Does it need to run on batteries?

Battery-operated devices are an electronic mainstay. If portability is critical, chances are batteries are involved. Once you've made the decision to use batteries, a whole new host of concerns are raised:

• Do they need to be rechargeable? If so, should the charger be built into the gizmo or will the customer need to have a separate one?
  
• How heavy are they? Batteries are often the heaviest part of an electronic device. If the gizmo is to be handheld, you might not want to power it with four 'D' cells unless you're going to market it to bodybuilders.
• What kind of power do you expect the device to need? You can't run a laptop on 'AA's, but you don't want to put a lantern battery where a watch battery might do, either. Remember that things with video displays and lots of LEDs drain batteries very quickly. Customers will become irritated rapidly if they are having to replace or recharge batteries every half hour of operation.
• Should they be customer-replaceable? In some cases the battery might last so long that the product will be obsolete before the power is gone. Another possibility is that the battery may be an odd type and it's better from a liability standpoint if only service personnel have access to it.

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