Request to Leica for a consistent M battery standard

[dugby]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I understand that Leica-Camera management and their product developers occasionally read this forum, so I thought I'd post this request.

Over the many years Leica-Camera has developed various product standards that get successfully utilized in it's products, eg the LTM-mount, the M-mount, Speedlite protocols.

But it seems Leica's battery standard in it's ranges of digital camera models has quite a messy outcome.

 

I have purchased the following six Leica digital cameras over the last 20 years.

Digilux 1, Digilux 2 and Digilux 3 which used similar batteries interchangeably BP-DC1-E and BPDC3-E (for which I was thankful).

X2 uses BP-DC8

M240 uses BP-SCL2

M10-R uses BP-SCL5

 

I also observed for :

M8, M9, M-E and M-monochrom uses 14464

M11 use BP-SCL7

Q2, SL and SL2 use BP-SCL4

Q3, SL2 and SL3 use BP-SCL6

 

I understand that different battery dimensions are required for different body sizes, eg compacts vs APSC vs Full-frame, and now the M11 with battery flap.

 

However as we have been repeated told by Leica Marketing that the M is it's flagship product, it's M-battery strategy is unpleasant:

14464, BP-SCL2, BP-SCL5, BP-SCL7

 

I implore Leica to keep using BP-SCL5 for M bodies with a removable base , and BP-SCL7 for M bodies with the battery flap.

 

 

If it is Leica's product developers plan to have different sizes so as the generate extra revenue from battery replacements, it just adds unpleasant feelings to it's loyal customers.

 

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Al Brown]

Yeah not gonna happen, there is a SIGNIFICANT ROI in selling different batteries and changing them with every model. Ask DJI who changes everything battery related (size, mount, design) for every new drone iteration EVEN IF THE BATTERY IS THE SAME like it was with their Inspire 2 vs. Inspire 3.
Think budget airlines and their baggabe policy - much money made there.

Edited September 18 by Al Brown

[tom0511]

to the op...I totally agree. The inconsistent battery strategy is not only bad for the environment, but it also does not speak for a proffesional system

not even the SL2 battery is really usable in a SL3. This is far from "great". 

[Anbaric]

2 hours ago, dugby said:

If it is Leica's product developers plan to have different sizes so as the generate extra revenue from battery replacements, it just adds unpleasant feelings to it's loyal customers.

I'd like to see a limited range of standard camera battery formats across the industry, just as we have for familiar cylindrical cells like AA. Perhaps the EU could mandate this for cameras sold in the Single Market, as they have for phone chargers, and prohibit mechanisms that lock a particular device to the manufacturer's own batteries, while requiring that all batteries sold comply with a published standard. The EU is a large enough market to 'encourage' the manufacturers to make these standards global. The current system is wasteful and leads to needless incompatibilities, and may also mean that your device effectively have a limited life because the batteries won't be available indefinitely, especially if they are never cloned because they are 'chipped'. I can only use my Fuji X100T today because third party batteries are available; Fuji has stopped supplying them and my old ones don't hold much of a charge. Leica DMR owners have to resort to battery rebulding services. The Leica M240 battery no longer appears to be available as a retail item, but only (for now) as a 'spare part' from the service department. It is chipped and has never been cloned, so what happens if (and when) Leica stops supplying it?

[Al Brown]

26 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

The Leica M240 battery no longer appears to be available as a retail item, but only (for now) as a 'spare part' from the service department. It is chipped and has never been cloned, so what happens if (and when) Leica stops supplying it?

More than stardaziation (which will not happen as it would open a Pandora's box for all electronics manufacturers and is impossible to implement in this range) it would be much wiser and cooler from Leica to guarantee the supply of batteries for all their digital models for the future. This will probably not happen either as we can see the case with M8/M9 batteries.

[Anbaric]

51 minutes ago, Al Brown said:

More than stardaziation (which will not happen as it would open a Pandora's box for all electronics manufacturers and is impossible to implement in this range) it would be much wiser and cooler from Leica to guarantee the supply of batteries for all their digital models for the future. This will probably not happen either as we can see the case with M8/M9 batteries.

Remember when every device used its own incompatible charger or power supply?

'Now why is this? Well, there's one possible theory, which is that just as Xerox is really in the business of selling toner cartridges, Sony is really in the little dongly power-supply business. Another possible reason is that it is sheer blinding idiocy. It couldn't possibly be that could it? I mean, could it? It's hard to imagine that some of the mightiest brains on the planet, fuelled by some of the finest pizza that money can buy, haven't at some point thought 'Wouldn't it be easier if we all just standardised on one type of DC power supply?' Now, I'm not an electrical engineer, so I may be asking for the impossible. Maybe it is a sine qua non of the way in which a given optical drive or CD Walkman works that it has to draw 600 milliamps rather than 500, or have its negative terminal on the tip rather than the sleeve and that it will either whine or fry itself if presented with anything faintly different. But I strongly suspect that if you stuck a hardware engineer in a locked room for a couple of days and taunted him with the smell of pepperoni, he'd probably be able to think of a way of making whatever gizmo (maybe even the new gizmo Pro, which I've heard such good things about) it is he's designing, work to a standard DC low-power supply.'

Back then it probably seemed impossible to implement a standard, but given the right motivation (like legislation) I suspect it could be made to happen. Today I can charge or power my phone and my tablet and my laptop and my external drive and my Raspberry Pi and my headphones and my portable speaker and my torch and my bike light and my GPS and at least one of my more recent cameras by USB, and use the same ports for data transfer. The camera companies are generally just packaging up standard third party cells in their myriad of different batteries. So why not have a standard? Do we really need more than (say) 4 different battery formats to cover everything from a pocket P&S to a pro mirrorless? There would still be room for innovation by using (say) higher capacity cells, just as has happened with rechargeable AAs.

I agree that Leica should guarantee a supply, though. At least for the M9 battery (no authentication chip?) there are third party alternatives. Not so for the M240 and later.

 

Edited September 18 by Anbaric

[lct]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Brand new batteries are available as spare parts for M240 and i have a drawer full of third party alternatives for Digilux1, M8.2 and digital CL among others. I prefer batteries tailored for cameras than cameras tailored for batteries anyway. YMMV.

Edited September 18 by lct

[250swb]

Being able to sell bespoke batteries for every model is the second bite of the retail cake for Leica, so they aren't going to standardise anytime soon. In many ways it's the same as releasing the M cameras in a basic chrome form but we all know they will later do a 'black paint or whatever' follow-on version for continued income from essentially the same product sold to the same people. And now they sell the camera without a battery charger to make you buy one. At least with bespoke batteries there is the hope each can make the design of the camera lighter or smaller etc. and it isn't just a cash grab. But the availability long term is worrying and the honourable thing if Leica stopped being able to supply them would be to make the design of the chip inside say the M240 battery available to aftermarket suppliers. But the planned obsolescence of Leica batteries is inevitable because they want you to keep buying new cameras.