Batthead of Vonkil is A, AA rechargeable battery remote control

I spent my formative years using up AA batteries at a frantic pace, and I can not count the number of times my parents said they wanted to zap my trusty Game Boy dead. While there is nothing they can do to save my childhood now, people have worked Vonkil Technologies something that should help a new generation of parents away toys kill at will.

Enter Batthead, the star of a new Kickstarter campaign you want to do your rechargeable AA batteries much, much smarter.

Here's the concept in a nutshell: they have essentially taken a rechargeable AA battery and crammed a Bluetooth 4.0 radio and an accelerometer in it. You will probably see where this is going - thanks to a companion app, users can enable and disable remote batteries in order to conserve more energy for when it is really necessary. Of course, parents can put on their hats trolls and off remotely toys for their children from a distance using their iOS devices (the Vonkil team says that Android support is in the works too).

The accelerometer adds a curious little awareness to the fold, and users can configure to activate the batteries only when they are moved or oriented in a certain position. I can already hear gossip about the questionable value it brings to the table, but the notion of a flashlight that turns on automatically when you pick it still seems terribly clean.

Now I can not blame you if all this sounds a bit familiar. A seemingly similar concept called the TetherCell was successfully kickstarted earlier this year (although supporters still expect the first shipments to exit). The big difference though is down to execution: while the TetherCell is also controllable remotely from an iOS device, the fact that the product itself is just a sleeve that wraps around a AAA battery means there is only as the team could physically squeeze into the thing. Since the cell contains a rechargeable Batthead addition to large number of sensors, we are ultimately left with a more capable power supply.

Of course, there are some caveats to consider. Do not go expecting these things to beat a whole Eneloops confidence, for example. The team has not released that yet capacity rechargeable cell (I reached out and will update the post if and when they do), but I can not imagine that longevity has not had a success considering the amount of space for all those other bits must assume. And then there's the price difference to consider, too - a single, run-principles Batthead without an accelerometer will cost you $ 19 CAD, while the fully dressed version will cost you $ 40 CAD. Not exactly the most cost-effective way to feed their countless remote controls, but it may be worth it just for some handyman and home fans out there online.