Originally Posted by
Troul
Yep.
cold causes battery life shrinkage.
Shrinkage in the cold! Last weekend we spent 30 hours with no power and 10F temps starting with arctic wins. Shrinkage could not be verified because we all wore way too many layers! Outdoors, indoors and in bed.
And seriously, the batteries I've been using for bike lights since they first came out are the DuraCells. I haven't ever done tests but have found through experience that even in very cold weather I get decent light life and almost always one last ride on a light that is dying unlike just about every other alkaline I've use that after the previous ride simply didn't work. But - that was with the old "stupid" batteries, The new smart ones need their full voltage for the computers to work. (This seems to go for just about everything digital. I have a box of DuraCells with 2/3ds to 3/4s of a charge according to my battery check that work just fine for the old flashlights for a little while.)
This observation about the DuraCells applies to the AAA, AA, C and Ds. I don't think it applies to the coin size batteries like the 2032s.