It was only a few years ago when most batteries made by the big boys of the battery business (Duracell, Energizer, etc.) had their own, intrinsic power tester. This usually involved squeezing the battery in the appropriate places to run the test (IIRC, this type of testing produced heat which, in turn, changed the color of a liquid crystal on the outside of the battery).
My daughter asked me tonight why we don’t see batteries with their own power tester any more. I think she’s right to assume they’ve disappeared from the market. I haven’t seen one in at least a year or two.
So, two questions:
By and large, are batteries with intrinsic power testing devices no longer being marketed?
If they’re not being marketed any longer, why not? They sure as hell were all the rage not so long ago. And, if they truly have disappeared, why did all the big manufacturers simultaneously reach the same decision.
I got some Energizer E3’s with that doohickey on the side at Sam Goody’s closeout sale about four months ago. At regular price, I’d have not looked twice at them, but on clearance, well, I’ve got a baby who still uses a swing so I stock D batteries in bulk.
I haven’t seen them anywhere else since. They must’ve been really old, because I emailed Energizer to tell them what a good idea the on-battery tester was, and they told me I couldn’t possibly have an E3 in a D-cell. I did.
WAG- Added manuf expense and difficult to use. I have a pretty strong grip and getting those little tabs to react was often hit and miss, and unless you have very sharp nails required a significant amount of pressure to activate. Even when they did work they were difficult to read. I eventually ignored them and went back to my Radio Shack battery tester. Plus with a lot of the latest stuff like digital cameras refusing to work when power starts to decline even a little bit, the usefulness of the indicator is problematic when you have a battery showing 80%-75% power and the device shows "LOW BATT ".
I swung by the battery aisle in the supermarket at lunchtime, and can report that all the common sizes of Duracell batteries (Duracell M3 brand) on sale here have integral testers. They’ve had them for about seven or eight years here, at a guess.