Watts Clever Alkaline Battery Charger Lets You Reuse Disposable Batteries

 

Got a bunch of disposable AA and AAA alkaline batteries that you’re holding off from throwing in the garbage for some arcane reason only you would know?  Well, you’re in luck.  Turns out you can reuse those erstwhile landfill fodder for powering your Xbox 360 controllers if you’ve got this: the Watts Clever Alkaline Battery Charger.

 

We know, recharging those throwaways will make them overheat.  But that’s why you need this special charger, which employs a built-in microprocessor to minutely control the trickle of charge into each battery without causing them to burn out.

 

The Watts Clever Alkaline Battery Charger looks like a regular charger, measuring 4.64 x 2.9 x 1.18 inches and holding four battery slots (which can fit both AA and AAA sizes).  It has a LED indicator for each battery (turns red when the battery can be recharged), with a maximum power output of 350mA (per slot) and a four-hour charging time for standard alkaline units.

 

Just to assuage any concerns you may have about refilling batteries meant for the trash, they threw in a bunch of safety features for the charger.  You should feel safe with the fire-proof plastic housing, reversed polarity auto-detection, built-in heat sensor (cuts off electricity to the slot when it detects overheating) and auto-off (both when a battery’s fully charged or when it falls out of the slot).

 

With alkaline batteries, the Watts Clever Alkaline Battery Charger can work for up to 20 recharges (minimum of 10).  Ni-Cd and Ni-MH varieties are fine too, although, the product page declines to give an estimate for how many times they can be juiced.  The charger is available now, priced at around $46.

 

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