If you use rechargeable batteries, you may have noticed that your charger is unable to recharge just one battery. It insists on charging AAs and AAAs in pairs.
I didn’t know this was a problem until we bought devices that require, arrgh, three AAAs and 3 AAs. One is a little portable speaker, the other is a flashlight. So I went shopping for a charger that could deal with one or three battieries at a time. It turned out to be a bit of a hunt. The majority of chargers in the stores I checked require charging two or four batteries at once.
I eventually found a charger with four independent slots, that is able to charge an odd number of batteries. But I had to read a lot of fine print before tracking it down.
After my purchase, I discovered this article on the Internet, which nicely summarizes the world of battery chargers.
It turns out that some battery chargers are smarter than others. Some are better at knowing when to stop charging. Some are able to charge at different rates, delivering more current so that charging is finished faster.
There’s controversy about fast charging. Several articles I found said that fast charging will shorten the life of a battery. They just say it, but don’t cite any studies, apart from noting that fast-charging makes batteries warm, which isn’t good for batteries.
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