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Medis 24-7 Power Pack fuel cell available online now, at Best Buy soon {Engadget}
Aug 25th 2008 11:50AM - Why can't you refill?
You can't fill it yourself because (1) there are two liquids -- fuel and electrolyte, and (2) before you can refill, you've got to get rid of the old liquids (and there's a bunch of both after the power pack is dead. Then (3) you'd have to replace both liquids.
How long the electrodes would last with refilling is unknown (consider how lousy the system works on the first fueling!) since eventually they wear down and limit refills. Even if you could refill it, you might get even less performance than the first time (and the first was already unacceptable).
Besides complexity, you've got the problem that the electrolyte is drano quality caustic -- look at the warning label that should be there (required by UL) and see (note also you shouldn't leave those beauties in a parked car, which can get hotter with the windows rolled up than the maximum safety temp in the warming).
Medis promised a refill version for the market in 2002 (at one point in 2001, Medis CEO Lifton claimed the deal was "on track") but it doesn't exist and it likely never will exist. Even if Medis could solve the problems with its 2 liquids system, the result would be the junk no one wants to buy now or ever.
All of which takes Medis FARrrrrr too seriously. It's a joke. It put out its junk to try to beat a securities rap or shareholder suit, should any make any headway. Hey, they can say -- we tried!
Yeah, like a movie that opens and closes the same week for tax purposes.
That's the only think that can explain how bad it is.
Tilyou1
First commercially available fuel cell charger appears online {Gadling}
Aug 23rd 2008 8:14PM Endless personal attacks -- ho hum. Meanwhile the reviews of the power pack are in... and they're BAD.
The powerpacks worked as long as no one could them -- now that Medis is daring to mark the specs public, the joke has gone public.
========================
These reviews laff at the *concept* of a half-brick sized slow-charging $35 partly disposable power source -- they don't know yet how bad it is. They don't know that:
- a few weeks after start up, it's dead (whether used to power something or not) or
- it's lame out of the box (won't power a dead phone to make an immediate call -- something Cellboost can do; and won't power a Blackberry, which Cellboost also can do).
www.engadget.com/2008/08/19/medis-24-7-power-pack-fuel-cell-available-online-now-at-best-bu/
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by "Fuel Cell" they mean "Non-rechargeable battery pack". And if they manage to use the term "Green" somewhere on the
package they really mean "Clogging up landfills or praying there is a recycler near"
.........
Why on Earth would anyone buy this thing? Am I missing something?
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Someone got the concept just spectacularly wrong, it seems to me. The idea of a "fuel cell" is that it will be cheap to run. As greatsunjester said, this is a nonrechargable battery pack on its way to a landfill near you.
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T bought this several months ago. It didn't work very well. You plug it into your device and a green LED lights up to let you know the device is drawing power. All the cellphones I tried phone would only charge for a few minutes before the light went out - you'd have to unplug and plug them back in to get the LED lit again. Skip this and buy a portable battery pack instead.
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For what it's worth - this is a stupid product NOT because it's brand new early-stage tech, but because it's a dumb strategy.
1) The device is ugly, nobody wants to carry around an ugly dehumidifier, just to get extra talktime out of their elegant iPhone / Blackberry.
2) Quick price evaluation - 60 extra hours of play time on my Nano would be roughly 3 to 4 charges. So $20/3 and $4 amounts to roughly $5 to $7 per charge. Stupid.
First commercially available fuel cell charger appears online {Gadling}
Aug 22nd 2008 10:22PM I didn't "bad mouth" the product -- I just gave facts. I could have added that when it was independently tested by an engineer with a fuel cell hobby, two of the three Medis powerpacks he bought online LEAKED and popped back to their pre-activation state.
Payattention never disagrees (nor can he, honestly) with any of the facts I presented about the fuel cell's pathetic performance; nor can he disagree with the observation that despite making many wild promises since 1992 about revolutionary products, about semi-automated manufacturing lines, and super-green batteries, the reality is Medis has NEVER shown any revenue from products. No one wants what it has.
I don't need to make personal attacks.
I have facts: http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=MDTL&read=360
T
Medis 24-7 Power Pack fuel cell available online now, at Best Buy soon {Engadget}
Aug 22nd 2008 5:01PM It's news because it is infinitely WORSE than Cellboost.
Cellboost = small & light
Medis = bulky
Cellboost = disposble
Medis = partly disposable (you keep the electronics) which, apart from being confusing, combines the worst of both (inconvenient, and still fills landfills with plastic and tiny but valuable amounts of Platinum)
Cellboost=powers a cell phone almost instantly. Has a model for Blackberries
Medis=cannot power a Blackberry. Charges very slowly (too slow to make an immediate call with a totally dead phone)
The worst part is you have to use the Medis slow clunky junk quickly. You must "activate" it for it to work, it quickly becomes weaker, and a few weeks later (whether used or not after activation) it's dead: a souvenir of a mistake.
