The 10 year battery life – myth or reality?

8 Feb 2016

Myths and legends are usually the subject of incredible beauty, unsurpassed strength or attempting what mere mortals assume is an unobtainable goal. It is often difficult to separate myth from reality or even know where one ends and the other begins. The same can be said for much of what you read these days about products with a 10 year battery life. When you see advertisements for wireless devices claiming 10 year battery life from a coin-cell battery it is easy to think that is the stuff of myths and legends. Yet, given the right hardware/firmware design and the appropriate battery technology and capacity for a certain application, 10 year battery life is certainly a doable thing.

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mlease over 10 years ago in reply to sarunaszx +1

That's a fair question, particularly for consumer products that would likely be replaced within several years. Industrial products tend to have much long service lives and 10 years isn't necessarily an…

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DAB over 10 years ago

All I can say is that I kept a battery in a small AM/FM radio for about fifteen years and it still worked.

DAB
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crjeder over 10 years ago in reply to DAB

My first digit wrist watches battery lived longer than it's case. It broke in two pieces and I kept the watch in pencil case for years until Ilost it.
BTW: How much is the self-discharge of a coin cell?
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mlease over 10 years ago in reply to crjeder

I've seen CR type coin cell battery data sheets that call out a self discharge rate of 1% per year. Looking at it another way, "shelf life" for a CR coin cell battery is usually spec'd as 80% of capacity after 10 years so the self discharge could be calculated from that for a given capacity. Of course, it isn't really as simple as that and temperature in particular can significantly reduce the useful life of the battery.

Jack Ganssle has done a lot of experimentation with coin cell batteries. If anyone is serious about getting long battery life from a coin cell check out the link below (and other articles on his website) and his articles on www.embedded.com.
Hardware and Firmware Issues in Using Ultra-Low Power MCUs
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mlease over 10 years ago in reply to crjeder

I've seen CR type coin cell battery data sheets that call out a self discharge rate of 1% per year. Looking at it another way, "shelf life" for a CR coin cell battery is usually spec'd as 80% of capacity after 10 years so the self discharge could be calculated from that for a given capacity. Of course, it isn't really as simple as that and temperature in particular can significantly reduce the useful life of the battery.

Jack Ganssle has done a lot of experimentation with coin cell batteries. If anyone is serious about getting long battery life from a coin cell check out the link below (and other articles on his website) and his articles on www.embedded.com.
Hardware and Firmware Issues in Using Ultra-Low Power MCUs
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