Our illuminated door handles were designed for the hospitality sector and are often used on exterior and interior doors where their color changing ability and organic design create a dramatic statement.
As public areas receive greater use than would be the case in a typical household we designed these pieces to function as hard wired handles connected to low voltage wiring and thereby capable of providing continuous light for many months with the lifespan being limited only by the durability of the LED components. Most of our commercial projects are either new construction or major remodels where new doors are designed to carry low voltage wiring.
Some smart newly constructed homes will have wiring built into the door frame but if not trying to get power into an existing door can be a challenge. For the commercial sector, frameless glass doors are also unsuitable for hard wired handles and so find ourselves searching for a battery alternative. Can any reader suggest a battery that would work?
You may find our quest surprising, but the problem always comes back to finding a battery that is small enough to fit into a 1 ½” x 4” cylinder and that has a long-life span. Our single-color white spot uses 350mA and while this is a small amount of energy so too is the life capacity of smaller batteries. Batteries are measured in part by the Ah or amp hours so a 1Ah battery can power a 1Amp device for 1 hour or power our white LED spot for just under 3 hours.
Some small batteries have an 8.5Ah which would power our handle for 24 hours and make some sense if the light were not constantly on but motion triggered for short 10 second bursts.
Re-chargeable batteries are another option especially for exterior use where a small solar panel could be attached to the cap of the handle.
We will continue to search for battery alternatives and will be exploring both motion and light activated uses as well as rechargeable batteries and welcome any thoughts from readers.