> The third time someone calls to complain that the alkaline batteries they put in this leaked, they'll wish they used a soldered-in 3V lithium primary cell. Even though that goes against a certain ethos.

Those aren't alkaline batteries. Energizer makes AA/AAA-size lithium primary batteries, which is what they are using. They wont leak and have a 25 year shelf life.

https://data.energizer.com/pdfs/l91.pdf

And I don't think they'd get complaints about alkaline batteries leaking. I think pretty much anyone (even those who don't understand batteries), would tend to blame the batteries themselves, not the device they're in.

He means that idiot customers will use the wrong batteries and get mad, and they absolutely will. The modal customer doesn't understand anything about battery chemistry and will unconditionally buy the cheapest battery at the store.

No amount of intelligence or understanding of battery chemistry will make batteries any less dismal and disappointing to the consumer.

Ironically, the very cheapest carbon-zinc batteries probably would be kind of OK in this application.

I saw that they recommended Energizer lithiums. So would I. Recommendations won't change that behavior, which I am very familiar with. It's ok that you aren't if you're willing to learn something today.

They should have added $5 to the price and packaged in $4 of lithium AA batteries.

I agree, I don't want to have to buy batteries separately, bad buyer experience.

The lithium AA/AAA/CR batteries don't seem to leak. They're not widely available though. I use them for devices which mostly sit in a drawer and their lifetime can reach 5-6 years.

Primary lithium batteries absolutely do leak, given enough time. Often the victim is an old Mac motherboard, search for "mac pram battery ruined motherboard" on an image search engine of your choice.

Haha, you just reminded me about replacing motherboard CR battery. Recently I was fixing over five years old computer, noticed the battery and thought "What does it do, I wonder if it works, perhaps I should replace it?".

They fall from the sky. I don't buy them, I just hit up sondehub and see where there's a barely-used pair waiting for me to go clean up some litter.

What do you mean, what is sondehub?

Tracking weather balloons. They use lithium AAs for power, and the mission only uses a fraction of their capacity. When the balloon pops and the payload lands, there's a good pair of AA's laying in some farmer's field, stuck in a tree, or otherwise sitting around waiting for you to clean 'em up.