I dunno, definitely unpopular in the sense I’ve never even heard or seen it before!
But I suspect it’s like any unit. The one you’re used to is the best. If you’re familiar with joules, then it’s best. Someone familiar with miliamps is going to find it best.
Seriously. Familiarity out ranks any other factor for quick understanding of a given thing being expressed in units. Doesn’t matter if it’s feet, meters, pounds, kilos, clicks, miles, or knots. What you know is going to be way more important than even an objectively more descriptive unit.
Now, that does mean that if everyone isn’t familiar with a given unit, communication can be snafu. But when it comes to battery capacity, nobody is going to be familiar with anything until it comes up. It isn’t like a mile/kilometer where having a distance be known is so day-to-day useful that even kids will pick the unit up in their heads eventually without being instructed.
For whatever reason, miliamps got picked, and that’s what’s on most labels. So us RC nerds and electronics geeks have become familiar with what amount of capacity is useful for a given application. Given enough time, you will too.
I don’t know if joules would be better or not, since I’m not familiar enough with using them to compare, much less estimate how many joules a given battery might have. But it’s no difficulty to estimate how long my e-maxx will run off of a given battery pack that’s X miliamps. I used to even be able to guesstimate how ambient temperatures would shift run time per battery swap, and how it would change as the motors heated up. Couldn’t now, but I can still estimate basic run time for that truck, my stampede, and a few others.
Joules are already a unit that people use in daily life. They’re the SI unit. They’re used in science. The manufacturers should have chosen a unit that’s applicable across disciplines, so that the knowledge is transferable. That would have helped people learn science from their phones. Instead, we use a stupid unit that isn’t useful for any other application except commercial power systems, and doesn’t make people smarter when they learn it. When you learn Joules, you get smarter, because you’re learning to more easily navigate lots of energy applications.
I use Amps and hours in my everyday life much more often than Joules. The manufacturers used those units (which are both SI units) because they are the most useful in this case. If you know how many amps you are using you know how long your battery will last. If they gave the joules remaining they would need to give you a Joules/time reading to get the same information. To get that value they would have to measure how many Amps were being used so why bother converting it?
Maybe you should learn a bit more about Amperage instead of expecting everyone else to learn about Joules.
I dunno, definitely unpopular in the sense I’ve never even heard or seen it before!
But I suspect it’s like any unit. The one you’re used to is the best. If you’re familiar with joules, then it’s best. Someone familiar with miliamps is going to find it best.
Seriously. Familiarity out ranks any other factor for quick understanding of a given thing being expressed in units. Doesn’t matter if it’s feet, meters, pounds, kilos, clicks, miles, or knots. What you know is going to be way more important than even an objectively more descriptive unit.
Now, that does mean that if everyone isn’t familiar with a given unit, communication can be snafu. But when it comes to battery capacity, nobody is going to be familiar with anything until it comes up. It isn’t like a mile/kilometer where having a distance be known is so day-to-day useful that even kids will pick the unit up in their heads eventually without being instructed.
For whatever reason, miliamps got picked, and that’s what’s on most labels. So us RC nerds and electronics geeks have become familiar with what amount of capacity is useful for a given application. Given enough time, you will too.
I don’t know if joules would be better or not, since I’m not familiar enough with using them to compare, much less estimate how many joules a given battery might have. But it’s no difficulty to estimate how long my e-maxx will run off of a given battery pack that’s X miliamps. I used to even be able to guesstimate how ambient temperatures would shift run time per battery swap, and how it would change as the motors heated up. Couldn’t now, but I can still estimate basic run time for that truck, my stampede, and a few others.
Same with power banks and a given phone.
Familiarity matters
Joules are already a unit that people use in daily life. They’re the SI unit. They’re used in science. The manufacturers should have chosen a unit that’s applicable across disciplines, so that the knowledge is transferable. That would have helped people learn science from their phones. Instead, we use a stupid unit that isn’t useful for any other application except commercial power systems, and doesn’t make people smarter when they learn it. When you learn Joules, you get smarter, because you’re learning to more easily navigate lots of energy applications.
I use Amps and hours in my everyday life much more often than Joules. The manufacturers used those units (which are both SI units) because they are the most useful in this case. If you know how many amps you are using you know how long your battery will last. If they gave the joules remaining they would need to give you a Joules/time reading to get the same information. To get that value they would have to measure how many Amps were being used so why bother converting it?
Maybe you should learn a bit more about Amperage instead of expecting everyone else to learn about Joules.
Some people, sure. You and some in your close circle of acquaintances likely use it.
Not once have I ever needed to measure something in joules. I suspect that many people, if not most, don’t use joules in daily life.
I would be okay with measuring battery capacity in calories in America.