the shelf".

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/04/28/catl-secures-worlds-l...

[LoganDark]

Hmm, that is industrial-scale which I wouldn't say is something I can really buy but that is cool nonetheless!

[zardo]

They're available. Though you probably shouldn't invest to heavily in gen1 (production) sodium-ion batteries. It's looking like they'll be obsolete pretty quick.

https://battery-tech.net/battery-markets-news/gotion-unveils...

[jillesvangurp]

CATL's recent sodium ion battery production start is their second generation. The first generation was a few years ago.

[triceratops]

> something I can really buy

What are you going to use them for?

Consumer batteries are already good enough IMO. Cheaper batteries in large quantities are what we need more of.

[danaris]

I would agree if I could buy a AA battery that would power my toothbrush for a year. Or one that could be rechargeable with easily-available chargers reliably for a decade (and without having to drop 0.2V to achieve it...).

Any kind of consumer power technology can only ever be truly "good enough" if it never causes any inconvenience or significant cost.

[tzs]

Here are some rechargeable AA batteries that were specifically tested and worked in toothbrushes [1].

For almost all devices there is no good reason to care that the nominal voltage of NiMH rechargeable batteries 0.2V lower than the nominal voltage of alkaline non-rechargeable batteries. Alkaline batteries have a steeper initial discharge curve and pretty quickly drop below 1.3V.

If your device has trouble with 1.3V it is either going to almost instantly stop working if it is a high load device, stop working after using maybe 10% of the battery's capacity of it is medium load, and maybe 30% for a light load.

On the lasting a decade or more front, I'm still using 19 of the 24 1st generation Eneloops I bought sometime before March. 2 died and 3 are missing. Last time I went through and measured their capacities, about 3 years ago, they averaged 1886 mAh. They were sold as having an average 2000 mAh capacity with a minimum of 1900 mAh.

I've also got 15 4th generation Eneloops bought 2014-08. Those are also all still fine, with an average capacity of 1960 mAh.

You might wonder why I bought the 4th generation ones since the 1st were still fine. It is because they greatly improved the self-discharge. 1st generation was specced at retaining 80% charge after a year. 4th generation is specced at retaining 90/80/75/70 after 1/3/5/10 years. I've got some lower power applications where changing batteries is annoying, so I want to minimize self-discharge.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-rechargeable...

[danaris]

> For almost all devices there is no good reason to care that the nominal voltage of NiMH rechargeable batteries 0.2V lower than the nominal voltage of alkaline non-rechargeable batteries. Alkaline batteries have a steeper initial discharge curve and pretty quickly drop below 1.3V.

The few times I've measured the voltage of my non-rechargeable AA batteries (which, granted, was infrequently, and not recently), I haven't seen them drop below 1.3V until they've been in use a while.

And I've much more reliably observed that when I try to use rechargeables in my electric toothbrushes (Oral-B Pro Clean, the kind with separately moving round and long brush sections, which are, alas, no longer available anywhere I've been able to find), they start out very sluggish, and gradually descend to near-uselessness, while using non-rechargeables makes the toothbrush very energetic at the start, declining fairly steadily over a month or three, with it matching the level of the rechargeable at something like 2/3 of the way down.

I'll take a look at the Wirecutter link; thanks!

[BobaFloutist]

> Any kind of consumer power technology can only ever be truly "good enough" if it never causes any inconvenience or significant cost.

I mean, that's not the case with current consumer power technology

[layer8]

Smartphone batteries that last a month instead of just a day would be nice.

[konschubert]

My point is that this is clearly out of the lab.

[yCombLinks]

They are better and keep getting better and cheaper. Iteratively rather than one giant leap, but undeniable.

[s0a]

been tracking this sector for years and we did hit a major inflection point in the last 12 months

[gruez]

What actually changed?

[DannyBee]

So random consumer who just bought a ton of batteries here: i don't follow the hype closely, nor am i a crazy battery dude, but i have tracked over the years the cost of doing battery backup vs generator, etc.

It's definitely the case for me (and friends of mine), that between reasonably priced batteries, inverters,etc, doing good battery backup for the house (and peak demand shaving/etc, i use a lot of power and take advantage of time of use tariffs) is now less than half the price of a generator.

