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Jabra Enhance Pro 30 / Resound Vivia sound quality: rechargeable vs disposable battery model

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In reply to @philbob57

I have never, never, never got 14 days from a hearing aid battery. You must have the record!

Whine! Whine! You don’t have to carry a pair scissors everywhere you go. There are cheap battery carrying cases sold on Amazon. You can leave the battery packaged in the pie shape that is cut out and store them in a old pill bottle. You can cut the package so the pie shaped package is still attached and remove them as needed.

And for your information, packaging can be discarded in a wastebasket, or garbage can.

Frankly, if you want to whine, please do in the battery packaging whiner thread.

In reply to @philbob57

@philbob57 said:

I could change batteries on a schedule, but what schedule would that be? I usually get 14 days out of a battery, but sometimes it’s less.

As others have said, you can get a little case for the batteries. I’ve got one that holds 2 and I attached a little single pill holder onto the chain. I keep it in my pocket change purse.

No schedule on my part. I let the ’s let me know when - they will beep long before the battery dies. 1 aid uses up batteries quicker and dies first. I typically just let it die unless I have something important that I will want to hear.

I take the battery from the other aid and put it into the one that dies first. The first new battery goes into the aid that uses less battery. When the transferred battery dies, it gets a new battery. I get an extra day or two out of the batteries that way.

Plus the battery case holds the used batteries until I get home & restock. Keeping the used batteries for recycling.

In reply to @user990

An update: Last night I went to the noisiest restaurant I know. Texas Roadhouse, wearing my Jabra EP 30 hearing aids. The noise reduction was excellent and I could easily understand both my daughter sitting across from me at the table and the waiter who served us. If you haven’t been to this steakhouse it’s excellent for reasonably priced steaks. But, it’s one of the noisiest restaurants in the world. I assume they designed it that way so you don’t loiter after you finish your meal. :grin:

My son used to be a waiter in a high end restaurant.

He called places like the Roadhouse, Outback, etc churn and burn.

He’s a banker now.

It’s not a knock on the food.

In reply to @monke

I’ve had both. If I’m paying full-audiologist prices, I like to have aids that last longer than 6 years, and I’d say that means not having rechargeable battery aids, though it may depend on the brand and model. But Costco only sells rechargeable aids now, and at Costco’s much-lower prices, I’m more willing to replace the aids every six years, so rechargeable makes more sense.

Here’s why I say the lifespan of many rechargeable aids will only be about six years. If you are using rechargeable aids all day, recharging them at night, the lithium ion batteries will steadily lose their ability to hold a charge. At the 3-year mark, if and while still under warranty, you definitely want to send them in for service to get the rechargeable battery replaced. Those new batteries will last another 3 years. At that point, it may not be cost-effective to have the service done again. You don’t get an additional three-year warranty on the replacement batteries; your warranty ends at the three-year mark from date of original purchase, generally. But even if you’re willing to pay the manufacturer’s out-of-warranty price (which I have not seen anyone here share), at some point, the manufacturer is going to say your aids are at end-of-life, and they are unable and unwilling to service them, and I’d expect it to be difficult to get someone else to service them either. Maybe this happens at the 6-year mark, or it’s too expensive; it becomes increasingly likely after 6 years.

And here’s why I say that: many rechargeable aids do not have a replaceable battery, the way we think of a replaceable battery. People think the battery can be replaced by opening the case, popping out the old battery, and popping in a new one. There may be some rechargeable aids like that, still, but certainly the ReSounds and Jabras, as far as I know, do not have a battery that can be swapped out. The battery is built into the aid circuitry, and the entire guts of the aid must be replaced to get a new rechargeable battery. When the manufacturer runs out of replacement aid guts for a model, that’s it; I don’t think it will be possible to get the aid going again. Maybe you can get it done at the nine year-mark, but the longer you go, the more likely the manufacturer is to say, can’t be done, and independent service centers won’t have a way to do it either, because they don’t have spare aids either. And if a service center has spare aids, the older they are from date of manufacture, the less likely the lithium ion battery will have any kind of life.

With the button batteries, it also can become difficult or impossible to find replacement parts as you get out towards a decade of life, but at least people are willing to work on them, and in many cases, spare parts remain available for a while.

You asked:

Will turning the rechargeable hearing aids off for months or years degrade the lithium ion battery to the point where it’s no longer holding long enough of a charge to get through the day?

You should not allow a lithium ion battery to go dead for a long time. For one thing, doing that doesn’t extend its lifespan, which is always going downhill to some extent, more with daily use-and-charge cycles, but also just with age. But also, if a lithium ion battery sits too long without any charge, it may be difficult or impossible to get it to take a charge again. Again, this suggests to me that for really long-term use of say, a decade plus, the button-battery aids have a better shot.

Edited

In reply to @stl-user

Don’t know because I never had replaceable battery hearing aids. I don’t think that the Jabra hearing aids nor the ReSound Viva with the chip are available with replaceable batteries.

I have the rechargable pro 30’s, first time for me to not have batteries and so far it has not been a problem at all, these last easily 20+ hours and costco gives you a travel charger that will recharge 3 times without plugging in and if you forget to charge, 20 minutes gives you 8 hours

In reply to @hamjor1

As long as Costco continues to carry top of the line hearing aids at deep discounts, they will have the latest and greatest hearing aids. Eventually, everything will wear out and become obsolete. Replaceable hearing aid batteries may become a thing of the past and may not be for sale anymore. Who knows what battery technology will replace lithium ion and may be rechargeable for many more years than today’s technology. If I could predict the future I would living on my private island. :zany_face:

Well, I recently trialed all 4 Costco offerings over 2 days: Rextons and Phillips, and then Jabras and Sennheisers. Phillips were not as good as the other 3. I then went back to Costco a third time to re-try the Rexton and Sennheisers on the same day. And the winner was …. Rexton Reach, which I will be picking up this coming week.

My Motorola phone’s detected the trial Rextons I was wearing, so perhaps I’ll be able to use my existing phone’s BT with my new after all. I’ll try to post my initial thoughts on the Rexton’s once I get them home and start wearing them. Thanks for asking!

In reply to @shootist

I upgraded my Jabra Enhanced Pro 20s for the Enhanced Pro 30s when they came out in May. I am very happy with them. I’m especially happy with the, “Hear in Noise”, function which uses to enhance speech in noisy environments. It’s a big improvement OVER THE Enhanced pro 20s.

I have the 30’s also and wondering, when you are in the Hear In Nosie program, does it change or enhance the sound of your own voice compared to other programs. I find my voice sounds really odd when in the Hear In Noise program. Not sure if my molds/loss have anything to do with it or its inherent in this program. Tnx

The hear in noise program doesn’t affect the sound of my voice. That effect went away shortly after I started wearing hearing aids. It didn’t make any difference which program I was using on the app.

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