this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
386 points (82.2% liked)
Technology
59378 readers
3143 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Did the power check work or was it snakeoil I remember trying to see it while hurting my hand.
It did, see Technology Connections' latest video on it, he explains fully how it worked. Quite clever tbh.
Although, he admits in the video to "faking" his footage of it working, by using a off-camera heat source. (His batteries were quite dead.)
But, as someone that lived through this time, they did work, as long as you pressed hard enough in the right places. It was hard to tell if the battery was dead or if you weren't pressing hard enough
If you watch the whole video he does it more "for real" later on, plugging the casing into a power source to simulate a battery discharging.. Plus I've had some of these PowerCheck batteries, and they were not old, it was like... 2017? So maybe they rebooted it for a short time at some point?? Anywho, if you pressed really hard it did work I think, but also I think I was doing it wrong for a long time as well lol
Yeah I used them. It was somewhat handy.
The video is in the article.
Oh ok my bad
oh maybe might watch
It was gimmicky as hell. Did it work? Who cares. It was irrelevant for 90% of consumers.
I really miss it honestly. Kids, so, so many batteries in my house.
Dad, my blah blah blah isn't working right. Then I have to go dig out this monster:
Your kids will inherit that charger, and their kids afterward.
Hopefully not because the kind of batteries that work with this reader are awful batteries. Single use disposable batteries are an absolutely stupid idea we should be moving away from
Works fine on my rechargeable AAs.
Why does it look so weird? I'm not even sure what shape I'm looking at.
Just an inch thick plastic box with a perspective drawing sticker on top of it, But the box is shaped to fit the perspective drawing.
Haha yeah, it looks like a fake picture or some cartoon.
I just use an old multimeter that I saved from eWaste 😂😇
I have no lack of proper test equipment, this is actually kind of nice because the kids can use it easily without trying to wrangle a battery and two leads.
What in the fuckiest of fucks is this? 😱
Ancient voltmeter for children
i think it did