Teric owners, have you required repair or replacement service?

[stuartv]

Still doesn't explain it.

Charging a battery to 100% imposes as much battery wear as charging from near zero to 80%. But unless you are a professional diver you aren't diving enough to put that much battery wear in six months to a year.

I typically charge my Teric once a month, so in a year you have maybe a little more than dozen charges from 50% to 100%.

Even the worst battery should be good for a couple of hundred wear cycles and still retain 90% battery capacity. The battery in my Suunto 7, which is probably very similar has been drained to 50% nearly every day for the past three years, and it still retains similar battery life as I got it three years ago.

Which is why I think the issue isn't the battery. Unless they are buying cheap reject batteries there is no way that they should be dying this quickly. Perhaps they need to adjust the maximum voltage that it charges to, maybe there is a memory or software issue that needs fixing. But it shouldn't be up to the consumer to figure this out.

I did some reading on charging Li-ion batteries to 100%.

Pretty much everything I've been able to find suggests two things:

- charging to 100% frequently does degrade battery life, compared to charging to 80%.

- charging to 100% and then immediately using it is not so bad. But, charging to 100% and then letting it sit for a prolong period is the worst. (which is exactly what non-pro divers are probably doing)

I also note that the idea of "if you're not a pro diver then you aren't diving enough to put that much wear on the battery" may not be fair, for a couple of reasons.

If you are diving all the time, then the battery would not sit at 100% for a prolonged period, so that actually may be better for battery wear, not worse.

If you are not diving frequently, then how long is your Teric sitting on the charger, being constantly topped up to 100%? And how often is it being left to sit for a prolonged period with a 100% charge?

I suspect that some chargers are also an issue. Maybe all chargers. How many chargers will top up a Teric and then literally shut off on attempting to charge any more? I suspect that almost all chargers will take it to 100%, stop charging, then, at SOME point, kick into a charging cycle again to top it up when it drops to some lower point. So, it is being charged to 100% and then topped up from (just say for example) 96% back to 100% over and over until you remove it from the charger. In your mind, you think it was one charging cycle. But from the battery's point of view, it could have been 20 charging cycles (all to 100%).

Anyway, my understanding is that the Shearwater will be releasing a firmware update for the Teric soon that will fix the battery issue. It will not fix batteries that are already damaged. But, it should stop good batteries from being damaged in the future.

Side note: I got a solar-powered battery pack thing a few months ago. It has a solar panel on one side, a Qi wireless charging pad on the other side, and ports for USB cables for wired charging of other devices or wired charging of the battery pack from line power.

I found when using it to charge my cell phone that it actually DOES charge to 100% and then totally stop. When you turn it on, it will power the USB ports (to charge my phone or whatever). But, when it detects no draw on the USB port for some amount of time, then the whole battery pack shuts off. Pretty cool for charging a Teric, I imagine. Not so cool when you expect to wake up to a phone at 100% and find out that it it hit 100% at 11pm the night before and has been running down ever since. lol!

 

[stuartv]

One other thought to add:

I was also told that at least one computer that the teller knew of is programmed to say it is at 100% when it's really only at 80%. I.e. it never actually charges to a "real" 100%. It always just charges to 80%, so that it preserves its battery life. But it SAYS it's at 100%.

So, while we probably all have devices (e.g. cell phones) that we charge to 100% on a frequent basis, and they don't show signs of degrading (at ANYTHING like the rate of the Teric battery degradation), that doesn't necessarily prove that it's okay to charge to 100% regularly. All those devices could be programmed to only charge to something less than the battery's actual max capacity.

 

[Manatee Diver]

So, while we probably all have devices (e.g. cell phones) that we charge to 100% on a frequent basis, and they don't show signs of degrading (at ANYTHING like the rate of the Teric battery degradation), that doesn't necessarily prove that it's okay to charge to 100% regularly. All those devices could be programmed to only charge to something less than the battery's actual max capacity.

