Originally Posted by
DBMandrake
What is the voltage of the Alkalines you had in stock ? New they should be 1.61 volts. They don't have to fall too far below this before they'll report 2 bars, so its pretty normal for them to drop from 3 bars to 2 after just a few months but then they will stay on 2 bars for a year and a half or so.
I only use Alkalines on my system, previously I've used mainly GP Ultra from batterystation.co.uk as they're available in 40 packs at a good price, but recently I bought Varta as they were out of stock of the others.
I tend to have a 40 pack on hand not just for the heating but for the numerous toy cars etc our 4 year old has, so the packs of cells only stay in the house for maybe 6 months. Buying them a couple of years before you need them probably isn't a good idea.
I would be checking the battery contacts on yours, intermittent low battery alerts long before you're expecting them or with newish cells is usually due to poor connection with the battery contacts.
They're soft as butter so tend to sag over time. To test them I hold the HR92 with one hand and swing it down to thump it in my other hand - if the contacts are marginal it will usually cause the device to black out and reboot, if so the contacts need attention as you should be able to thump it down into your hand with moderate force without it rebooting.
With the batteries removed I use a small jewlers screwdriver through the bottom to bend the middle section of the two bottom battery contacts up a bit. It takes a little care but its easy when you've done it a few times. As mentioned in my previous post sometimes even the top shorting bar can bend out of shape as its so soft.
Yeah it's pretty poor that the battery contacts on the HR92 are so unreliable, but it is what it is and I've come to terms with it. I've had to retension the contacts on all my HR92's over the nearly 5 years I've had them to keep them working properly - some more than once now.
One new HR92 needed contact tensioning right out of the box as it was only reporting 2 bars on brand new batteries when I first tried to install it. Sure enough after tensioning the contacts it started reporting 3 bars.
Honeywell please take note and redesign your battery contacts using proper spring steel...