There's a lot to be said for products which take traditional disposable alkaline batteries, such as my pair of older Bose noise-cancelling headphones. Alkaline cells don't spontaneously combust and may be packed in checked airline baggage. Products themselves are easier to dispose of and recycle without the concern of residual charge in an integrated lithium-ion power cell. If the user desires rechargable or longer-lasting lithium batteries, these can still be obtained in disposable battery form factors.
My favourite is equipment with user-replaceable 18650's.
It solves disposal, storage and transport problems and it decouples device lifetime from battery lifetime.
Alkalines are nice but produce a lot of waste. Lots of things don't work quite right with rechargeable AAs but I agree, the things that do are perfect also.
> There's a lot to be said for products which take traditional disposable alkaline batteries, such as my pair of older Bose noise-cancelling headphones. Alkaline cells don't spontaneously combust
NiMH is rechargeable and seems better than alkaline in almost every way. It also doesn't spontaneously combust. Energy density is not quite as good as lithium ion but for something like headphones it is fine.
