So we have a battery hungry front door lock that requires 4-AA batteries to power. I noticed that the Sunbeam batteries purchased from Dollar Tree (3 pack for $1, or $1.33 per replacement) were getting replaced every month or so, so I was curious if that was normal as well as how much I was really paying for them.

Tracking in a spreadsheet, the Sunbeam batteries lasted from 23 to 36 days, with an average of 28.8 days. At $1.33 per replacement / 28.8 days… that door cost 4.61¢ per day with the Sunbeam batteries.

Thinking maybe I could do better, I bought a 96 pack of EnviroMAX Batteries (affiliate link) on Woot (but for 25¢ each instead of being similar in price to the Sunbeam… so it was $1 per replacement instead of the $1.42 at the current moment for that link.) The batteries lasted 13-25 days, with a generous average of 21 days, or about 4.7¢ per day… The last replacements were more like 2 weeks and I stopped tracking them, but there were sets in the middle that made it 3 weeks or better, but it was horribly inconsistent.

I just bought a large pack of Kirkland batteries, so I’ll be sure to track the performance of those and see how it lines up with the other batteries.