Wii Energizer Flat Panel 4x Induction Charger
Wii Energizer Flat Panel 4x Induction Charger
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 List Price: $49.99 Sale Price: Too low to display. Availability: unspecified 
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Product Description
The Energizer Flat Panel 4x Induction Charging System includes an induction charging stand and 4 rechargeable battery packs. It’s an officially licensed Energizer product and saves your money on batteries. It features magnetic cradling for optimal remote placement. The easy to read indicator let’s you know when it’s charging via the connection by appearing in red light (charging) and green (fully charged). The panel works with all Wii Remote configurations, so whether you play with the motion plus or the silicon sleeve it’s got you covered. Keep those controllers charged and get back in the game with fully licensed Energizer Power & Play Flat Panel 4X Induction Charging System for the Wii by PDP. Charge system may not be compatible with non-Energizer rechargeable battery packs. Compatible with Nintendo’s Silicone Jacket and Wii Motion Plus.
Details
- An Officially licensed Energizer product, so you know its quality.
- Compatible with Nintendo?s Silicone Jacket and Wii Motion Plus.
- Comes with 4 rechargeable battery packs!
- Saves you money that you were previously spending on conventional batteries.
- Easy to read lit indicator lets you know when it's done charging.
Rating
***Update***
The 2nd spot gave up the ghost. Back to the store for a quick exchange and everything has been working smoothly with no signs of malfunction. I would still buy this thing – my friends either have one now or have it on order.
Overall, this system is an excellent way to keep your Wii remotes in action. It charges the batteries just by sitting there – even if the remotes are slightly out of position. By slightly, I mean 1/2 an inch or less from their designed position typically gets it charging. I have experienced LONG play times between charges (several days), but that was strictly to test the batteries. Just like everybody else, I now return the remotes to the pad when finished playing.
Batteries:
The factory batteries are standard triple A batteries (smaller than double A’s which normally go in the remotes), but they are lower mA (milli-amps) than what you can purchase – even from Energizer. If one or both batteries begin to fade, pop off the charging pack, two small screws later and a quick battery swap gets you back in business. I’ve tried it with different NiMH rechargeable batteries and they seem to work just as well as the factory batteries. Since they are triple A, the remotes are slightly lighter than normal, but that’s not a bad thing unless you are using them as dumb-bells.
Charging:
I keep my Wii-motion plus and silicone sleeves on the remotes at all times (unless playing Mario Kart) and the pad has no trouble charging through the sleeves. At first, one of the charging positions was giving me trouble, but the unit was also charging up all four remotes from complete drain. 3 positions would charge normally, and one of the interior positions was flickering and would sometimes not show any charge symbol. Now that the remotes are beyond the initial charge, I haven’t noticed any issues with any positions. The system has some magnets to help align the battery pack properly for charging, but it doesn’t do much aligning when you have the thick silicone sleeves on the remotes. It’s enough to the get the job done so you just have to get used to placing them lined up correctly. Also, from reading other more intelligent reviews, this type of charging system (induction) consumes more power to recharge the batteries than traditional contact points – so tree huggers beware!
Looks:
The pad is thinner than I expected. It’s only about 3/8″ thick. The chrome accents and slick black colors make this tasty treat look great anywhere. Plus I have a couple of black remotes which make it that much cooler!! Nerdiness aside, the battery packs all have the white back to them. Fortunately the black silicone sleeves are opaque, so you won’t see the odd looking 80′s flash back of black and white on the remote.
Knowing what I know now about this charging system, I would definitely do it over again. This is the best looking and functioning charger system I’ve ever seen for the Wii remotes.
Rating
My wife found this and bought it for me as a birthday present, I very happy. This is the perfect Wii Remote charging product.
I have been using a rechargeable Wii stattion for some time, and it used physical contacts through the back of proprietary battery doors for the Wiimotes. Every time you wanted to charge you had to remove the protective covers or the WiiMotion device.
This is exactly what Wii charging needs to be. You can leave the covers and the WiiMotion accessories on and it charges perfectly! Charging seems pretty quick and lasts at least 90 minutes. That may be a little short of what some people need but the convenience of it is what sells me on this product.
Rating
I love this charger. It looks great. It charges the remotes while in the silicone sleeves as well as with the motion plus attached. I have this version that charges 4, but there is also one that charges 2.
The battery packs that come with it do not make the remote any bulkier or heavier and you wouldn’t notice they were there unless you had a colored remote–the battery packs have a white back so on the pink and blue remotes you will have the white back. It doesn’t really look bad, but it would have been nice to have the same color.
The thing that i don’t like is that there doesn’t seem to be much by the way of support information. I went to charge all 4 remotes and the 2 outer ones would charge fine but the 2 inside ones would just blink. but once the outside ones charged, the inside ones charged as well. They maintain sufficient charge for us to play throughout the day.
The biggest boon is not having the bulkier battery packs and not having to remove anything to charge the remotes.
