Wow.
The one thing that using DeWalt's newly released Bluetooth equipped battery, the DCB183B, convinced HNN about was that we needed to improve the way we review these new technologies. We're simply going to have to divide our reviews into two, starting with a "first impressions" review, and following up a month or so later with a more reflective review.
The reason behind that decision is that it is simply almost impossible not to be very enthusiastic about new technologies such as this DeWalt battery when you first start using them. It seems clear to us at the moment that DeWalt has really developed a technology here that will eventually take over a significant part of the market.
It's not so much what DeWalt has already done with this technology - which is considerable - but how this technology could develop in the future. Just about everyone who uses the DeWalt battery comes up immediately with an additional feature they would like.
HNN hopes that Stanley Black & Decker is giving some serious thought to opening up the programming end of this device, enabling third-parties to develop more software tools that make use of it.
To start with, the most important thing to emphasise is that DeWalt has made using this battery just as simple as possible. Once you have the battery, you start by downloading the DeWalt app to your smartphone or tablet (Android of Apple iOS) - it's free, of course.
The next step is to "pair" the battery with the app. If you've used Bluetooth before for something like cordless headphones, a Bluetooth speaker or a mouse, then this is exactly the same. You begin by tapping the "+Tool" button on the home screen. You can give the battery its own name, and optionally choose to register it with DeWalt at the same time.
When you complete those details, the app will begin scanning for the battery. To pair it up, simply press the button that illuminates the charge indicator on the back of the battery. In our case it took less than 10 seconds for the app to pair up the battery.
Your first stop after doing that will likely be the Diagnostics tab. This tab shows you five basic parameters: the date and time the battery was "last seen" - when it was in range; "fuel gauge" - the amount of charge on the battery; the battery's status (enabled or disabled); the battery's health; and the current temperature of the battery.
This seems a simple display, but it is actually quite sophisticated. For example, the fuel gauge will let you know when the battery is being charged, as well.
Below the information display are three buttons: Enable, Disable and Identify. If you tap the Identify button, a blue LED set into the side of the battery will begin to flash, and continue for about six seconds. That way you can tell exactly what battery you are dealing with.
In fact, whenever you send any kind of command to the battery, the LED will flash to confirm you are making the change. Most of these commands actually reprogram the battery to work in a specific way. That means the battery is not checking back with your mobile device to see what it should be doing. Instead, it carries instructions for its own behaviour. The app simply helps you to change what those instructions are.
Dewalt has obviously thought pretty thoroughly about how the battery/tool combination should behave. For example, one of the options you have from the diagnostics screen is to simply disable the battery immediately. You might do this if, for example, the battery seemed to be operating at too high a temperature, and you were concerned it might be damaged.
However, even after the battery has been disabled, it remains usable for some applications. Pressing the trigger on a drill with a disabled batter still makes the drill LED lights go on. In fact, if you have a worklight attached to the battery when it is disabled, the light will continue to work.
HNN believes this is likely to be a well thought out safety measure. Whatever the reason you may have for disabling the battery, you certainly don't want to leave someone up a ladder in a dark room without a light, for example.
Many of the interesting things that can be done with the battery an be found on the "Actions" tab. There are five basic actions, and four of these are information alerts.
The options to "Alert if out of range" triggers a notification on your mobile device when it can no longer "see" the battery. In testing this using an Apple iPad mini outdoors, it seemed the range was reliable up to around 50 metres.
"Alert at low battery charge" sends a message when the charge is getting low enough that it will affect performance in the near future. "Alert at high temperature" lets you know if the battery may soon exceed its operating temperature range. "Alert at charge completion" tells you when the battery is up above 80% charge again, and ready to be used.
In addition to those four alerts, the fifth option is "Disable if out of range". This enables the owner to set up the battery so that if it is taken far enough away that the mobile device can no longer communicate with it over Bluetooth, it is automatically disabled. It's a simple theft protection measure.
One of the more interesting features is the ability the app has to set the battery up to be loaned out for a specific period of time. There is a "Lend" button on the actions page. Tapping that button brings up a screen that enables the owner to set a loan period ranging from one hour to months, if necessary.
At the end of the loan period, the battery will be automatically disabled, and, optionally, the battery's owner will be sent a reminder message, including the name of the person who borrowed the battery. With the DeWalt Bluetooth battery you can not only be much more certain you will get the battery back, but also that it will be the right battery.
