A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

> The third time someone calls to complain that the alkaline batteries they put in this leaked, they'll wish they used a soldered-in 3V lithium primary cell. Even though that goes against a certain ethos.

Those aren't alkaline batteries. Energizer makes AA/AAA-size lithium primary batteries, which is what they are using. They wont leak and have a 25 year shelf life.

https://data.energizer.com/pdfs/l91.pdf

And I don't think they'd get complaints about alkaline batteries leaking. I think pretty much anyone (even those who don't understand batteries), would tend to blame the batteries themselves, not the device they're in.

I saw that they recommended Energizer lithiums. So would I. Recommendations won't change that behavior, which I am very familiar with. It's ok that you aren't if you're willing to learn something today.

He means that idiot customers will use the wrong batteries and get mad, and they absolutely will. The modal customer doesn't understand anything about battery chemistry and will unconditionally buy the cheapest battery at the store.

No amount of intelligence or understanding of battery chemistry will make batteries any less dismal and disappointing to the consumer.

Ironically, the very cheapest carbon-zinc batteries probably would be kind of OK in this application.