Apollo Family - Batteries & Shelf Life

All models in the Apollo range of payment devices include two batteries for offline power supply. This battery power is essential to support the PCI PTS Tamper Protection systems and associated secure cryptographic keys and certificates.

All PCI PTS payment devices must include tamper protection mechanisms. Should any attempt to infiltrate and tamper with the device be detected, all secure cryptographic keys and certificates are destroyed rendering the device inoperable. This system requires the use of a permanent background power supply, serviced by two integrated batteries.

Rechargeable Short-Term Battery

A rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery cell serves as the first source of this power. When fully charged, this battery is expected to operate the tamper protection circuits of the device for up to three months whilst the device is in storage or otherwise not receiving mains power. Anytime that mains power is supplied to the device, this battery will automatically be recharged and maintained.

Recharging the Li-ion battery cell once fully depleted via the default trickle-charge process, typically takes up to four and a half hours to complete.

Non-Rechargeable Long-Term Battery

A second, non-rechargeable battery is also included within Apollo devices. This battery has a total cumulative life-time capacity of up to an additional two years for devices that are offline and not receiving mains power. Power from this battery is used by the device only when mains power is unavailable, and only after the short-term rechargeable battery is no longer able to service the device’s requirements. This long-term battery cell is not rechargeable so discharge should be minimised and avoided where possible.

Battery Life In Deployment

Once deployed into a production environment, mains power is typically provided for the remainder of the Apollo’s operational life-span with only relatively brief periods of being switched off due to power-cuts or maintenance of the host system. The cumulative total offline battery supply from the two included battery cells become far less important after deployment.

State Of Charge (SOC) On Delivery

From the point of manufacture to delivery, Apollo devices spend various periods of time without mains power as they are packaged and briefly stored at the factory, shipped to a Payter distribution centre, stored in stock for a short time before finally prepped to fulfil a customer order and shipped to a final destination. This process is variable but typically takes a total of eight to twelve weeks.

Whilst the rechargeable Li-Ion battery manages the majority of the offline power requirements during that time, and devices are powered on at at least two stages for brief periods which provides some limited recharging, customers should therefore reasonably expect devices to arrive with minimal remaining power in the rechargeable battery as a result.

It should be presumed that on arrival, Apollo devices are possibly already now depleting the non-rechargeable battery cell, which therefore provides an approximate overall shelf-life in this state of two years.

Battery Management In Stock / Shelf Life Best Practice

In most cases, it is rare for end-user customers to store Apollo devices for longer than a few months before they are built into various host-machines and deployed for operational use. The non-rechargeable battery cell is more than capable of operating the tamper circuits during this time, and once deployed and powered on, the rechargeable battery cell replenishes and takes over most likely power interruptions thereafter for the rest of the device’s life.

Exceptions to this can occur when production plans involve the potential for Apollo devices to be stored for much longer, and under these circumstances end-user customers or any intermediary party holding stock, should consider a periodic process to power on and recharge Apollo devices once every ten weeks or so to avoid continuing to reduce the long-term battery cell’s capacity.

Important Note For Electric Vehicle Charging Networks

It is particularly important for users of Apollo devices in the EV Charging space to consider battery life carefully. Due to various planning regulations and challenges with timely enablement of high-capacity power supplies, it is commonplace for EV Chargers and their included Apollo payment terminals to be left on-site without power for months at a time. If this is expected to be the case, please consider any opportunity that might be available to provide power to the Apollo device during this time.

Coming Soon

A future release of Apollo Firmware will introduce a new feature allowing devices to be configured with a specific mode for this circumstance, whereby the display is disabled/populated with nothing but a black image, appearing to be off to a casual observer even though it is powered on.

Symptoms Of Battery Depletion / Failure

Should all battery power ultimately be depleted over time, or due to any battery fault of any kind, this would present itself to users by the Apollo device reporting a “Security Violation” error on start-up, as a result of the cryptographic keys and certificates having been destroyed by the tamper protection mechanism activating at the point of power loss. The device is no longer able to complete a boot-up sequence, activate it’s applications, or respond to any integration commands.

In this circumstance it is unfortunately impossible to resolve the situation without returning the device to Payter under normal RMA procedures, where a repair or replacement can be made available.

Battery Replacement

At no time can either battery be replaced by end-users. Payter Apollo devices include no user-serviceable parts, and any attempt to open them will trigger the tamper protection mechanisms rendering the device inoperable regardless of battery state. Devices requiring battery replacement must be returned to Payter.