Having some real battery anxiety with a new OB-4 and wanted to get some opinions. I picked one up to pair with my OP1 and OPz and based on the advertised battery life I assumed I could get away with a few days on the battery life but I am finding even at low to medium volume I get a max of 7 hours. I tried leaving it on just the radio at low volume without using any Bluetooth/line in/magic features and I got a bit more battery life but not much. It seems like if I use the looping and other fun stuff I can get to half battery in less than 2 hours. To make matters worse there is a very strong idle power drain. I am losing big blocks of battery life overnight even when the unit is completely off. Love my ob4 for so many reasons but I’m not sure if I’m expecting too much or if I have a defective battery. I wondered if maybe the battery read out was not accurate as I have had battery calibration issues with my OP1. Any help would be super appreciative. I reached out to support but have not heard back yet.
Is your firmware up to date? Update Goes thru the orthoplay app.
That was the first thing I did after the initial charge. Installed orthoplay and did a firmware update.
hey,
are you basing this on the battery reading graphics, or actual battery life (=listen until the unit shuts down)? the battery reading should be seen as a rough approximation.
thanks, jacob
Hi Jacob,
This is actual listening time. The magic features seem to drain it significantly faster but I can barely get this thing to last 72 hours when it’s off let alone on. That’s my only concern - everything else functions perfectly but the battery indicator was got me testing things and now I’ve tested and can confirm I have sub par battery performance.
@jacobs Update: Charged it fully, and unplugged once light was off. I turned it back on 36 hour later for the first time. The battery indicator on ortho app was at around 25%, so in less than two days idle battery took at least 75% charge. When I turned it on this morning there was an update available so I am wondering if maybe this will help?
@Pazuzu : the latest update won’t change anything related to the battery i’m afraid.
i believe you should get in touch with support regarding your unit.
@jacobs I did and they aren’t able to help as I purchased in the United States and live in Canada and am unable to just return it. They suggested I return it. I guess there is no warranty for this product. Takes several days to get a response to and both times have basically been told I am out of luck. This is copied directly from the email:
if the unit is defective, the retailer should take care of warranty and eventual replacement of the unit! we understand the inconvenience related to you being far away from the store, but unfortunately we don’t see other options.
@jacobs if you have any ability to escalate this being a TE employee please let me know. Also if you have any information on the update that was sent out today that would be great to know as well. I was optimistic that it may address idle battery drain, but have to fully charge again and spend another 36 hours testing to determine if there was an improvement. The update for sure doesn’t address this? Any changelog notes available online?
You have the right to return it to the shop, why can’t you do that?
I would ask the store where you purchased the Ob-4 to send you a return code.
@fallen_lassen Unfortunately I am unable to do that. I incorrectly assumed Teenage Engineering had a warranty for this product as I have been told if I can’t return it, there is nothing else that can be done which is beyond frustrating.
But you have warranty. But it has to go trough the shop where you bought.
They send it to TE.
Isn’t there a TE service center in Canada? You would need to pay for it but at least it would work as expected…
There is a service centre but they don’t work on OB-4s