I got my Aimpoint T-1 in March of 2011. Since then, the dot has never been turned off and kept on a setting between 8 and 10 depending upon lighting conditions. Last weekend, the original battery finally died. That is 32 months of continuous use, almost 3 years. In the future, I believe I will make it my habit to change the battery annually, but I honestly wanted to see how long it would run for. I’m impressed and furthermore, I like knowing real useful battery life data instead of some number based on a low-power, invisible setting.
Aimpoint quotes 50,000 hours, but I don’t see where they say on what setting. ETA: I found this later after digging a little deeper on Aimpoint’s site: Battery life in hours ** 50 000 (over 5 years of continuous use) ** at room temperature & at setting 8 out of 12.
Mine works out to roughly 23,000 hours of useful battery life (32 months x 30 days/month x 24 hrs/day). That still beats the snot out of any other battery-powered optic on the market except Aimpoint’s M4S. By contrast, the PRO isn’t listed in hours, but their site says “up to 3 years” which works out to 26,280 hrs. Based on the T-1 getting roughly 1/2 of the battery life claimed when left on a usable setting, I think it’s safe to say the PRO would realistically get around 13,000 hours, so you could still leave it on full time and change the battery once a year.
Eveready CR2032’s cost me less than a buck, Surefire CR123’s not much more. I have a habit of changing all the batteries in my Aimpoints, weaponlights and smoke detectors on January 1 of every year.
I’m not usually a fan of sample sizes of 1, but first hand experience is always something I value when it takes several years to get any results. I appreciate you posting this. I wouldn’t necessarily transfer your percentage of actual battery life vs. Aimpoints numbers, but it is interesting to see that you less than half of what Aimpoint says its good for.
I think they state somewhere that the battery life is based on level 7 on the t-1 position 12 on m4. If in NVD setting both are rated at 500,000 hours?! At room temperature on both ratings.
I would like to help you guys out, who are obviously very frustrated by your defective T-1s. Please send them to me and I’ll take care of their disposal.
This is what I’ve seen myself. My T-1 has been on the same battery for just over 36 months on level 7 and sitting in my car 5 days a week. North east climate.
I was planning on changing out the battery this coming January, but now you guys have gotten me curious. I think I’ll see how long she goes.
I want to clarify that I’m not by any means complaining. I figured 50,000 hrs was about like bow manufacturer’s IBO rating…something not really attainable under field conditions. I was simply posting some real-world first-hand data as info for the masses. 3 years of constant-on battery life is still pretty amazing to me and I’m tickled pink about it.
Not the same and they are different batteries. I had a watch that was given to me that someone left the original battery in for years and it was still fine.
Battery performance depends on things like temperature and humidity. Also batteries are not created equal so 2032’s from different brands could easily have a 20-30% variance. Moral of the story is this could help explain the difference between published and actual use.
I also think its possible that Aimpoint didn’t actually run a bunch of Micro’s for 5 years. They might have drained a group of batteries at a much higher current till they hit a min voltage, then used that data to calculate battery life against the measured current of the Micro at setting 8.
Although I can see a company doing that to save time and money, that’s borderline unethical IMHO. That kind of practice needs a disclaimer along the lines of “average battery life” was five years, or something.
While it may sound unethical on the surface, I think its a valid test method when faced with that kind of duration. Similarly, this is how computer hard drives are tested in a lab to determine their MTBF (mean time between failure rating) which some consider the life expectancy of the drive. That rating is now sometimes in the millions for some drives. They can’t run a sample of drives for 100+ years to measure the failure rate so they will run 1000 drives for a period of 6-8 weeks and use the number of drive failures in that time to calculate the MTBF.
Again, this is pure speculation on my part as I don’t know Aimpoint’s testing methodology. For all I know the emitter in the Micro evolved from earlier products and a real life/time battery test could have been performed during the products evolution, or subsequent to it’s release.