Any battery only lasts about an hour

[Arthur88]

Hey everyone, nice to meet you all.

My problem is that any battery I use only lasts about an hour. Sometimes less, sometimes a bit more. I remember from playing on my Wii that I was able to use the controller without having to replace the batteries for at least 6 hours.

I'm using an original Wiimote Plus with a "built-in" rechargeable battery I bought on Ali Express (2800mAh). It's easy to assume that's the problem, but the same happens whenever I use standard rechargeable batteries or just non-rechargeable ones.

Also, I've been getting battery warnings on Super Mario Galaxy even though there's still two battery lines (out of four) when I press Home. They're only supposed to appear when it reaches just one tick. It's also very common that there's just one tick and after a few minutes it somehow changes to two.

A possibility is that for some reason the batteries aren't calibrated and Dolphin just misreads the charge level.

It's really annoying not being able to play for over an hour without having to recharge.

Also, Dolphin always crashes when the controller is disconnected. Not sure if that's related.

Any help is really appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Specs:
Win 10 x64 Pro Build 19041
Intel i5 9600K
Hyper-X 16GB RAM
Nvidia GTX 2070
Bluetooth Adapter CSR 4.0 Dongle
Using Dolphin 5.0-13480

[mbc07]

When using real Wiimotes, Dolphin will just report the battery level informed by the controller itself to the emulated software, so it looks like the issue might actually be with the Wiimote itself. Also, AFAICT, as long as the battery voltage doesn't drop beyond a certain threshold, the Wiimote will continue working fine, even if the game keep complaining the battery is low. If your Wiimote is actually shutting down after about an hour of use like you say, it might be defective...

[supsonic]

Try the rechargeable 2500mah batteries from IKEA. I have an army of these at the ready for a range of devices. You also need a good charger that tells you the exact status of the recharge. Not all charge cycles are full charges, and not all chargers are created equal.

[AnyOldName3]

Also, some slightly older high-capacity NiMH cells don't cope well with high-current loads like wireless controllers. Really old ones are okay, but have probably aged, but with new ones, it's safer to go for ones sold as pre-charged - the NiMH generations that are able to hold a charge for a couple of years cope well with high-current loads, so the rated capacity should correlate well with how long they can keep a Wiimote alive.

There's probably a lot more nuance to this if you actually look into it, but this should help.