The alerts tab in the app keeps track of all the alerts the owner receives, from all the Bluetooth batteries owned. The type of alert, and the date/time it was issued are all displayed. Tapping on an alert brings up a screen that enables the owner to delete that particular alert. A button at the bottom of the tab enables the owner to clear all the alerts with a single tap.
As we remarked, just about everyone who gets to use the app and the battery comes up with further ideas for it. For example, alert forwarding, where the mobile device of the person actually using the device could also receive an alert after the owner's device received it.
Many people have suggested the extra hardware features they would like to see on the battery. The one that comes up the most is for a GPS chip, so that the battery could communicate its location back to the owner. Some would like it to have a small sound chip, so that it could buzz, helping to locate the battery if it has been accidentally left behind, for example.
Perhaps the most exciting idea, however, is that it seems evident DeWalt plans to expand this Bluetooth system to devices other than batteries, and likely to the tools themselves. This could mean that DeWalt is planning a line of tools similar to the Force-Logic tools from the Techtronic Industries-owned Milwaukee Tool, which report on their exact usage patterns. This might extend to something like the control system that Milwaukee has planned, which enables power tool owners to set up programmed parameters on tools, ensuring they are used correctly.
Who might effectively use this type of battery? At the moment the most likely market are professionals/tradies with a battery fleet of over 12 or so units. Some sub-contractors, for example, supply most of the tools their crews use, and that can easily run up to 20 batteries for even a small crew of five or six (presuming they need to use more than one tool at a time).
Aside from helping to limit loss and even theft, these batteries could reduce the total number of batteries required by 10% to 20%. Being able to remotely monitor the battery charge state means more effective charging patterns, and so less redundancy required. That translates directly to more money in the cash flow, which for anyone at anytime in the building industry is always a good thing.
The one thing HNN would really like to emphasise is that, even if you don't like "fiddly" things, you might still like these batteries. DeWalt has done a great job in making the setup and systems controls as easy to use as possible. There isn't anything difficult to do, and the result is a battery system that makes a lot more sense, and makes using cordless tools even easier.
The one thing that using DeWalt's newly released Bluetooth equipped battery, the DCB183B, convinced HNN about was that we needed to improve the way we review these new technologies. We're simply going to have to divide our reviews into two, starting with a "first impressions" review, and following up a month or so later with a more reflective review.
The reason behind that decision is that it is simply almost impossible not to be very enthusiastic about new technologies such as this DeWalt battery when you first start using them. It seems clear to us at the moment that DeWalt has really developed a technology here that will eventually take over a significant part of the market.
It's not so much what DeWalt has already done with this technology - which is considerable - but how this technology could develop in the future. Just about everyone who uses the DeWalt battery comes up immediately with an additional feature they would like.
HNN hopes that Stanley Black & Decker is giving some serious thought to opening up the programming end of this device, enabling third-parties to develop more software tools that make use of it.
The basics
To start with, the most important thing to emphasise is that DeWalt has made using this battery just as simple as possible. Once you have the battery, you start by downloading the DeWalt app to your smartphone or tablet (Android of Apple iOS) - it's free, of course.
The next step is to "pair" the battery with the app. If you've used Bluetooth before for something like cordless headphones, a Bluetooth speaker or a mouse, then this is exactly the same. You begin by tapping the "+Tool" button on the home screen. You can give the battery its own name, and optionally choose to register it with DeWalt at the same time.
When you complete those details, the app will begin scanning for the battery. To pair it up, simply press the button that illuminates the charge indicator on the back of the battery. In our case it took less than 10 seconds for the app to pair up the battery.
Your first stop after doing that will likely be the Diagnostics tab. This tab shows you five basic parameters: the date and time the battery was "last seen" - when it was in range; "fuel gauge" - the amount of charge on the battery; the battery's status (enabled or disabled); the battery's health; and the current temperature of the battery.
This seems a simple display, but it is actually quite sophisticated. For example, the fuel gauge will let you know when the battery is being charged, as well.
Below the information display are three buttons: Enable, Disable and Identify. If you tap the Identify button, a blue LED set into the side of the battery will begin to flash, and continue for about six seconds. That way you can tell exactly what battery you are dealing with.
