We had some nice cordless phones, but finally the batteries wore out and they wouldn't charge very well anymore and one of the phones only worked for us hearing the caller and not for the caller hearing us, which, even for callers who do most of the talking, still isn't ideal because they can't tell that we are listening.
So I did some research online and found a well-reviewed set of phones with high sound quality, good durability, and no answering machine (because we'd rather keep the phones and answering machine separate).
When I put the phones together, I was very happy to see that the new phones had ordinary easy-to-replace batteries. They are AAA re-chargeable batteries. I had never thought to specifically look for phones with easily replaceable batteries. Who knew there even was such a thing?
A couple of weeks later, I looked up whether there were any place to recycle my old phones and found that Best Buy claims to take cordless phones and recycle all the parts and they even promise that don't really just sell the parts to poor countries without confirming that the parts really will be recycled.
You're supposed to pull out the batteries so they don't leak into the phone, so I did that. The old batteries were definitely weird-looking batteries.
A couple of weeks after that, after I had already recycled the box the phones came in and the recycling had been taken away, I decided to research just how hard it would have been to replace the batteries on the old phone. Just a quick google search brought me to four companies. You just enter the brand and model number of your phone, which is printed on your main phone, and they pull up your batteries.
Replacing the three batteries at
Batteries Plus: $59.17
Z Battery: $22.23
Battery Mart: $26.84
emtc: $17.85
Wow. So easy. Then I decided to look up the cost for batteries for my new phone.
Batteries Plus, LLC: $17.69 (4-pack)
Z Battery: [can't find]
Battery Mart: [can't find]
emtc: $17.85
Ha! Harder to find! But at least not more expensive!
The cost of my new phones: $62.95
So, my second blog post is a big FAIL! But at least now I do expect to keep my current phones for as long as I want landline phones. And, instead of recycling my old phones, I'm going to donate them along with a note about where to find replacement batteries.
We use older cordless handsets at work, and I generally buy generic replacement batteries on ebay. I just bought 6 for about $15 total. These are tthe odd batteries that look like three AAAs shrinkwrapped in white plastic with wires coming out the end. The generics probably don't last as long as genuine Uniden batteries, but hey, they're only $2.50 each! Sounds like you needed a new phone anyway, if the mike went out on one--that's not a battery issue.
ReplyDeleteCool.
ReplyDeleteActually, the not-being-able-to-hear us issue was intermittent. But, if that's not part of the battery problem, I should probably include that in my note.
I just bought some new batteries for my Mom's cordless phones. Radio Shack has a pretty good selection, but they tend to be about $20.
ReplyDeleteEven if you did replace rather than repair, you'll now know for next time. So it's not a fail -- it's a learning experience!
$20 each?
DeleteYep, learning experience. Which will hopefully translate to more than just cordless phones!