Harmony Remotes

[rxmxsh]

I just bought an 880. I LOVE IT. One thing I've heard is that a few of friends have had their batteries die after a few month. How do I avoid that? Charge all the time? Only charge when it's dead? Any tips would be appreciated.

[jdbower]

Are you sure they're talking about 880 batteries dying?  That's not very common and to know a few friends who've had theirs die in a month are pretty unusal. 880 batteries are Lithium Ion and can withstand just about anything.  Ironically, the practice of running them all the way down like old NiCad or NiMH batteries is about the only thing that's dangerous.  If you run them down entirely and then let them sit for a week or so they could completely discharge and never hold a charge again.  LiON batteries take very well to being topped off (recharged when there's still a lot of charge left), the best practice is just to put the remote in the cradle at night.

[rxmxsh]

Yea, I have 3 friends with 880's and one with a Harmony One. I didn't realized the battery was Li-Ion. I get it now, thanks. My friends treated it like a Ni-Cad and drained it all the time.  I'll top off often.

Thanks. 

[jdbower]

That could explain it, deep discharge cycles and LION batteries aren't very compatible.  Good LION batteries have a reasonable cutoff to keep some charge in them, but there's probably a bit of a quality difference between those in my Harmony and those in my professional Nikon DSLR where the batteries cost about as much as a cheap Harmony