Why is AAA battery usage more common than AA?

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It wasn’t like that in the past (AA were more common). The component that needs the AAA battery isn’t getting smaller either.

In: Technology

9 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

As electronics get smaller and smaller, so does the power source. All my old tv remotes take AA except for my more recent tiny fire stick remotes that take AAA

Anonymous 0 Comments

More efficient and smaller electronics require less power and AAAs are fine, like for remote controls, and some stuff that would have once used larger batteries now use rechargeable batteries.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I dont believe this is true, but if it is the answer should be simple.

Stuff gets more efficient. Less energy costs are good because it takes less ressources = less cost. And I guess its cheaper to built when its more efficient.

However this is a plain guess and I still dont buy AAA, because everything in my world is AA

Anonymous 0 Comments

What makes you feel that more AAA batteries are being used than AA?

Anonymous 0 Comments

Everything is getting smaller. I don’t remember the last time I saw C or D cells (probably in a maglite) and I don’t think I’ve ever seen an A or B cell.

AAAA cells are silly small.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I am not sure that AAA is more common than AA today. The difference is certainly smaller today than in the past.

Electrical devices that need a lot of power tend to have rechargeable lithium-ion batteries today.
In the past, they tended to have replaceable batteries that were AA because that is often a reasonable compromise between size and capacity.

Most stuff that uses replaceable batteries today is devices with very low power usage so even AAA batteries can operate them for months like remotes, clocks, thermometers etc.
The electronics in devices like that are more efficient today so they require less power so a smaller battery can do the same as larger in the past

If you use AAA instead of AA you can make the device smaller.

So AA and larger batteries are less common today because of Li-ion batteries and a as result AAA will be a larger percentage of battery usage even if the user has not increased.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I don’t think your statement is true, but it does seem like many of the devices that used AA are now replaced by our phones, such as Walkman, Discmen, etc. portable audio players. And some early Digital Cameras. Now we don’t own standalone devices requiring replaceable batteries, but just use phones with rechargeable ones built in.

Anonymous 0 Comments

In some cases it’s the higher voltage requirement. All standard batteries are 1.5 V. If you need 6 V that’s 4 cells of any size, but it’s much easier to fit 4 AAA cells in a device.

Anonymous 0 Comments

AA and AAA batteries both supply the same electrical voltage, and can do the same job. However the AAA battery carries less charge, and will expire first. So if a device that used to run on AA is now running on AAA it’s for a couple different reasons.

1) designers want the smaller, slimmer form factor. They decide that having to change the batteries more often is ok.
— this is helped as alkaline batteries last a bit longer now than they did a couple decades ago, so it’s less noticeable.
2) device is more efficient (looking at leds vs bulbs usually) and don’t need as much charge.

Sometimes you do need more voltage. This is when you see two or more batteries put in together. Many modern flash lights use that 3 battery carrousel holder to fit 3 AAA batteries in a row, giving it triple the voltage. That’s bulkier with AA and larger batteries. It also creates 3x the voltage, but similar charge capacity to a D cell.