But 30 minutes is remarkably short.
I think I may need a slice of humble pie. I took my Evotouch of the wall mount at 12:30 this afternoon and it did not start beeping until 13:53. I am sure it has been much shorter in the past. The batteries had been recently refreshed and I did not try to use the Evotouch while it was off the mount. I did not leave it to see how long it would last in total. The battery icon was still indicating fully charged but show charging when I put it back on the mount.
That’s an awful long time! Mine was off its stand yesterday and started to bleep after 10 minutes. It had already, a couple of days ago, been put through the remove battery etc. process.Originally Posted by CT1
That is what I remember seeing in the past. The battery symbol was still indicating a full charge, even though it had started beeping, which is also a sign that battery management and indications are not well implemented. I will try again over the weekend.
Like I said, mine would last 3 hours off the stand when I first got it with the original batteries.
The problem for me has always been that once the batteries are determined to be fully charged if you leave the device on the mount 24/7 - as I do, it never charges them again... no periodic top up.
So the self discharge of the cells over a few months runs them down - by the time you need to use it off the mount you get a few minutes at most.
I replaced the cells with new slightly higher capacity ones a few months ago and if anything it seems worse now. Something I hadn't considered when ordering cells was whether I should have used "low self discharge" NiMH cells. I'm not actually sure if the ones I ordered are or not.
But in the past, I have found that even a recently charged battery only lasted about 10 minutes before I got the beeps. I think G4RHL has seen the same issue. The only thing that has changed recently is that we had an all day power cut that ran down the battery and left the Evotouch depowered for a few hours. I then went through the normal routine of removing the batteries powering up then replacing the batteries, that I normally perform about twice a year. Like G4RHL, I have also used an external smart charger to check and recharge the batteries. This has not in the past given me more than 10 minutes before the beeps, the only difference this time was the length of time powered down. My batteries are the low self discharge variety.
I cannot claim to have rigorously checked timings in the past, and am not sure exactly when I replaced the original batteries, so maybe my memory fails me?
Just attempted to try again, but as soon as I removed the Evotouch from the wall mount, it lost power and rebooted? On reboot, batteries still showed as charged and Evotouch started to get zone status. The only thing I can think of is that the batteries had a momentary loss of contact. The batteries are such a tight fit that the spring contacts are completely depressed and ironically this gives less reliable contact. No point in lengthening the contacts as they just get crushed againg when the batteries are inserted. Weather is too cold to risk heating going off so I am putting back on mount then reinserting batteries and will try again another day.
Perhaps if the Evohome has a recent memory of the batteries being flat and you charge them externally instead of letting it go through the charging process it doesn't believe they are charged? I wonder if it does some sort of coloumb counting to keep track of the battery state, although that would be a-typical for a device with removable NiMH cells.
It certainly does something strange. A week ago as off the mount the batteries lasted only a short time and I needed to re-pair a BDR91 and ensure I had deleted an HR92 and a zone, I ended up having to carry the desk mount around and use an extension lead as the Panel just hung quite quickly. I did the batteries out, back on the mount, wait for setup, batteries back in routine. Yesterday I set about removing the BDR91 to wire in and pair the OT Bridge. I was surprised at first as off the mount I got 15 minutes or so before the Panel objected. It was off for that time solely because I struggled and it took time to get the front case off the boiler. Back on the mount again for a brief time and then off and it lasted 5 minutes. Again I had to take the mount around with me and plug in in order to complete my task.
This shows that the batteries and back in procedure works but it seems once only and the Panel then becomes convinced the batteries are low when they are virtually fully charged. As you have pointed out it is an inherent fault in the Panel not properly detecting and knowing the batteries are at full charge and/or not even putting any charge in them after you have had the Panel off and then put it back.
I’ve just done a battery reset on my controller batteries, as described above. To test, I took it off the wall mount a couple of hours ago and it’s still showing half full on the battery charge indicator. It is beeping every 60 seconds or so but no messages about putting it back on charge.
These are the original batteries, installed in late 2017.
EDIT: I finally got the put back on charge message after two and a half hours.
Last edited by filbert; 20th February 2021 at 07:28 AM.
Stranger What you report is what one would expect but we don’t get. I wonder whether there has been a quiet update! Or whether it is type of battery dependent. Although had the issue with the original supplied batteries and have also tried 2 other makes of rechargeable. I must try the routine again and see what happens.
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