Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

Is it unusual for one hearing aid battery to have a lot less power left than the other?

This topic is closed.

38 replies17.1k viewsLast reply

Jump
Link to this topic

even your affect your battery. more loss and more amplification + features more battery consumtoin. i have asymetrical loss left high and right less left always become low battery early. my is Siemens working only upto 22 mph on max.

In reply to @debbie_o

@debbie_o said:

I just receive 1 set of tones. It’s three descending tones that’s it and dead. That’s also what the audi demonstrated to me with the OPN programing app (Genie 2).

If you look at the Genie 2 picture below, you’ll see that there’s a Pre-Warning option for the Battery Low Indicator. On mine it’s selected so I get a warning plenty of time before the OPN shuts down. I suspect you only have the Change Battery Warning selected, and therefore never get the pre-warning like I do. If you want it turned on, just ask your audi to set it next time for you.

image

In reply to @parth_p

Interesting. I have worse loss on my right, but my left seems to wear out batteries slightly more quickly. I wonder if there’s some difference between the computer chips regarding energy efficiency. I know some computer cpus are “binned” to separate out the more efficient ones.

Over 10 years battery life has been consistent.
Early on I would wait until both batteries went dead. As this happened within a couple of hours I stopped worrying about them

Now I watch duration and change them when one beeps.
I get 3 days with KS6 312 batteries and I have clocked the Resound Forte with 13 batteries at 5.5 days.
That’s one good way to judge. If the 13s drop below 5.5 days I know something is wrong.

I’ve had too many experiences of batteries sounding the “going dead!” alert at awkward moments. Over the years I’ve learned about what the average life span is; now I routinely replace both batteries every Sunday and Thursday. And that works fine. The 312s I use for my Resounds cost so little at Costco it isn’t worth it to wait until they are stone dead.

Does high frequency gain take more power as my right side always dies in the morning and then my left side dies in the evening of the same day?

I’ve started to change them every Monday so I don’t have to deal with changing batteries at work etc.

I also have Oticon OPN and the iPhone battery meter consistently shows the left side with less battery life than the right, even though my right ear has more loss, yet the two tend to “die” at very close to the same time. I’ve stopped worrying about it.

Edited

In reply to @Zebras

@Zebras said:

Does high frequency gain take more power as my right side always dies in the morning and then my left side dies in the evening of the same day?

Yes, the feedback manager is doing more work controlling HF gain. It’s common for the side with proportionately more HF gain and/or larger venting to run the battery down first.

Okay I swappeb the batteries as @TexasBob does. This morning the batteries were left aid 50% and right aid 40%. So it does seem like it’s the battery and not the aid. It also seems likethere isn’t such a drastic differ between the poer level in each aid as I’ve been experiencing. I think I will try removing the batteries before putting the aids in the dryer.

@Volusiano That would have to be the reason you get the warnings prior to the go dead chimes. I will ask my audi to turn those on.

Now I don’t know if the Speech Rescue is turned on or not, have to ask Audi. What I want to know is does that function help to clarify those words/letters your indicates you have problems understanding or what is it’s purpose? I find sometimes my brain still has trouble understanding some speech. Also would that cause a big draw on battery power?

@debbie_o said:

Now I don’t know if the Speech Rescue is turned on or not, have to ask Audi. What I want to know is does that function help to clarify those words/letters your audiogram indicates you have problems understanding or what is it’s purpose? I find sometimes my brain still has trouble understanding some speech. Also would that cause a big draw on battery power?

I have Speech Rescue on and it greatly helps me hear the “s” and “sh” sounds better. I can also hear cricket sounds now while I couldn’t hear it without Speech Rescue. And a lot of the mild electronic chimes from the fridge or alarm clocks, etc.