In fact, whenever you send any kind of command to the battery, the LED will flash to confirm you are making the change. Most of these commands actually reprogram the battery to work in a specific way. That means the battery is not checking back with your mobile device to see what it should be doing. Instead, it carries instructions for its own behaviour. The app simply helps you to change what those instructions are.
Disabling
Dewalt has obviously thought pretty thoroughly about how the battery/tool combination should behave. For example, one of the options you have from the diagnostics screen is to simply disable the battery immediately. You might do this if, for example, the battery seemed to be operating at too high a temperature, and you were concerned it might be damaged.
However, even after the battery has been disabled, it remains usable for some applications. Pressing the trigger on a drill with a disabled batter still makes the drill LED lights go on. In fact, if you have a worklight attached to the battery when it is disabled, the light will continue to work.
HNN believes this is likely to be a well thought out safety measure. Whatever the reason you may have for disabling the battery, you certainly don't want to leave someone up a ladder in a dark room without a light, for example.
Actions
Many of the interesting things that can be done with the battery an be found on the "Actions" tab. There are five basic actions, and four of these are information alerts.
The options to "Alert if out of range" triggers a notification on your mobile device when it can no longer "see" the battery. In testing this using an Apple iPad mini outdoors, it seemed the range was reliable up to around 50 metres.
"Alert at low battery charge" sends a message when the charge is getting low enough that it will affect performance in the near future. "Alert at high temperature" lets you know if the battery may soon exceed its operating temperature range. "Alert at charge completion" tells you when the battery is up above 80% charge again, and ready to be used.
In addition to those four alerts, the fifth option is "Disable if out of range". This enables the owner to set up the battery so that if it is taken far enough away that the mobile device can no longer communicate with it over Bluetooth, it is automatically disabled. It's a simple theft protection measure.
Lending the battery
One of the more interesting features is the ability the app has to set the battery up to be loaned out for a specific period of time. There is a "Lend" button on the actions page. Tapping that button brings up a screen that enables the owner to set a loan period ranging from one hour to months, if necessary.
At the end of the loan period, the battery will be automatically disabled, and, optionally, the battery's owner will be sent a reminder message, including the name of the person who borrowed the battery. With the DeWalt Bluetooth battery you can not only be much more certain you will get the battery back, but also that it will be the right battery.
Alerts
The alerts tab in the app keeps track of all the alerts the owner receives, from all the Bluetooth batteries owned. The type of alert, and the date/time it was issued are all displayed. Tapping on an alert brings up a screen that enables the owner to delete that particular alert. A button at the bottom of the tab enables the owner to clear all the alerts with a single tap.
The future of batteries, and ...?
As we remarked, just about everyone who gets to use the app and the battery comes up with further ideas for it. For example, alert forwarding, where the mobile device of the person actually using the device could also receive an alert after the owner's device received it.
Many people have suggested the extra hardware features they would like to see on the battery. The one that comes up the most is for a GPS chip, so that the battery could communicate its location back to the owner. Some would like it to have a small sound chip, so that it could buzz, helping to locate the battery if it has been accidentally left behind, for example.
Perhaps the most exciting idea, however, is that it seems evident DeWalt plans to expand this Bluetooth system to devices other than batteries, and likely to the tools themselves. This could mean that DeWalt is planning a line of tools similar to the Force-Logic tools from the Techtronic Industries-owned Milwaukee Tool, which report on their exact usage patterns. This might extend to something like the control system that Milwaukee has planned, which enables power tool owners to set up programmed parameters on tools, ensuring they are used correctly.
Making the use case
Who might effectively use this type of battery? At the moment the most likely market are professionals/tradies with a battery fleet of over 12 or so units. Some sub-contractors, for example, supply most of the tools their crews use, and that can easily run up to 20 batteries for even a small crew of five or six (presuming they need to use more than one tool at a time).
Aside from helping to limit loss and even theft, these batteries could reduce the total number of batteries required by 10% to 20%. Being able to remotely monitor the battery charge state means more effective charging patterns, and so less redundancy required. That translates directly to more money in the cash flow, which for anyone at anytime in the building industry is always a good thing.
Conclusion
The one thing HNN would really like to emphasise is that, even if you don't like "fiddly" things, you might still like these batteries. DeWalt has done a great job in making the setup and systems controls as easy to use as possible. There isn't anything difficult to do, and the result is a battery system that makes a lot more sense, and makes using cordless tools even easier.