Or you can view it another way they correctly programmed it to prevent unnecessary battery damage.

With exception of not pulling the computer at 80%, I followed all the tips to minimize battery wear. And yet I still get the excessive battery drain.

I would have more confidence if Shearwater would actually acknowledged the issue publicly. Gave us a solid reason for the issue, and an ETA to fix it. But so far I have zero confidence that Shearwater will fix the issue, as I've been promised "This time it is fixed" for at least two years now.

 

[stuartv]

Or you can view it another way they correctly programmed it to prevent unnecessary battery damage.

With exception of not pulling the computer at 80%, I followed all the tips to minimize battery wear. And yet I still get the excessive battery drain.

I would have more confidence if Shearwater would actually acknowledged the issue publicly. Gave us a solid reason for the issue, and an ETA to fix it. But so far I have zero confidence that Shearwater will fix the issue, as I've been promised "This time it is fixed" for at least two years now.

I totally agree that it's a pipedream until there is actually new firmware to download. But, I am *somewhat* hopeful because I believe Shearwater has a new CEO as of less than a month ago, and I think the directive to release a fix for the Teric is coming from him.

Let's all cross our fingers and hold our breath! lol!

 

[scubadada]

Phones, tablets, computers are far more resilient than the Teric, why is that?

Has Shearwater ever addressed their battery problems publicly? I would think this would be a good opportunity to be more transparent and to offer useful information, perhaps like the charging recommendation.

Edit: I see this was mentioned above, while I was typing

 

[berndo]

With exception of not pulling the computer at 80%, I followed all the tips to minimize battery wear. And yet I still get the excessive battery drain.

I would have more confidence if Shearwater would actually acknowledged the issue publicly. Gave us a solid reason for the issue, and an ETA to fix it. But so far I have zero confidence that Shearwater will fix the issue, as I've been promised "This time it is fixed" for at least two years now.

Not storeing it at full charge is good. Also, don't let the cell get hot (so, no fast charging) and don't drain the battery too low. Keeping it between 20% and 90% or even 30% and 80% will make it last longer.
The issue with cells in in general is that they don't all have the same capacity when they come from the manufacturer and don't age at the same rate.
Some will be just fine but some will age and lose capacity rather quickly. You might have gotten one of the latter.
I'm not sure how SW could fix this, appart from offering free or really cheap battery changes. It's likely an issue with the current battery technology.
When you don't use is regularly it would be best for the battery to go down to 30% or 40% and charge it back up to 80% or 90%. It would be really annoying to do to, if you only use it once every 6 month or so.

So, while we probably all have devices (e.g. cell phones) that we charge to 100% on a frequent basis,

It's true but people usually don't keep their phone plugged in at 100% for long and top it up before it gets super low. When you do that, you still have low DOD (depth of discharge) and with low DOD you get more charging cycles and the cells don't age as fast.

 

[Manatee Diver]

Some will be just fine but some will age and lose capacity rather quickly. You might have gotten one of the latter.

I am on about a dozen batteries, either I have horrible luck or they have a problem.

 

[stuartv]

I am on about a dozen batteries, either I have horrible luck or they have a problem.

I don't think it's you having horrible luck.

I don't KNOW anything. Except what I was told by someone in a position to be "in the know".

What I have been told is that they did have a bad batch of batteries in early production.

Since then, it is simply down to being charged to 100% (the actual max capacity of the battery) too many times (possibly combined with being stored at 100%).

 

[scubadada]

I'd love to hear from Shearwater regarding battery issues, cause(s) and fix(es).

 

[Divin'Papaw]

I'd love to hear from Shearwater regarding battery issues, cause(s) and fix(es).

As someone standing on the outside looking in, I believe this type of information is sorely lacking. Yes, Shearwater is standing behind the units. But what are they doing to communicate known issues, best practices, resolutions, etc? There seem to be crickets here when I would expect them to be more proactive and open with what they have or are learning and seeing.