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How many minutes from beeps until battery dies?

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@FadingFast said:

When I got my Rexton Cobalts, they gave me at least 45 minutes from the time they first started beeping until the battery went dead. I had some other problems with them, so Costco replaced them. The second pair only gave me a 15 minute warning before the battery died. Isn’t this odd? 15 minutes is not very much notice, in my opinion.

Zinc-air batteries will maintain most of their voltage throughout their service life unlike some battery types that gradually lose their voltage as they get depleted. This means that once you hear the battery warning, you should expect the cell to soon die. 15 minutes is pretty good, I think. My guess is that the less juice the hearing aid uses, the longer time you’ll have. Most circuits have some variability in the amount of circuit drain so you shouldn’t be surprised it you have differing warning times between the same aids.

Some folks like to keep track of when they change their batteries by sticking the cell tabs on a calendar on the day they change. I wouldn’t do it myself but some folks do. Good luck!

In reply to @Peter

As soon as I hear the first battery warning beeps, I start hunting up a new set of batteries.

I keep a fresh set batteries in my wallet, a pack on my cork board in my office at work, at pack in my truck, a set in the tool box on both of my race bikes (bicycles Trek 1500SLR & Trek SC7) and another set in the carrying case that I store the hearing aids in at night.

Batteries for me are like beer, at the first indication of limited supply, I start making a replenishment plan. Nothing worse than a dead battery or an empty refrigerator, with no backup supplies.

I mean, a guys got to live…right? :eek:

The Oticon Agil Pros I demoed last summer gave about 12 hours warning. On the Resound Aleras I bought and have had more experience with, I typically get one hour warning, though it has ranged from 15 minutes to 2 hours. I’m not sure which is better. It’s annoying to have the warning going off in the ear for a day, and it makes me reluctant to change the batteries at first opportunity when I know they’re probably still good for the rest for the day, but then, at least there’s a better chance to locate replacement batteries. Sometimes, an hour isn’t enough notice.

Edited

12 hours of warning is pretty excessive not as useful as an aid that gives an hour or 15 minutes warning. I don’t know what triggers the warning beeps on these things although a lot of them will give out the average life of the battery on the on-board logging. I don’t now how they do that either.

My guess is that it’s a problem with the software and that future versions will correct this - or not. They may even fix the problem for your aids, if the software is upgradeable.

The weird thing about hearing aids is we’re obviously moving into aids being software driven devices and it’s not going to matter much who makes the device because the reality is that the only real difference is going to be the software. Hearing aids are going to be as generic as PCs.

@dsi1 said:

12 hours of warning is pretty excessive not as useful as an aid that gives an hour or 15 minutes warning. I don’t know what triggers the warning beeps on these things although a lot of them will give out the average life of the battery on the on-board logging. I don’t now how they do that either.

Yes, and it may vary somewhat by battery brand as well.

@hamjor said:

Yes, and it may vary somewhat by battery brand as well.

My guess is that it simply reads the battery voltage recovery time after the initial high drain start-up. Perhaps the voltage dropping below a certain threshold will trigger it.

You’re probably right about the battery brand being a factor but it could be the batteries are a commodity item and it’s tough to track down the actual manufacturer or it may vary over time.

My feeling at the moment is that we should be buying batteries solely on price. I have had some problems with a German-made battery ballooning up and getting stuck in the aids but that seems to be fixed - thank God. :slight_smile:

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