Which Battery Type Do You Use?

LR44 - From DC Rainmaker "As for using LR44 versus SR44 batteries, that’s a good question which many readers asked since launch. I went back to Garmin on this after your questions and asked what was the difference, specifically, in their recommendation of using LR44 versus SR44 batteries. They said they started to validate both LR44 and SR44 cells, but found “much more consistent performance” with the LR44’s than the SR44’s. They noted that “in the validation, we found overall that the SR44’s had higher variability and some even performed worse than the LR’s”. Interestingly, as part of that testing they did find that SR44 was giving longer battery life, but that given the variability they saw they settled on LR44’s as the official recommendation, coming in at 120 hours (on LR44’s)." interestingly though, in the manual Garmin state that SR44's may perform better in cold conditions. As for life, nowhere near 120 hrs, probably (they're on my partner's bike) nearer half that. But we have just had a very cold winter and the bike is stored in the garage where temps have been down to -7c (19f) which is just above the operating minimum

Hi Colin,
The battery life estimate is based on actual testing, on a motorized fixture, using the same LR44 batteries that Vector 3 ships with, as well as testing of the system while it is asleep.

The testing does not take into account variability introduced by operating or storage at substantially lower temperatures - this becomes dependent on too many factors to give adequate test coverage.

The low-battery alert is intended to give you warning when there is an expected 10-20% of usage life left. In the case where you are riding or have stored the system in cold temperatures, that warning may come earlier, and if the system then is used at higher temperatures there may be substantially more than the 10 to 20 percent of life left.

There have been some reports of some LR44 batteries being substantially shorter than others and thereby causing poor connection. Most of the battery makers specify their nominal size with 0.2 mm tolerance or even greater, which is quite a bit considering the battery is nominally 5.4 mm tall. The LR44 batteries also typically swell as they deplete, and that further spreads the possible stackup heights.

A last thing to watch for is that theLR43 battery is superficially similar but it's about a millimeter shorter, in addition to having much less capacity. If these are inadvertently installed it is unlikely that a stack of two LR43's would make proper contact, but a stack of one LR43 and one LR44 might just barely make contact and appear to work initially.

Thanks, t_smit, for details about how Garmin decided on the battery recommendation and likely battery life. I actually have Vector 1 and 2 pedals on my bikes, but Vector 3's are in my future. It appears that LR44 batteries are a good deal less expensive than the SR44's, so I can save some money when I'm a Vector 3 user.

And thanks also to "fylbike" for real world experience.

Interesting that Garmin show the silver oxide battery (Renata 357, equivalent to SR44) in the pictures accompanying their battery change out tutorial, not the alkaline LR44 that the pedals are supplied with (and recommended by Garmin according to above). I still wonder how much of the battery problems are being caused by the flood of Amazon/internet vendors of counterfeit batteries. I recommend a reputable, US-based battery vendor for battery purchases.