Airthings recommends alkaline non-rechargeable batteries in our consumer products.
Why doesn't Airthings recommend rechargeable or lithium batteries?
Our devices were tested with alkaline non-rechargeable batteries and the battery life of our products is based on these tests.
The calculation of the remaining battery percentage will be incorrectly calculated for other battery chemistries since the voltage will be different when fully charged/new.
The voltage of rechargeable and lithium batteries behaves differently from the one in alkaline batteries. Batteries may have stable voltage for a longer time and then suddenly drop to very low voltage asking to be recharged or replaced. With low voltage, some of the devices' sensors may stop working in order to keep the device on.
Some rechargeable batteries are not intended for this type of product where the average current consumption is very low.
You can, of course, opt to use rechargeable or lithium batteries, in such case we cannot guarantee how long will the sensors work correctly, as the voltage is different from brand to brand and we also cannot guarantee how often you will have to recharge or replace the batteries.