20 November 2021 by Calan

We've received a few comments over the last few months enquiring about why we chose to use AA batteries over an integrated Lithium-ion battery. I thought it would be worth writing a post about this to outline our thinking and where we see this heading.

Alkaline batteries and the environment

Firstly, we need to make it very clear that we don't want you using Alkaline batteries in your Loogun. Standard AA batteries are toxic to the environment and in terms of energy cost, they will cost you around 100 times more than using electricity in your home. Approximately 10 billion Alkaline batteries are sold around the world every year, and while being an environmental nightmare, the large battery companies aren't going to promote anything else as it would cannibalize their sales. If everyone switched to rechargeable batteries, global production could drop as low as 4.7 million. That's a staggering reduction and would have a dramatic effect on the environment.

Rechargeable NiMH batteries

What we are promoting, and will be selling on Loogun.com, is the use of rechargeable Nickel-metal Hybride (NiMH) batteries, which are non-toxic and can be recycled. They cost roughly twice as much as a standard Alkaline battery, but they can be recharged between 500 and 2100 times. We particularly recommend the standard Panasonic Eneloop 1900 mAh batteries as they can be recharged 2100 times and have incredible power retention, even after a decade.

Also, with regards to rechargeable batteries in general, they have come a long way in the last few years. The current NiMH batteries can outperform Alkaline's on a single charge even in high drain devices. NiMH batteries have lower internal resistance, so where a high drain device can easily draw over 1,000 mA which would deplete an Alkaline battery very quickly, the NiMH cells will cope with the current requirement without the same capacity loss.

Main reasons for choosing AA batteries

Then, in terms of the reasons we chose AA's over an integrated battery was based on a number of factors. We had thoughts about this ourselves, and ran a survey across approximately 100 people within our key customer segment to find out what people thought. These are some of the reasons and findings we based our decision on:

  • The battery life of 4 x AA's in the Loogun is very long. We have done extensive interval testing whereby the assembly was set up to pump continuously out of a reservoir and back into the same reservoir so that no refilling was required. Using fresh AA batteries, it was turned on for 15 minute intervals and the current and voltage recorded between each interval. After 9 intervals dirt was still being removed but was the minimum acceptable before the batteries would need replacing. Estimating the maximum amount of time for each usage to be 30 seconds, this would indicate the total number of uses to be around 270. If used once a day on average, this would allow for 270 days (approximately 9 months) of usage. It is important to note that during these continuous tests, the batteries become very warm which affects the battery power considerably. In everyday use, less heat would be generated therefore the batteries would perform better than the above tests describe. Across the board, our user group thought the battery life was excellent and that replacing batteries once a year would be simpler and less hassle than having to plug in and charge a device every couple weeks, which would be similar to how you need to charge an electric toothbrush, electric shaver, or similar device.
  • Bathrooms typically have no available power source beyond the shaver outlet. This means that charging the Loogun with a charging unit would require you to take it into your living room to charge. A lot of people didn't like this idea as even though the Loogun is hygienic, it still resides next to your toilet.
  • Had we provided an integrated battery, we would've had to provide a charging unit and plug adaptor. This would mean you would have to store yet another charging cable which is a hassle to many. While not a big consideration, we balanced this against the long battery life we could get from AA batteries and the simplicity for the user.
  • Finally, we did a lot of research around pricing, specifically about what price point we'd need to be able to achieve in order for as many people as possible to be able to afford a Loogun. After all, nobody deserves to have to use a toilet brush, so it's only fair we make it affordable. If you consider that Loogun's will mainly be sold via retailers, and everyone takes their slice of the pie, any cost we add to our manufacturing cost, results in a significant uplift in the retail price. With this in mind, adding an integrated battery and charging unit could've easily added another £10-£12 to our retail price, and based on our research, this made the purchase decision harder for a lot of potential buyers who were much happier at the £29.99 level.

Saying all of this, the Loogun is not a one-off product and will form a range of devices with various designs, premium finishes and features. We are looking at some very nice improvements we can make that will offer beautiful finishes, electronic buttons, battery level indicators, a security device, an integrated sanitising capsule, and a variety of awesome designs to give you great choice about which Loogun you'd like. Part of this is once again assessing the batteries. It is very likely that premium versions will include inductive charging through the base unit, so we definitely haven't written off integrated batteries, it was just the decision made for our first product version.

This has been a lengthy post, but I hope it explains our thinking on the current and future versions of the Loogun.