How many AA and AAA batteries do you use a year? If you are a sound professional working with mics, body packs, headsets or any other kind of wireless device you probably use a lot. In 2024, the wireless mic market alone was valued at $672 million in North America, that is a lot of mics and a lot of transmitters. If you consider that a battery lasts between 6–10 hours in a wireless transmitter, a production company running 10 wireless mics for a full show twice a week could use over 2,000 batteries per year. Many gear manufacturers offer their own rechargeable power sources but generally they are not transferable between devices which limits use, and also leaves you in the lurch for a replacement if they fail.
One Norwegian audio professional, Stian Sagholen, decided that a bucketful of old batteries was a bucket too manyand decided to do something about it. Sagholen has worked on touring productions and events including The Cardigans, Emilie Nicolas, and the Lillehammer Youth Olympic Games but has started a second career as CEO of KLVR, which produces rechargeable batteries specifically for the professional audio market. He spoke to Live Design about the inspiration behind KLVR's batteries and charging solutions, why sustainability can mean affordability, and how his system works for buy audio teams.
Live Design: Why are you specifically targeting audio companies and not, for example, general consumers?
Stian Sagholen: As the founders of Klvr come from live audio—working as sound engineers, touring technicians and musicians—it felt natural targeting the market we come from and know. Our story started in our own warehouse, surrounded by wireless equipment and a bucket that kept filling up with used disposable batteries. Watching that happen every day made it obvious how normalized—and how wasteful—single-use batteries had become in our industry. So, we went looking for a better way. We tested everything on the market. There were partial answers, but nothing that combined the reliability of a proprietary system with the freedom of standard AA and AAA sizes. The solution didn't exist, so we built it.
LD: What kind of companies in the industry have been most enthusiastic about your products—are they typically touring companies or recording studios/concert halls?
SS: It has been a good mix. Touring production companies and rental houses have been among the early adopters—the math is straightforward when you're moving high volumes of batteries across back-to-back shows. We've had a lot of enthusiasm from customers in fixed installations too: broadcast studios, venues, clubs, concert halls and culture centers. The common thread isn't really the type of operation—it's throughput. As long as a team is going through a significant number of batteries on a regular basis, there's a strong fit. The higher the consumption, the faster the payback, and the more the operational simplicity of a managed rechargeable system starts to matter alongside the cost savings.
LD: Is your focus still mainly on sound because the devices are relatively small and rely so heavily on smaller batteries, or are you looking at expanding the product line to larger power sources?
SS: Our focus stays on AA and AAA, and deliberately so, because the professional audio market for small-format rechargeables is larger than it seems at first. We do see a trend toward newer equipment coming with built-in batteries, but the majority of pro AV wireless gear still supports AA or AAA sizes and will continue to do so for years. There's also something worth saying about longevity: giving teams a proper battery system for their existing and older equipment extends the working life of that gear, which matters both financially, practically and environmentally. Once you count wireless mics, IEMs, IFB’s and comms across a mid-size touring operation, you're talking about a serious number of batteries in daily rotation.
LD: What are your clients most committed to: Finding sustainable options or saving money?
SS: The purchasing decision for anyone doing live production is usually driven by cost and reliability—those are the two things that have to stack up for a budget holder to say yes. And they do stack up clearly: the Klvr system pays for itself and, once a team has used it through a run of shows, the operational simplicity becomes its own argument. That said, we'd be understating things if we suggested sustainability doesn't matter. We've seen a number of clients where it was genuinely the tipping factor—production companies with environmental commitments, venues under pressure from organizers or audiences, teams that simply didn't want to keep filling a bucket with dead batteries. The cost and reliability case gets people to the table. For some, the sustainability case is what closes it.
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LD: Is it becoming easier to justify the one-time purchase for long-term savings or do you think management is looking for more sustainable methods because of criticism of the industry?
SS: Both factors are at play, but the cost argument has sharpened noticeably. When production companies are going through dozens of batteries frequently, and alkaline costs have risen along with everything else, the payback calculation on a rechargeable system has become easier to run and harder to argue with. That's brought conversations to the table that might have stalled a few years ago. On the sustainability side: pressure from event organizers, venues, and clients asking about production footprints is real and growing—particularly in Europe, but we also see the US is moving in the same direction. Our position is that the two arguments reinforce each other. You don't have to choose between the financial case and the environmental one.
LD: How reliable is the Klvr Control system at predicting how long the charge will last? Do you offer options on fast charging between shows versus energy saving overnight after a show?
