Over time, the battery in an Android tablet will degrade if it's plugged into the USB charger all the time.  It might lose its capacity or start to swell from the constant charging. We'll show you several ways to fix or prevent this issue.  Here is a link to our battery-free Android modification kit: https://decentespresso.com/c?s=73250+1

About 30% of our Decent Espresso customers have had their batteries die.

We have replaced their tablet for free.  Or, customers can choose to modify their tablet to be battery-free, if they know how to solder, and we send them this kit.

As to the now-dead tablet: we've been offering a USD$50 gift certificate to our website, to those who post us their dead tablet.

We then recondition those dead tablet with our own battery-free kit, and then sell it back again (at a discounted price). Or, we offer the battery-free tablet as a free replacement to anyone under warranty with a tablet problem, who prefers that.

About 30% of the machines we've sold have had their tablets replaced for free by us.

About 6 months ago, we were able to permanently solve this problem by:

getting new (custom made) Android tablets that have 'smart charging' built into their firmware, in the same way that iPads and Samsungs Tablets do it.

releasing a new de1app with 'smart charging' built in, that prevents this problem on all tablets, even older ones

We knew that tablets would like be the first thing to fail on the Decent, which is why we did not physically integrate them. The MTBF for iPads, for instance, is 3 years, with 5 years being the maximum reasonable expectation.

And so, as we have now learned, having a battery-powered device plugged in all the time, can shorten its lifespan, unless 'smart charging' is implemented.

Note we do let people extend their warranties indefinitely https://decentespresso.com/warranty in which case we'd keep replacing any tablet, for free, that failed for a customer.

-john

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#sustainability #reuse #tablets #documentation #howto #DIY #repair