[Leica] Leica blocking 3rd party batteries in firmware?

[John McMaster]

I have had 2 or 3 non-genuine batteries, none of them ever worked reliably even before the firmware update. I have not bought an M9 battery (I have 6 across M9, Monochrom and M8) for over 2.5 years, the oldest is nearly twice that age, and they all still work fine. If I am carrying the M9, Monochrome and a few lenses then the battery price, rather than reliability, is not an issue...

john

-----Original Message-----

I think on this list at one point different people reported varying experience with different non-genuine batteries. They might chime in?

For sure the Leica ones cost a lot. I guess that the one for the M8/9 was easy to clone or whoever actually made the originals produced a lot of them to different standards? It's interesting that the battery for the M (typ
240) is actually two of the earlier assemblies in one case, but I've not heard of a single non-genuine version anywhere.


Cheers
Geoff
http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman

On 10 February 2015 at 01:19, kyle cassidy on the lug < leicaslacker at gmail.com> wrote:

> Howdy folks --
>
> I've been using 3rd party batteries in all of my cameras since 
> Australopithecus started banging rocks together -- in Panasonics, 
> Nikons, and various Leica's with no problem. In fact, I've often 
> wondered if workers from the OEM shop sneak back in at night and 
> continue production without labeling them.
>
> I recently got four off-brand M9 batteries (from two different 
> retailers) and notice a curious behavior -- when they're fully charged 
> often the camera will give a "battery low" warning and shut down -- 
> however voltage meter shows the batteries are fully charged. I'm 
> wondering if Leica has possibly chipped it's batteries and instructed 
> the camera not to work with 3rd party batteries (in the same way that 
> the Keuring coffee-machines recognize imposter K-Cups and refuse to 
> work with them.) I can think of several possible reasons for this, but 
> chipping the batteries I think is the most likely. Another option is 
> that only 3rd party manufacturers who make batteries for Leica cameras are hucksters, but it seems less likely.
>
> Any thoughts on this? $130 for a battery is $120 that I could use 
> toward a plane ticket to photograph something with a battery that's worth $10.
>
> Kyle
>
>