Most of my friends spent 35-45k on a generator.

I will have spent <20k on batteries + inverters. It would actually be even less, but i have 600amps of split phase for the house, and 150 amps of 480v 3 phase for the shop, so i need two different kinds of inverters.

It is all literally being installed right now.

I would actually go completely off grid, but i live in a historic area and have slate roofs so can't really do solar easily ;)

As for what changed - 12 months ago this setup would have been almost double the price, just because of the availability (or lack thereof) of the right kinds of products necessary to achieve it. I know because i priced it :)

Availability here isn't in terms of stock, but literally in terms of "variety and choice of product".

For example - the availability of UL certified low cost 48v batteries in various sizes has skyrocketed in the past year. Lots of states require UL certification, assuming you are doing this in a permitted/etc way) Additionally, a lot more outdoor batteries are now available (my setup is outdoors but mostly protected).

The availability of choices in higher kVA but still residential grade inverters has also skyrocketed, etc.

As for why the price was doubled - before i would have needed 2x the number of inverters, and you really couldn't get a good 480v inverter except with high volt batteries that are wildly less available and wildly more expensive. On top of that, the batteries you could use that were UL certified and outdoor rated or could easily be done in outdoor enclosures was much lower than it is now.

[phtrivier]

> Most of my friends spent 35-45k on a generator.

Honestly curious: why do you need a generator ? And more to the point, why do "most of you friends" need one (35-45k seems like a huge investment, so it would not be some vanity purchase, right ?)

Is that customary where you live, because the grid is unreliable ?

[DannyBee]

It's fairly customary for folks who can afford it.

So, there are two issues:

1. The grid is now pretty unreliable. Georgia Power overall is a great company to work with (compared to say PG&E), but power quality has dropped out the past few years in some areas.

I've had plenty of equipment destroyed due to grid spikes and other weirdness that just didn't occur a few years ago. To give a concrete example: About 3 weeks ago, there were 4 days where literally every arc fault breaker in the house would trip randomly. Why? Because the incoming waveform became super noisy[1], and arc fault breakers are tricky beasts :).

They do notice and fix these things eventually, but the practical time to resolution is days, not hours.

2. We live in an area where the power lines are above ground and trees are aging out. They were planted over 150 years ago, and for a lot of these trees, the lifespan is 125-150 years. So we don't just get taken out by storms, but just nature :)

Georgia power puts new lines underground exclusively, and has moved a lot underground even around us, but our street is the last on the line of service that is both above ground and quite long. As a result, literally any issue/disconnect over about a 2 mile length with tons and tons of old trees, takes us out. This is also partially the reason our power quality sucks so much - any issue is more likely to affect us more than others.

Again - when it comes to outages they are quite fast at repair, having dismantled and removed insanely huge trees, and then repaired the line, almost always within 24 hours.

But it's still annoying. Combined with #1, it's just easier to be semi-off grid (IE monitor grid and swap over when grid is gone or sucking) with a generator or equivalent. Note that because we all own historic homes built in the early 1900's, our electricity usage is is significantly higher than normal just due to lack of insulation, etc. Retrofits only help so much for various practical reasons.

In a newly built home, the generator cost would probably be closer to 15-20k. Battery cost would be similarly half. Nothing to sneeze at, of course, but still.

[1]. I have a very high end fluke power analyzer (a fluke 1775) that i've had for years to debug power quality issues. These are power quality analyzers meant to be used to test service issues like this. I actually bought it when i got tired of having PG&E lie to me in California.

[intrepideng]

I would be interested in hearing more about the system you installed, if you don't mind sharing. I'll probably be taking the plunge in a year or two.

[DannyBee]

Bug me at my email, and i'll happily send you pictures/etc

[LoganDark]

I would love to see one I can actually buy! Let me know once there's one I can actually buy.

I've been having this issue for years of everyone being so excited about things that I can't actually buy. I don't care! I would love to be excited too, but it's just tiring now.

I wish there were some kind of aggregator for exciting achievements that you can actually buy. I'm tired of all this premature hype!

[gosub100]

They will be delivered as soon as fusion power plants come online to charge them.

I agree with you, I'm sick of hearing about the "developments" in batteries, nano materials, and fusion. Need an add blocker for these.