48 pack of Amazon basic AA batteries for my trail cams. For years I was feeding my kids saw dust thickened stew to afford the 8 lithium batteries per camera for all 7-12 cameras we have between the property my father and I share. (His 150 acres and my 150 are connected) for comparison 48 Amazon basic batteries are $14. 48 energizer lithiums is a cunt hair under $100. It wasn’t until I looked into the reason for the cameras calling out lithium only batteries was because alkaline batteries have a lower output of charge when they are running low but lithium batteries don’t. The company said the lower power creates issues with the camera if it loses power mid cellular transfer of images. They made it sound like what happens if you lose power updating firmware on something. So I even question they’re reasoning cuz I feel like wort case scenario is you lose the image it was transferring but other than that, why would losing power on something ruin it? Either way the change happened when I realized the app showed how much batter is remaining for each camera and just started changing them out between half empty and 3/4 empty. Haven’t had a single problem in the 2 and half years since the change.