But Medis is more than just a lousy product. It's a vaudeville comedy act, suckering investors since 1992. About which some hard facts here (yes, written by me. This company and its pumpers have irked me for years).
http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=MDTL&read=360
Tilyou1
Medis 24-7 Power Pack fuel cell available online now, at Best Buy soon {Engadget}
Aug 22nd 2008 4:52PM What Medis offers is junk. Consider:
- the power output is trivial. The Medis half-brick won't even power a totall dead cell phone to quickly make a phone call (compare Cellboost, which at least really is disposable, and can let you make a cell phone call almost immediately). And it won't power a Blackberry at all. And it's not even disposable -- you have electronics that can't be recharged, and can't take off something off-the-shelf like an AA battery.
- there are MANY superior solutions for ipods -- I shouldn't need to tell you about them. Some run on AAA batteries, some on AA batteries, and some one Lithium-ion; and many if not most are rechargeable. Why buy something hugely more expensive, that works poorly and adds to landfills?
- The Medis junk needs to be "activiated" after which the power depletes quickly. After a few days it's so weak it's practically useless. After a few weeks, it's dead whether you used it, or not. Some hot technology, eh? There's already something much better: more compact, more powerful and rechargeable -- called a BATTERY pack.
And the price of the powerpack has been going UP from when it was first offered a year ago. Not all prices go down. The automated line to pump out those powerpacks was completed a year ago -- but so far Medis has reported NO revenue. No one wants their junk.
Then the story gets much worse... Medis looks not like a company with a lousy product. It looks like a ripe old scam. For more information, check here....
http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=MDTL&read=360
Medis has a longgggggggg history of promising miracle products, and delivering nothing. Now that's changed: it's delivered junk. Some improvement! Ever hear of a company called "Webistics"?
Same thing.
Tilyou
First commercially available fuel cell charger appears online {Gadling}
Aug 22nd 2008 4:46PM Before you get too excited, you might want to learn more about Medis and its fat box. What Medis offers is junk -- little more than a trick to make investors think Medis really has something to sell. Consider:
- the power output is trivial. The Medis half-brick won't even power a totall dead cell phone to quickly make a phone call (compare Cellboost, which at least really is disposable, and can let you make a cell phone call almost immediately). And it won't power a Blackberry at all. And it's not even disposable -- you have electronics that can't be recharged, and can't take off something off-the-shelf like an AA battery.
- there are MANY superior solutions for ipods -- I shouldn't need to tell you about them. Some run on AAA batteries, some on AA batteries, and some one Lithium-ion; and many if not most are rechargeable. Why buy something hugely more expensive, that works poorly and adds to landfills?
- The Medis junk needs to be "activiated" after which the power depletes quickly. After a few days it's so weak it's practically useless. After a few weeks, it's dead whether you used it, or not. Some hot technology, eh? There's already something much better: more compact, more powerful and rechargeable -- called a BATTERY pack.
And the price of the powerpack has been going UP from when it was first offered a year ago. Not all prices go down. The automated line to pump out those powerpacks was completed a year ago -- but so far Medis has reported NO revenue. No one wants their junk.
Then the story gets much worse... Medis looks not like a company with a lousy product. It looks like a ripe old scam. For more information, check here....
http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=MDTL&read=360
Medis has a longgggggggg history of promising miracle products, and delivering nothing. Now that's changed: it's delivered junk. Some improvement!
And before you give a positive review, do some research, 'kay?
Tilyou
Medis Technologies unveils portable fuel cell power pack {Engadget}
Feb 4th 2007 12:03AM --- If it's an extra few hours for my laptop or an extra week
--- for my iPod, it would be good for vacations :)
Medis is clear it's invisible fantasy whizbang will not -- even if it ever exists -- power laptops; it's very low power, for tiny devices only.
Medis has promised to make it smaller for two years, and failed, so good luck with your wait. Meanwhile if you really need batteries for your iPod (and many do, especially out in the woods, or as the battery wears from many recharges) there are MANY existing products already out there -- some based on lithium-ion, some based on AAA batteries, some based on AA batteries, all iPod specific. And they're tiny, and they're rechargable -- already WAYyyyyyyyyyyyy better than what Medis promises.
So you're either in luck, or don't need Medis junk as much as you imagine.
Til
Medis Technologies unveils portable fuel cell power pack {Engadget}
Feb 3rd 2007 10:16PM "Several major companies, including NEC and Toshiba, were claiming to be powering laptops with fuel cells by 2007. I'm still waiting"
Hey, 2007 is still young -- and anyway you look at it, Medis is a pretend competitor with the world's biggest billion buck corporations. As soon as they start to sell fuel cells -- and they will -- the Medis fantasy will be dead even to those who don't "get" now it never was alive.
