I had an interesting battery issue yesterday while installing a ZEN51 relay in a three way setting in the light fixture. There are no batteries in the the ZEN51 but there is one in my cheapo craftsman volt meter. Most of the lights in my house are wired with the hot to the fixture and switch loops to the switches (so no neutral in many of the switch boxes). The electrician that wired the house was very frugal and used as little wire as possible. This box had a black to white which was always hot a black that was the switched hot and a white neutral with a piece of black tape on it. To figure this out was simple with the old volt meter. When I was checking the voltage it started going up and peaked at 197. This freaked me out and I started checking outlets and they read 197 also. On about the forth outlet the meter went blank and that’s when I figured out it was the battery in the meter. A new 9 volt and everything was good and I had the light fixture buttoned up in 5 minutes.
I don't know where you are, but what you're saying is sending up more red flags than the forcing of the Dardanelles. What is your voltage supposed to be?
Aren't there wiring conventions? Like colours and thicknesses and the like? I know there are in the UK. The annoying thing is how often the things change, especially when you're colour blind like me.
The odd voltage thing might be if the sensor is set up in such a way as it expects fixed voltage from the battery. If that voltage is low, it banjaxes the result because the expected battery value is part of the calculation.
There are some interesting high capacity PP9 and other high capacity rechargeable batteries on Aliexpress that charge by micro-USB - might last longer in your meter.
If it is anything like my 20+ year old Craftsman meter, then it almost certainly has an on-board voltage reference. The battery voltage will vary 25% over its usable lifetime, whereas the meter is quite serviceable for most electrical and electronic work.
Self discharge is probably a bigger issue than capacity in this application. I get perhaps 5-7 years per battery with moderate use. It is long enough that I don't recall if it indicates low battery or just gets wonky.
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