Hi All

Is it just me or does anybody else find the battery life on the new Pronto Pro NG very short indeed, mine lasts about 3 days with very little use and when i place the Pronto on its charger the lights come on to show its charging but dont appear to be on for the 2 to 3 hours like the old Pronto Pro although the battery indicator shows a full charge, but does go down fairly quickly, do i have a problem with my new Pronto or is this a common occurance. Any help is very much appreciated.

Regards

Neil

I've noticed battery life can be very short, and return the remote to the charging cradle each night as a matter of course. It doesn't take more than perhaps 40 minutes to charge making me wonder if the depth of discharge was really reached; the battery status indicator tends to bounce - after the first few remote uses, it's one indicator bar down. A few more uses, two bars down - but then it will "recover" to three. Even if I get a low battery indication, it will bounce back sometimes to two bars, though at that point it isn't long until you can't do anything (e.g., go into settings).

I've had long sessions, seemingly 30-40 minutes of continuous backlighting while searching Tivo and cable program guides... and no battery exhaust! I have to believe the battery status indication isn't very accurate, or the remote draws way too much power for the tiny battery pack. I know ni-cad batteries "bouce back" after use but I didn't know NiMh batteries were like that.

When I get two brain cells together I'll write to tech support. I also have a TSU-3000 and no doubt it draws less power for the EL backlight than the 7000 does for the cold-cathode flourescent backlight, but then again if the 7000 really does draw so much more power then I have to wonder why the very same battery pack was used when designed... a little additional weight wouldn't have been made sense!

Bill Halvorsen

I also have been keeping the 7000 on the charger each night and while it does drain down to two bars after an evenings use, it hasn't been a problem ... until now.
When I put it on the charger the blue lights blink - instead of staying lit like they used to. Also, it wont take a full charge.
Any ideas?
Have others experienced the blinking blue lights?

Blinking usually means some sort of problem. Dirt in the contacts, remote needs a reboot, etc.

I'll try it and report back - thanks

I, too have seen the blinking lights. Very early on, actually, from the time I've had the unit: since 12/24/03.

Manual suggested some sort of charging error, and the batteries were quite warm.

Took the unit off the charger, used it normally, and blinking lights have not recurred. I now leave the unit off the base until the battery indicator is down a bit. Usually every two or three days. You can always store it there - just don't push it down onto the connector unless you want to charge it. I've found that the unit can be used while ON the base. Any shiny spherical object near the IR transmitters will get enough of a signal to your boxes to permit control. In my case, it's a brass lamp base on the table with the cradle.

Somewhere else on this board, or at the Philips website, I read about some updates to the 3000. One of the changes they made was to the battery indication, which they described as too pessimistic. So, it's possible that the battery condition indicator itself has some bugs.

The only time I really worry about battery condition is when I'm up or downloading something. You really don't want the batteries to crump during this operation - although I think there's some protection against this built into the firmware?

With the TSU3000, the charger base was an option. With the 7000, it's included. So I worry less about battery life than I would if I had a 3000. And, if you park the 7000 there, it doesn't get lost in the pile of newspapers on the coffee table. If you're worried about battery condition while transferring data, there's a connector on the base that permits this.

Thanks again for the ideas.
Tried several cleanings of the connection points, rebooting, reloading the pcf, and running down the battery. No luck - flashing blue every time it charges. Next step is asking Philips ... unless someone has a better idea.