[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Muttly

Yes, I understand that it can happen, and accept that it's perfectly fair to speculate that it might have happened. What I have been objecting to is acting as if it is a fact.

Show me where I have said these were definitely "found" in the warehouse? I admit that I am speculating. I have never tried to say anything else. I'm pretty sure I have used "probably" or similar qualifiers everywhere. Everything I have said is based on my my experience, reading and what other people have told me. But, lets state some facts:

1. The Aura ONE was released in October 2016.
2. It was on sale until shortly after the Forma was released in October 2018.
3. Kobo announced that the Aura ONE was being discontinued. I don't remember exactly when that was done. At that time, the Aura ONE stopped being listed for sale in Kobo's store.
4. Sometime earlier this year Kobo started selling the Aura ONE again in a few of their national stores. I don't believe there was an announcement from Kobo.
5. Until recently, no-one has mentioned that the Auro ONE was being sold on Kobo's web site. Or at least, I don't remember seeing them.

Looking at those facts, and thinking about them, what is sensible conclusion? That Kobo decided to make more Aura ONE's but ddin't bother to tell anyone? Or that Kobo decided to start selling some existing stock of the product?

To me, the case for these being old stock is far to strong to think it is anything else. Why they have this stock is another matter. That we can only speculate about unless someone from Kobo who knows decides to pop in. But, to me, "Lost in the warehouse" is the most likely reason.

You made no mention of testing whatsoever until I suggested it would be unethical to sell products that you knew would not work as advertised.

Remember that you said (in the same post):

It is a fact that Kobo are selling them, and you had made no mention of testing. Indeed, you did not suggest in either of the two bites of the 'battery's duff' scenarios quoted above, that there was any significant variation in the battery quality.

Hence my suggesting that you had a very low opinion of Kobo.

No, it means that I wasn't thinking about this at all. I was thinking about the characteristics of Li-Ion batteries. It didn't occur to me to mention Kobo testing these devices because it didn't occur to me that they wouldn't test them. It's also important to point out they wouldn't test all of them. They would test samples and decide on what to do based on the results of the tested devices. The only question I have about this is whether what Kobo decided was acceptable agrees with what I, or another buyer would think is acceptable.

I agree that there will be some small amount of degradation. It was your very strong suggestion that they would either refuse to charge or have lost 50% of their capacity that I objected to.

I've done a lot of reading about Li-Ion batteries since the first one I had in a laptop died about 15 years ago. Since then, the overall life and capacity have changed, but the basic rules have remained the same.

Li-Ion batteries have low self-discharge. This is about 5% per month at room temperature. The lower the temperature, the slower the self-discharge, the higher the temperature, the faster the self-discharge. From my experience new devices seem to be charged at about 50%. At 5% per month self-discharge, that means about 10 months for the charge to drop to zero. Add another month and the battery has probably dropped to levels that means it will be damaged.

Even at 100% charge when manufactured, that means 20 months to get to zero charge. Which works out to be about December 2018. Months after the Forma was released and after the likely date that Kobo stopped manufacturing the Aura ONE.

I could go into a similar discussion on the loss of capacity of a battery over time. Losing 50% capacity is possibly the worst case, but, the loss will be a significant amount.

That's not all the conditions that could be happening. But, those were my basic thoughts when I heard about them. Do you understand why I have a concern about the batteries in these devices? Maybe I should have said "possible" rather than "probably". My statement was pessimistic, unlike your extremely optimistic view. It was a warning of what could happen

For the record I also agree that if they have been stored at a very high temperature they will have lost a lot of capacity. That indeed, could happen. What I object to is your (and mglich's - who seems to be singing from exactly the same hymn sheet as yourself), continually posting as if this was likely (mglich seems to post as if it was a virtual certainty, but he's extremely hard to take seriously) to have happened.

What do the pair of you imagine? That each of the warehouses in each of the territories where the Kobo is for sale has a very hot spot, and all the missing cases end up there?

As stated, I have some experience with warehouses. I have been in several and feel I can make a statement about the conditions I have seen: Completely and utterly variable. Have you seen the pictures Amazon shows of their warehouses? Nice and clean with robots running around? That is not the norm. And I bet is isn't even the norm for Amazon (no proof, just idle speculation). Conditions in warehouses are variable. Some are well air-conditioned, some aren't. Many have sections that are better conditioned for storing things that are sensitive to storage conditions. The storage for devices like this should be in lower temperatures. Not below freezing, but, ideally in the low teens or single digit temperatures (I'm talking Celsius here).

Of course, if my "speculation" is right, and these were lost and then found, it is likely they were store incorrectly. Two common reasons for "lost" items in a warehouse that are later "found" is that they were incorrectly marked off as being removed, or they were put in the wrong place. The former should mean the devices were correctly stored, but, the latter could mean they were not.


And for the record, my first statement on this is:

Originally Posted by davidfor

At a guess, it probably means someone found a box of them somewhere and Kobo are getting rid of them. I'm sure they are not newly manufactured. If anyone gets one, don't expect the battery life to be as "good as new".

You are the one to go from my "At a guess" and "probably" to decide that I was categorically stating something as a fact. And you were the one to criticise my mild but completely valid warning about the battery.