And think of this: if Medis had anything, why would it even pretend to enter the market with a low margin mass produced item? Which is the most difficult place to succeed. Medis would have come to market with a high priced, high-margin product, which is what the Japanese fuel cells are likely to be; because they can capitalize on their superior qualities by getting a higher price.
For now, Medis gets what it deserves: ZERO. No products, no revenue, nothing to sell since 1992. They should make a jingle out of it.
Til
Medis Technologies unveils portable fuel cell power pack {Engadget}
Feb 3rd 2007 4:54PM "There are better alternatives on the market."
First off, comparisons are impossible because Medis has made them impossible -- it has promised many products "next year" since 1992, and even for years claimed to have sales of its medical cystometer cellscan, and specifically promised a fuel cell next year since 2001 when it was refillable and supposedly "on track" in a deal with French phone manufacturer Sagem. In 2004 a disposable version was supposed to be "in distribution" in 2004, and in 2005 and 2006 units were supposed to be in retail outlets by the end of the year.
REALITY: Medis has never sold ANYTHING -- any product of any type -- to do real work, and there are NOT EVEN SPECIFICATIONS for its fantasy disposable fuel cell. After nearly a year during which Medis claimed to be promoting it, NO ONE INDEPENDENT HAS BEEN ALLOWED TO TEST IT, which was a key reason why former fan Merriman Curran (that once had Medis set at "Buy") this past Fall 2006 demoted Medis to "Sell." HINT: they don't believe it's real either, not as a finished product worth showing publicly.
To the extent Medis has publicly claimed characteristics, they are are embarrassing beyond conception: it's air breathing (so unlike batteries it's not going to charge in a snug pocket or attache case). It is BIG (approximately the width of two cig packs) so it won't fit into a pocket anyway. And it has a 3 month window after activation whether you use it or not -- compare that to AA batteries who's degradation is 5 or more YEARS. Even for its unactivated state, Medis has said contradictory things about its power packs, but for most of its history promising only a one year shelf-life: so do you seriously believe that the reason Medis is not distributing them is (as it recently claimed) because it is building a stockpile of them, to prevent disappointment in the event of high demand? Every month they become less -- or would, if they exist in manufacturing ready form. They don't.
Against that there are MANY battery solutions out there -- AA packs, AAA packs, li-ion packs, and interesting solutoins like one in which you plug in an AC wall socket plug: LITERALLY the "socket in your pocket" that Medis once promised. Some of these are device specific (mostly iPods) but some are multi-device capable and use interchangeable tips just like Medis. Some are tiny just like the devices they serve (especially the ones for iPods) and some are large and can even power laptops. I have two: a very low tech AA solution (4 batteries) for an Mp3 player from Cowon, and I also have the AC socket in your pocket thing (power on board by pocketpower). And what's that company that makes that 2 AA-battery solution for cell phones? Do your own research.
All the existing solutions arguably aren't so great, but they are NOT air breathing, and they ARE rechargable most of them, and they ARE here which is more than Medis can say or will ever be able to say. The fact you don't know about the alternatives is consistent with the ignorance of most Medis shareholders, who have been mesmerized into thinking there is some giant market that Medis can uniquely serve, not realizing the market has already emerged and is puny and what Medis even promises is way lousier than anyone today would sneeze at. Never mind that the price of UL approval for Medis is a scary warning label, specifically:
"Contents are Corrosive and Toxic. Do Not Disassemble. Avoid Contact with Contents. Do Not Expose to Flame or Heat Above 50[ordm ]C (122[ordm ]F). Do Not Expose to Acids, Oxidizers, Alcohol or Household Cleaning Products. Follow Usage Instructions. In the Case of Contact with Contents, Seek Medical Attention."
NOTE: those heat specs means you can't leave one in a car on a hot summer day without worrying it will explode and drano-destroy your face with caustic liquids if you happen to enter the car at the wrong moment. Pretty funny after of Lifton's boasts about it being "non-toxic!" And the punchline: that UL approval won't even apply to whatever Medis claims it will sell from its (still nonexistent) automated production line. Medis will have to apply again (Medis says so -- check the SEC reports).
Medis isn't an emerging technology, it is an old joke -- since 1992 old -- with its scam operations run in Israel with the formerly Soviet scientists Medis likes to talk about, and its twin 80 year old managers in New York: not even on the same continent. Eventually people are going to figure out it ain't so funny. I figured it out in 2002. Shame on the rest of you; but isn't it about time you wised up?
Til
