It was inevitable. With the 3:1 or 4:1 cost differential between rechargeable OEM camera batteries and cheap knockoffs and with some spectacular flaming battery incidents with laptop batteries, it was clear that vendors would find a way to prevent customers from using less expensive batteries. Panasonic is one of the first, if not the first, to enforce use of Panasonic branded batteries in its digital cameras through a firmware update to sixteen of its digital camera models because “some aftermarket 3rd party batteries do not meet the rigid safety standards Panasonic uses.”

Conceptually, this is not a hard feature to add to a battery-powered device because genuine branded batteries all have thermal sensors to prevent overcharging disasters and most incorporate battery-management chips to communicate battery status to the host device. Third-party batteries generally don’t have such communications ability. I’ve got three 3^rd-party batteries for my Canon 20D dSLR and it’s clear that the camera doesn’t understand these batteries as well as the one genuine Canon BP511 I own. However, the other three batteries taken together cost about as much as one genuine Canon BP511. Two came from eBay and cost less than $10 each. One is a Lenmar and cost $30 at Fry’s. (I needed one fast.) A genuine Canon BP511A runs about $50.

Will the battery situation quickly resemble the ink cartridge situation? Many printers will only work with genuine manufacturer ink cartridges and will not recognize refilled cartridges, making ink more expensive per liter than fine Scotch whiskey. Time will tell.