SS: The Charger Pro gives you per-slot status visibility across all 48 slots, and Klvr Control—the companion software, provides a remote view of the full rack with even more detail per cell: Charge state, time remaining, cell health, and any flags that need attention. Runtime prediction depends on the device the battery is powering.
Both the Charger Pro and the Klvr Control software track charge. The Charger Pro shows per-slot status across all 48 positions, and Klvr Control gives a remote view of the full rack with even more detail—so users can check charge state from anywhere without walking to the rack.
On charge rate: we don't offer a fast-charge mode that trades cell longevity for speed—that's a deliberate choice. The Charger Pro doesn't prioritize or sequence slots, so a full system of 48 cells is ready at the same time as a single cell. Charge times are around 2 hours 45 minutes for an AA from empty, and just under 2 hours for an AAA. That's comfortably within a dinner break between soundcheck and showtime.
LD: What prompted the expansion into the US?
SS: We've had strong interest from US customers since we launched the initial idea—the problem we're solving isn't specific to any continent or region, and the pro audio community is internationally connected enough that word travels. We made a deliberate choice to build the foundation in Europe first: establishing the product, the partner network, and the operational model on home turf before expanding. The US was always the next step, not an afterthought. One thing worth mentioning: compliance requirements for the US and EU markets are different, and we made sure to meet all necessary certifications before making a move. That takes time to do properly, and we weren't willing to cut corners on it. When we enter a market, we want to be there fully—with the right authorizations, the right partners, and the ability to support customers properly. That's what we've been building toward.
LD: On your website there is a calculator to estimate savings in euros, will you be releasing a version in dollars?
SS: Good timing on that question—the calculator at klvr.no/calculator has just been updated to show results in USD for US visitors, so the figures are directly applicable. The tool works as a step-by-step wizard: you enter the number of devices you're running and how many days a year they're in use, From that, we estimate your current annual spend on disposables, the one-time cost of switching to Klvr, yearly savings, payback period, and five-year savings —alongside an estimate of CO2 reduction. It takes a few minutes and gives you a clear picture of where you actually stand.
LD: If you are on tour, are there any restrictions about traveling with your batteries versus the regular ones?
SS: Li-Ion (lithium-ion) batteries are subject to air transport regulations, which is worth being aware of—but it's manageable, and the Klvr batteries are certified to the relevant standards. The important thing to know is that these are safe and properly tested cells. Production teams moving equipment internationally are generally already familiar with what's required for Li-Ion transport—it's standard territory for anyone shipping professional gear. If anything, having a well-documented, certified battery system makes that process more straightforward, not less. For teams new to rechargeable Li-Ion on tour, we can point them in the right direction, but it's rarely the obstacle it might sound like.
LD: Do sound technicians typically buy at each location or do they buy a large quantity at a lower rate from either the rental house/professional provider?
SS: If a technician is buying alkalines on the road the cost per battery is high and the comparison to rechargeables is straightforward. If they're pulling from a rental house stock or a separate supplier at a negotiated rate, the per-unit cost of alkalines drops, and the payback period on a rechargeable system stretches out a bit more. That said, anyone using a significant amount of alkalines benefits from switching to rechargeables—their battery costs are a recurring operational expense, and consolidating to a managed rechargeable system with a Charger Pro reduces both cost and the logistics of constant restocking.
LD: When they do fail, do you have a collection point for them or advice on how to discard?
SS: In the US, The Battery Network (previously Call2Recycle) operates a wide network of drop-off points, and many retailers that sell batteries function as collection points as well. We don't have the infrastructure in place today to operate our own collection or recycling program, but what we can say is that our batteries are rated for 1,200 charge cycles—and the number of batteries entering the waste stream from a Klvr-equipped operation is a small fraction of what it would be with alkalines. Reducing the volume in the first place is the most meaningful contribution we’re focused on making right now.
LD: Can your batteries be charged by any device? Can the Klvr Charger Pro be used with those portable solar units?
SS: The Charger Pro is built specifically for Klvr's 1.5V Li-Ion cells, and that tight integration is what enables accurate health tracking and safe charging. The charger and battery are designed together, and the charging profiles are optimized for our specific chemistry. The same goes in the other direction: Klvr batteries can technically be charged in other chargers, but we don't recommend it. Mixing battery types in Li-Ion chargers is a safety risk, and you lose all the health monitoring and performance characteristics the system is built around. On solar: the Charger Pro runs on standard mains power. As long as the solar inverter supplies steady mains power, for sure.