Do any of these tools have batteries that will interchange with other manufacturers?

The old ryobi batteries were pretty bad, the newer Lithium ones are much better, That said I'm not using them hard every day but they havn't let me down...

I've had DeWalt, Bosch and Makita- nothing has compared to my Milwaukee M18 Fuel Cordless Tools.
Milwaukee is owned by Hong Kong based Techtronic's Industries, they also own Ryobi and a few other opening price point cordless products. In my opinion, no one comes close for innovation, if you check out their "Pipeline" online you'll see a plethora of New Product Development and Continuous Improvement concepts. I believe they also private label Hart tools that you find at a big box store i.e.' Walmart- here's a couple other brands you will recognize:

Brands
MILWAUKEE
AEG
RYOBI
HOMELITE
EMPIRE
IMPERIAL BLADES
STILETTO
KANGO
HART
HOOVER
ORECK
VAX
DIRT DEVIL

there are some aftermarket adapters but no , no company has done a universal battery , this is why you are buying the tool/battery platform when you choose what to go with

the better tools and batteries have communications links , to let the tool know the battery temp and current draw from the battery side

some even have blue tooth communications tool to your phone , they can put so many more options in a tool than the buttons they can put on the outside of the tool reasonably.

Milwakee has OneKey enabled tools , this you can locate , lock and unlock your tool from your phone even if it is not near you , so say your expensive impact grows legs and it is that guy on the far end of the shop who "borrows" it you can locate it and lock it
if it is stolen and the one key enabled tool gets close to another mechanic with onekey on his phone it tells the network where your tool is and you can lock it. I don't own any of these but I was doing a bunch of reading on it last year.

I bet those were the blue tools...first Generation batteries

the company that is the parent of Milwaukee tool owns Rigid and Ryobi

Rigid is the mid grade line sort of a very active homeowner or occasional use contractor, they often try things on Rigid before they become a feature on the Milwaukee line

there was a Rigid High torque impact that actually beat the Milwaukee in head to head torque tests , guess what the news specs were in the Milwaukee line a year later.

Ryobi is the home owners budget grade

I have been using Ryobi and Rigid tools for many years. Only burned up a couple in my lifetime and have a bunch of batteriies and a few chargers on hand.

My Son in law just bought and showed me the adapter he bought from Amazon $15. Allows him to use his battery from another brand in his Ryobi Sawzall ( we bought him ) we were told wrong on what he owned.

I think when people say they like a certain product- they like the price point and the tool performance meets their needs, that's a good customer experience... that's what the Good, Better, Best strategy of these private labeled products tries to achieve. I expect a lot from tool performance and willing to pay for it, even though I'm not a contractor. These brands also allow bundling by retailers and home centers that makes shopping the category harder on the consumer- you struggle to get a low-cost comparable tool for tool. The Home Depot license's brands that have higher brand awareness, Rigid, Ryobi, etc. Lowes invented their own brands, TaskForce, Kobalt, growing those brands organically- following the Behr paint success at THD.

I think when people say they like a certain product- they like the price point and the tool performance meets their needs, that's a good customer experience... that's what the Good, Better, Best strategy of these private labeled products tries to achieve. I expect a lot from tool performance and willing to pay for it, even though I'm not a contractor. These brands also allow bundling by retailers and home centers that makes shopping the category harder on the consumer- you struggle to get a low-cost comparable tool for tool. The Home Depot license's brands that have higher brand awareness, Rigid, Ryobi, etc. Lowes invented their own brands, TaskForce, Kobalt, growing those brands organically- following the Behr paint success at THD.
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it is very much perception thing
much like the chainsaws are , people have no idea what cutting speed is possible until they are running their saw next to yours and you cut and load a truck load while they cut 2-3 logs.


a craft lady who drills 1/8th inch holes in 1x pine 5 weekends a year really doesn't need the power house of a drill that someone who bores 3/4 inch holes in 2x for running wire runs all day every day. or someone who is mixing drywall mud in 5 gallon pails

so it makes sense

the warrantee is also a big part of the customer experience , HD has that in the Rigid line if you buy it from them and register in 90 days it should be a buy once cry once at least for a good 8-10 years

Yup .... I am willing to bet that they are now more barnacle colored.

I just bought the Angle grinder I wanted. Instead of buying a couple of batteries and a charger, I also bought an impact driver that came with batteries and a charger. And I'll get 50 bucks off a couple more batteries that they did not have in stock but will have there in Thursday . The batteries that came with the impact driver are 2.0 ampb/ h and the ones I want for the angle grinder are 5.0 . The nice thing is that the charger than came in the kit also charges my 12v Fuel batteries so I only have to take the one charger with me on the road.

Here's a snapshot of the power tool consolidation and some of the private labeled brands- just FYI

The one thing that i really liked about the Blue Ryobi batterie tools was that the vacuum cleaner thing that came with the set would run about 2 minutes on one charge. No man should have to vacuum for longer than that. So that was the one big plus about Ryobi tools in my experience

Lol… I was told nothing sexier than a man with a cleaning tool in hand

this must be were I went right or wrong depending on view , my wife said we needed a new vacuum I went to the vacuum store and bought a commercial backpack vac because I was tired of all the plastic junk with no parts and no way to repair most of it and a garbage little cord

guess who ends up using in now

also it uses bags so that you don't need a vacuum cleaner to clean your vacuum cleaner

One of my Wife’s Christmas gifts this year was an M18 Packout Vacuum Cleaner- I guess we’re all hopeless romantics

My Home Depot dewalt drill went out after 2 years. Took it to the authorized repair shop and he said it was not worth repairing. They are throw away unless under warrantee.I asked him who had the best drill and he said Bosch was the best. Not any mention of festool? The drills are not very comfortable so I’m not a big fan but everything else I’ve used of theirs is top shelf