Devices that use standard AA or AAA batteries are handy; the batteries are widely available, relatively inexpensive and for most peripherals they’ll last for absolutely ages. That can lead to an associated problem, though. If you don’t check those batteries every once in a while, bad things can happen.
Giz’s own Elly Hart was having problems with her Magic Mouse continuously connecting and disconnecting. She opened it up to discover that one of the batteries inside had become markedly frisky.
The culprit? According to Elly, some months back, she’d swapped out one dud battery — but not both. As far as she could tell, the older battery was the one that had leaked all over the insides of her mouse.
The story does have a happy ending — a new pair of batteries and the mouse is back to its magic state once again, with the added “bonus” that it looks like an Alien movie prop. Still, it’s a timely reminder to check all your mice, wiimotes, digital cameras and anything else that you might have left batteries lying around in. And always replace the batteries in a device together — don’t think you can squeeze a bit of life out of them by replacing one and not the others. Any other Giz readers have battery horror stories they’d be willing to share?