Cordless phone batteries, why do they not last?

I was going to say Panasonic. I've got through several cordless phones over the years and found Panasonic to be the best in every respect.

Are the batteries always warm? If so it suggests they are being overcharged.

--
*To err is human. To forgive is against company policy.  

    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.

I don't want to hijack your thread, but it seems related.

Why do cordless phones no longer have a switch to turn off the wireless when you're not talking on the phone. They often have a swtich for the bell, which makes it even sillier. I can hear the real phone ring, and I don't need to hear the cordless phone ring, and the batteries would last 4 to 9 times as long or longer if it didn't drain the battery sitting there 90% of the time waiting for the phone to ring. More than 90% since I do most of my calling, answering, and talking on a wired phone.

It's not in the charger because I took it to the sofa while I watch tv, or I took it to bed because I need to make a call early in the morning, and don't want to have to get out of bed to answer it.

I think you will find that the chargers are cooking your batteries. Do you recharge your cell phone after EVERY call? Do you recharge your cordless drill after every hole you drill?

Cordless phone bases operate on the premis that they should recharge the battery each time the phone is re-placed into the cradle.

You can argue that a charger should/could be smarter. But, how do you balance this against battery running low while you are on the "next" call?

I.e., *you* assume the responsibility for your cell phone (and drill, etc.) charging policy. If *you* forget to charge it, you blame yourself when/if it runs out of charge.

OTOH, if your cordless phone "ran out" during a call because the cradle opted *not* to top off the battery, you would claim the charger/phone was the problem. So, it errs on the side of keeping the battery topped off at all times.

Note that you can take responsibility for your cordless phone's charging policy -- just don't put it on the cradle until you

*think* it needs more charge...

I've seen all sorts of cordless phones -- none of which I really have liked. One feature I now miss is a battery-backed *base* (the last cordless system had this feature -- you only miss it when the power fails and you can neither make or receive calls!)

Per Ignoramus30138:

How many years did you get out of the originals?

Replacements?

On my Uniden system, bought back in 2001, I got 8 years and six months out of the originals. Just replaced all of them last month.

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PeteCresswell

About 1.5 or 2.

i

In news:iegqeb$v4a$ snipped-for-privacy@speranza.aioe.org, D Yuniskis typed on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 16:15:47 -0700: [...]

I have some VTech phones (about 8 years old) that use the same battery in the base that the handset uses and they are really easy to swap. Although LCD screen is unreadable after a year or two. So they were a great idea up to this point.

But why not do what I do? Just use an UPS (uninterruptedly power supply) for the base, lights, clocks, computer, etc. that you don't want to shut down when you lose power. Sure you have to buy them large enough to power all of the things that you want to run (and probably more than one for different locations). But the base station would probably run for days easy even with a smaller modest one. They usually start at around

30 bucks and go up way past tens of thousands of dollars for a whole house one. But you probably don't want to do the whole house anyway. ;-)

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Centrino Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

Yes, we had one before (had a little "drawer" in the base that held the battery pack and kept it charged).

I have three ~1500VA units in my office area and a couple of

500VA units elsewhere. The phone base is in the kitchen, though. Putting even one of the *tiniest* UPS's there would be an eyesore.

Power outages here are not common (though the half-second "wink outs" sometimes are -- at least often enough to warrant the UPS's on the computers). I suspect we have only had one "long" one (more than an hour) in ~20 years. It was during this outage that it dawned on me that we had no phone service because of the unpowered base! :>

(I dragged an old Trimline corded set out and plugged it into a walljack to solve that problem)