I've had the SR80 installed for a long time without the battery running down as well. The one thing i have noticed though, but can't explain, is that when the front buttons won't work due to whatever reason (line of sight, sun) the voume buttons work about 99.9% of the time. I don't know if they use a different transmitter or what, but they are WAY WAY more reliable than the buttons on the front of the remote.