# "Remote Battery Low" message?



## Mike Richardson (Jun 12, 2003)

Has anyone ever gotten a yellow message on their channel banner that said "Remote Battery Low"? I just got one today when I was pressing Cancel to bring it up. The remote still seems to work fine and it has the same batteries that came with the 501 over a year ago.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

It's a cool little feature and has been on the 5XX receivers for at least a year and a half now, probably longer. The batteries are low, not dead, I've only experienced this two or three times, but I would change the batteries a week or so after I received the initial notification.


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

Do that. It might help lower the price of batteries for the rest of us. My 721 gave me a "low battery" message (in purple) for 6 months or more before I had to change them (high usage, too). Here's another interesting thing a lot of folks never knew...when your batteries get "low", its typically only one of them going bad. My $5 RatShack battery tester probably paid for itself a dozen times in the last 5 years just in its ability to find the one "bad" battery in a group of 3 or 4. Generally, you can replace just the bad one and go for months.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

Good thing I use rechargeables on my remotes (along with wireless keyboard & mouse) 

I always took the notification to heart, never thought about it twice. But in retrospect, doesn’t surprise me that it was incorrect, all things considered.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

What TomCat said. 

I last got the Low Battery warning 6 months ago, and they're just now starting to make me think they're wearing down - and I doubt there's very many people out there that mash buttons more than I do.


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## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

I have seen this message on my receivers and have found that it does work seeing how the batteries seem to fail shortly thereafter in some cases but not always.


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## 1A12 (Jun 23, 2004)

Does the remote see low battery voltage and prompt the receiver to show the message or does the receiver detect a week signal?


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## William_K_F (Apr 20, 2002)

I think it is the later, (receiver detecting low signal) since the message happens with remotes that were manufactured many years ago.


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## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

When the receiver alerts you to this, the receiver is receiving a weakened IR or UHF signal from the remote. This can be determined by the signal to noise ratio being unexpectedly low, or by issues with integrity of the command (e.g. parity errors); not sure exactly what algorithm Dish is using here.

But yes, it means the battery voltage is starting to get lower, which means the batteries are starting to run out of charge. Whether they finally reach a voltage level where they cannot be used in the next week or not for several months depends on the device and the usage level.


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## 1A12 (Jun 23, 2004)

A funny thing happened this morning. I got up earlier than normal and turned on the tv before the timer fired. As I was watching a different channel than what was programed the flashing clock came on and a little later when the timer changed channel the battery low indicator came on. I wasn't even touching the remote.


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## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

I have heard of remotes doing weird things when the batteries start to run low causing the receivers to do things. I think I have had this happen a time or two in the past.


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

Slordak said:


> When the receiver alerts you to this, the receiver is receiving a weakened IR or UHF signal from the remote. This can be determined by the signal to noise ratio being unexpectedly low, or by issues with integrity of the command (e.g. parity errors); not sure exactly what algorithm Dish is using here.
> 
> But yes, it means the battery voltage is starting to get lower, which means the batteries are starting to run out of charge. Whether they finally reach a voltage level where they cannot be used in the next week or not for several months depends on the device and the usage level.


We're all just guessing here, but it makes sense to me that if I mash buttons from 7 ft away, and then I later mash from 25 ft away (new batteries both times) while I'm warming pizza slices in the kitchen (love that UHF...one choice DISH made properly), that could get interpreted as a weak signal just by virtue of distance or obstacles, so if "weakened" were simply the key, there would be a ton of false positives here. Simply detecting a lower level than expected wouldn't work very well in the real world.

I think a better guess is that the nature of how batteries fail when weak is at the center of the algorithm. If I were trying to design such a feature, that is what I would key on. Since weak batteries present a stream that starts off strong and dips considerably as you either hold a button down or press a few in succession, I would have the receiiver look for that drop off, or submarining effect, and interpret THAT as a weakened battery, as distinguished from a strong battery which exhibits no drop off with repeated button-mashes. Dollars to donuts, that's what DISH has done.


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