I would definitely recommend this product.
UPDATE: 4/5/10: Out of cautiousness, i got a second unit to test. I discovered that with both units, the inside charging areas (slot 2 and 3) would blink red while the others (1 and 4) would charge. when they are done charging, then the inside ones would charge. While the outside ones were charging, the inside ones blinked constantly. There is no information i could find on energizers site that addressed this issue. Even with 4 fully charged remotes, if i put them on the station, initially slot 2 and sometimes also slot 3 would blink. After a few hours, all slots had a solid green. With that test, no remotes needed charged–so my theory is just that slot 1 and 4 work first, sort things out–figure out if the remotes need charged or not and then slot 2 and 3 take over. This is only a theory–tested on 2 separate units. I am not an electronic whiz–i’m just assuming that this is by design for some reason.
I am completely pleased with this unit and would highly recommend.
Rating
After using this for a couple of months I’m mostly pleased. However, there are two issues which stop this from getting perfect marks:
1) lining up the remotes on the pad can be a little tricky, in particular, if you have sleeves on the wimotes. There are magnets in the pad to assist in this process but they don’t really make it obvious that you have everything lined up. Several times we’ve thought we had a remote on the charger only to discover the next day that it had not charged. Having the panel perfectly flat looks aesthetically pleasing, but the reality is that a slightly sculpted surface would make it much easier to place the remotes where they need to be.
2) the batteries do not hold enough charge. Most of the time this is not an issue. However, if the kids fail to get the remote on the charging pad perfectly (as outlined above) then forget about using the thing two days in a row. We have four remotes and rarely have four people playing at once so most of the time we can just swap out a remote if it looses its charge, but if you want to have four people playing be prepared to swap in a pair of AA batteries on occasion.
Before we got four remotes we used a InCharge Dual Charge Station which also worked well for us and I will also post a review of it. It’s design is not perfect either, in the end both products functioned about equally but I would give the slight edge to the Enegizer Flat Panel charger.
Rating
So I’ve always had trouble getting the younger siblings to keep the wii remotes charged up and ready to play… until now. There’s nothing more frustrating than getting all set up for a 4 player game only to realize that one controller is dead. Then comes the waste of time search for charged up batteries, the inevitable cannibalizing of batteries from the Xbox360 or TV remotes and then, finally, you’re ready to play… until a second remote dies halfway through the first round. Not cool, not fun, and not the simple user-friendly charging experience I expected when I bought the Wii.
This induction charger fixes all my problems. The remotes just sit on the charger when not in use, a little green light tells you when they’re fully charged, and it still charges the remote with motionplus through the jelly sleeve thing it comes in. The little guys are (so far) managing to put the remotes on the charger when not using them and we haven’t had a problem starting up a 4 player game since we got the thing. Induction chargers are very cool. I look forward to the day when power cords (and cords in general) are a thing of the past and everything runs on wireless power. This little gadget takes me one step closer to that blissful day when I won’t have to set up anyone’s TV/Cable/Bluray(though no doubt it’ll all be digital distribution by then)/game system etc.
I give the thing five stars. I’m SO glad I got this before getting Wii Sports Resort. As fun as it’s been (and anyone who’s given showdown mode in sword fighting a whirl can tell you, there’s loads to be had), it would have been a royal pain in the butt to have to take the remote’s jelly casing off every time I wanted to switch the batteries out.
To wrap it up, I’m impressed, pleased, and would recommend this ploduct to anyone with a wii. I hope this kind of tech comes built in to the next Nintendo system, or, if it doesn’t, that energizer has the next version of this gadget ready to launch alongside it. Very nice. Go buy it already.
Wii Energizer Flat Panel 4x Induction Charger
Rating
You can’t beat this charging system. Batteries don’t last as long as my over-the-counter Duracell and Energizer systems, but they last long enough to play all day. Plus the ease of charging makes it a snap to swap the controllers out if you should need to swap.
You don’t need to remove the rubber coating and the controllers fit on the pad with the straps and WiiMotion accessories without any problems.
This is a must have for WiiHeads.
Rating
Just got the charger at Christmas. It seems to charge just fine, even with various sleeves on the wiimotes. However, be aware, that due to the induction circuitry’s space requirements, the battery packs use AAA cells, not the AA cells that come stock with the wiimotes. (BTW, You can open the packs with one screw, and can easily replace the cells with new rechargeable AAA’s when they wear out.)
Generally, a standard AAA cell has 1/2 the MAH (Milli amp hours) of a AA cell (around 1200 MAH to 2400 MAH). This means that in theory, the wiimote using the energizer packs should only last around 1/2 as long between charges as a wiimote using AA cells. I haven’t tested this as of yet.
They do seem to last enough for our normal playing sessions, and we always store them on the charger.
My initial impression still, however, is that this is a very nice product, that is a very convenient way to keep your wiimotes charged.