There was some literature from Oticon before the OPN was introduced suggesting that Speech Rescue requires some functionality of the older Oticon models to be turned off because there’s not enough processing power to do everything in the older hardware platform. But with the new Velox hardware platform developed just for the OPN, I don’t see any more mention of sacrificing some other functionality to enable Speech Rescue. I think that it’s because the Velox platform has enough processing power to handle everything, Speech Rescue included.

As for whether Speech Rescue eats up more battery life, I doubt it because based on my own observation, I still consistently get about 5 days of battery life before and after I turned Speech Rescue on.

Just changed both batteries at work to the Duracells. Same thing, left aid is already at 80% and right at 100%. That must be some powerful programming in the left aid. Switching the batteries daily has gotten me a week out of them, so I’ll keep switching daily. I’ll also try the Costco batteries…as soon as they correct the screwup in my member number and finally get me a membership card. :confounded:

More important, do that still last about as long? Reporting remaining battery life is highly inaccurate with batteries. They tend to remain full power until right at the end. The 80% might be a minor hardware issue in the aid itself.

IôI inserted the fresh new batteries this morning. The iPhone accesibility thing says right now I have 40% left in left aid and 50% in right. Strange when they were new this morning. Maybe it’s some algorithm of what you have left for the day and not the overall power left. If it were overall power left, I wouldn’t get two days use, much less 6 or so days.

I’ve been reading about the zPower rechargeables and have read they’re not meeting the amount of time they’re supposed to last on a charge. Just keep an extra set of batteries with you just in case, I guess.

In reply to @JeffBowser

@JeffBowser said:

At roughly a dollar each, I like to use them until they are consumed.

Holy cow - you buy those things at Tiffanys? You can get them in bulk at Coscto for about 17 cents each…

Also try Amazon. I’ve had good luck with the Power One batteries (size 10) and Costco. $1USD/each seems closer to what retail pharmacies charge. Highway robbery IMO. I’m sure others have even more suggestions on where to get ‘em for a reasonable price.

Edited

I can’t say about OPN itself or the app but I have a pair of oticon aids with mine I get about a 2 hour warning on battery life it will beep 2 times then again 1 hour later again 10 mins before then once battery life is used I think it’s 4 or 5 beeps then dead.

I always found my hearing aids batteries often needed to be changed within a 24 hours when one died unless I had one out more due to ear infection or some other reason. Thinking about it my left ear usually lasted better battery wise than my right despite having a small difference in my hearing with each ear. I put it down to the fact I tended to use Tcoil with right ear and also tended to turn volume up on the same ear if wanted to hear a person better they are nearly always on my right (odd I’ve just noticed that.}

And dang @jlgreer1 $1 a battery is so expensive! I paid $1.75 a battery once this past anuary was during a snowstorm I was out of batteries and desperate so paid $7 for a pack of 4 Duracell batteries :astonished: . Usual brand works out to 15c a battery though I do buy them at CVS when have sales and I save those $1-$4 coupons they print off too so I’ve been known to get 24 batteries for under $3. Though I am now using Costco’s so will be doing a price comparison once I get new .

The $1 per battery was a rough number. I generally buy them at Walmart or Target. I have purchased online through the online big box store. They were cheaper. My point earlier was meant to indicate that the batteries at roughly $2 per week is not a major expense compared to the hearing aids and their other maintenance. I’m doing good to get a year out of the receiver in canal gadget and its wire. They cost about $85 online and much more at my audiologist.

My current set of Phonak Naida Q hearing aids cost approximately $5000 four years ago. When I retire later this year, I will no longer be able to afford premium hearing aids. This pair is getting old. Who knows how much longer they will last. My hearing is poor enough that I require a sophisticated hearing aid. When they wear out and become un-repairable, It will be difficult to communicate.

I know an elderly gentleman that has very poor hearing. He tries to improvise with a large amplifying device. He is not successful. Everyone does everything they can to accommodate him. He was is well educated and intelligent but his world is restricted due to his poor hearing.

Good hearing augmentation should not be a rich man’s sport.

Jeff

Active discussions

What the forum has been talking about this week.