Adding a battery to extend the life of the headset

Perhaps the weakest point in modern electronics when it comes to user life is the life cycle of the built-in batteries from the manufacturer. Without easily replaceable batteries, many consumer goods end up in landfill when they function perfectly. If you want to get more out of your hardware than the manufacturer intends, You may have to make great efforts like [Théo] she did With its own JBL speaker.

This was a Bluetooth device that JBL had produced nearly a decade ago, and while the original device boasted several hours of battery life, after many years of service, it was lucky to get a half an hour before the battery ran out. to replace it, [Théo] Remove the original battery and extend the case so that it can hold a larger cell phone battery. He also decided to use the original battery management circuit from the speaker with the new battery after checking that the voltage and chemistry are close enough to the original.

Since the phone battery is a Samsung proprietary device, [Théo] He also decided to build a version that used standard 18650 cells instead, although he would prefer a slimmer design with a phone battery for his use case. This construction may be straightforward, but it goes a long way to prove the principle of it If you can’t fix your hardware, you don’t really own it.