Octopus Overlords

Hey OOers, I figure it's worth a shot to ask her and see if any of you may know someplace I could get a replacement battery for my HiBy R5 digital audio player (DAP).
It's out of it's 1-year warranty (bought march 2020) and the battery is no longer holding a charge.

I have a few options;

1) Do nothing and hobble along until I can replace it with something similar. It does work when plugged in (usually), but for a device that cost around $300 it's not ideal.
2) Ship it to China for repair. All in, this would be about $100 with shipping, parts and labor. In addition, I would have to wait for weeks (months?) due to supply chain/shipping disruptions, Christmas season, and possibly Chinese New Year if it gets delayed long enough.
3) Take it to a cell phone repair shop and see if they can fix it. I actually did this, and am waiting to hear back from them but the guy there wasn't sure if he could find a battery.
4) Find a battery myself and have the repair guy replace it (or learn how to do it myself).

Battery spec;
For HiBy R5
Model: 654779P
3500mAh
3.8v
13.3 Wh

One other thing, I did find this one for sale on amazon for $15. Voltage is different, so I don't know.

0.1V difference should not matter. Did you check dimensions?

EDIT: I found a picture of that 654779P. It appears to be custom made for Hiby, so you may be out of luck looking for a exact replacement.

Off-topic a bit: Hmm, I've never seen an Android music player, but it's been a while since I looked for one. Seems a bit pricey but maybe all the bells and whistles are worth it. I've been using my iPod Touch and my ancient but still working iPod Classic 160GB, but always wanted to switch to Android.

Yeah, it's a bit of luxury, but I'm able to justify it a few ways.

1) I don't find much joy in my day to day job responsibilities, listening to music & podcasts helps me cope.
2) I've had cheaper dedicated mp3 players in the past, and they have all had some drawback that I hoped would be solved by a higher end device.
3) My wife accidentally dropped my last device in a cup of water and fried it, so I had some leverage to get a bit spendy

I bought the R5 because it seems to be the sweet spot for best bang for the buck.

Pros;
+supports most (all?) Lossless Audio formats
+not too big (but it's too big to use while exercising)
+has real buttons
+4.4 balanced headphone input
+removable sd card
+wifi (it has bluetooth too, but I don't use that)

Cons;
-touch screen is too small and not very sensitive - I would actually prefer to not have a touch screen at all.
-my current battery issues, and low operating time in general. It never got anywhere near the advertised 18 hrs runtime.

Neutral;
~Android operating system is a double edge sword. It gives a lot of flexibility on apps, but it's been linked to excessive battery drain and android isn't specifically made for this function. Although, I've had devices in the past with their own proprietary OS, and it was worse.

If not for my present battery issues, I would recommend the R5 for anyone looking for a dedicated lossless music player.

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 10:09 pm 0.1V difference should not matter. Did you check dimensions?

EDIT: I found a picture of that 654779P. It appears to be custom made for Hiby, so you may be out of luck looking for a exact replacement.

Thanks. I'm also not sure the battery I linked has the right connections, I'm too scared to pry the battery out so I can see.
I'm searching ebay and alibaba to see if I can find anything, no luck so far.

Go to Batteries Plus and see if they have something.

Nothing on their site, but there is a store nearby.
I'll check it out.

Archinerd wrote: ↑Thu Sep 30, 2021 10:50 am Nothing on their site, but there is a store nearby.
I'll check it out.

They may be able to custom order one, who knows.

It might be more cost/sanity effective but a whole lot less "compact" to just settle on an external battery pack and just run it 100% of the time off that.

malchior wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 12:34 pm It might be more cost/sanity effective but a whole lot less "compact" to just settle on an external battery pack and just run it 100% of the time off that.

Esp. when you can just velcro(tm) it to the back with a baby cable.

this is exactly why i don't go for these fly-by-night Chinese electronics - sourcing a new battery that is usually custom made is extremely difficult to impossible to find - made worse that these tend to be devices that are manufactured for a very short period of time, and the whole product line is refreshed in six months (or the manufacturer disappears altogether). (i do have a 'Soulcker' portable media player, but i didn't pay anything for it)

Guess it also depends on how janky you want your setup to be. It's hypothetically possible to run it without a back-cover, or maybe find a slightly smaller battery instead of a drop-in replacement.

You can get pretty darn small "claimed" 10000 mAh battery banks nowadays that you can do slide-lock or velcro to the back of the player too.