Battery - V23GA (Varta)

The V23GA battery is the small 12 volt cell in remotes and garage door openers. Alkaline, 10.3 mm across and 28.5 mm long. It is narrow and tall, and it is 12 volts rather than the 1.5 or 3 volts most small batteries give, so nothing else will substitute for it.

• Twelve volts is why nothing substitutes for a V23GA battery
• It goes by an absurd number of names
• Where it turns up
• Alkaline, for short bursts
• The specification

Twelve volts is why nothing substitutes for a V23GA battery

Almost every small battery in a house is 1.5 or 3 volts. A V23GA battery is 12, from a stack of tiny cells inside one narrow case 10.3 mm across and 28.5 mm long. So there is no substituting something similar looking from the drawer: the device will simply not work, and putting a lower voltage cell in a gate remote is the reason a great many gate remotes are assumed to be broken.

It goes by an absurd number of names

A23, E23A, SA23, MN21, 23AE, LRV08 and 3LR50 are all this battery. Manufacturers, manuals and shops each seem to have chosen a different one. If your remote asks for any name on that list, this is the cell, and it is worth checking the list before concluding that your battery is unobtainable here.

Where it turns up

Garage and gate remotes above all, and that is the common case in Dar es Salaam compounds. Also alarm system remotes, GPS trackers, some camera equipment, clocks and pocket calculators. Our RF wireless remote takes one, and it is not supplied with the remote, so order the two together.

Alkaline, for short bursts

The chemistry is built for the brief pull a remote control asks for rather than continuous draw, which is exactly the duty a gate remote has. Guaranteed storage time is up to three years, so a spare kept in the car glovebox is worth having when the gate is the only way in.

The specification

12 volts, alkaline, 10.3 mm diameter by 28.5 mm high. Brand varies between deliveries and the specification does not.

If your device takes a coin cell instead, it is more likely the CR2032. Wikipedia keeps a list of battery sizes that includes every one of the names above.