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

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Edited

I’ve had my first ppair of ’s for about a month. I bought a pair of Oticon OPN 2. It’s my understanding that battery life can differ, but only slightly. According to iPhone accesibility graph and the bar graph on the ON app, my left one is anywhere from 40 to 60% less than the battery in the right HA.

When I saw the audi last week, he thought it was a bad battery. I just checked and it’s left 40% and right 80%. I’m wondering if it might be a bad aid. Is such a battery difference normal?

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I wouldn’t trust the graph. The iPhone app shows mine at 100% all the time, except one time where it showed one at 100% and one almost dead. It wasn’t.

I wait for the to tell me the battery is low. My audi told me that if your ears are different and need different amplification that the battery in the greater one would die sooner. Made sense to me.

I agree. I wouldn’t trust the battery indicator on the iPhone. My battery pair don’t die at the same time but fairly close to each other (within the same day or half day). Once in a while I do have a bad battery that doesn’t last as long. I never pay attention to the battery meter. The most reliable indicator for my battery status is the low battery beep I get from my OPN.

I’ve had Costco ’s for the last 9+ years. When 1 aid beeps I change both batteries ASAP. I keep them turned up as High as possible and batteries last about 4-5 days. Phone apps are wonderful but not very accurate. When you hear the beep, change the batteries.

Edited

I wouldn’t say that the Oticon ON app is garbage. I find it fully functional, it’s just the battery levels that are not accurate. But keep in mind that most likely the ON app doesn’t come up with its own battery level. It probably gets the battery level information from the iPhone Hearing Aids functionality and relay that information to the ON app. That’s why the battery level on the iPhone Hearing Aids functionality is just as bad, because that’s the source information used by the ON app.

It makes total sense that the worse ear would have the greater draw on power. So in that case, the app is right in my left because that ear has more hearing loss, but, of course I wouldn’t think by that large of a difference. My audi told me to change the batteries once a week, but that’s not quite accurate as batteries seem to last about 3 to 4.5 days for me. I do chane both at the same time. I was supplied with Ray-O-Vacs, but next change and from reading here, I’m trying Durocell.

Edited

If you want to even things out, wear for 2 days then swap the battery on the left to the right, then you’ll get the most out of both batteries without wasting the unused portion of the battery that still has some juice left.

Why change both batteries out at the same time? I change mine out when the hearing aid beeps. At roughly a dollar each, I like to use them until they are consumed. I keep a supply in my desk at work, a package at home, and some in the console of the car. I just swap the batteries out when needed.

Jeff

PS. My left ear requires more amplification than my left. The battery in the left aid is consumed more quickly than the right. There is usually about a day difference.

In reply to @Volusiano

@Volusiano said:

If you want to even things out, wear for 2 days then swap the battery on the left to the right, then you’ll get the most out of both batteries without wasting the unused portion of the battery that still has some juice left.

I like your thinking. This will be a great experiment! We’ll see how this works out. If nothing else I should get more use and not be wasteful with the good battery.

I also wear an insulin pump. The battery challenge was easier to determine. The pump manufacturer supplied 2 Energizer batteries. I decided to try Durocell’s once to see how long they would last. The Durocell’s lasted about a two weeks and the Energizer’s last at least a month. So Energizer’s it is. Also when the low battery alert happens on an onsulin pump, you have time to install new batteries. The pump doesn’t immediately shut down like a does.

@debbie_o said:

Also when the low battery alert happens on an onsulin pump, you have time to install new batteries. The pump doesn’t immediately shut down like a HA does.

I’m surprised to hear that your OPN 2 shuts down immediately on a low battery warning. I’m using a pair of OPN 1 (for a year now) and when I get a low battery warning, I’d still get an hour or two of use out of it before it shuts down.

I consistently get about 5 days of use out of them and I do stream for TV quite a bit.

My right hearing is worse than my left hearing but I don’t have a big skew on battery life between the right and left .

Every night, when I put my in the dryer, I remove the batteries. I put the battery from the left HA on the right side of the dryer and the right battery on the left. That way, when I put them back in the next morning, they are swapped.

Last week, my right HA gave the low battery alert. That’s the only time I remember that happening. It’s usually the left.

Edited

I doubt that it’s due to a difference between the OPN 1 vs OPN 2. I suspect that it’s more due to the different types of battery you and I use. I primarily use the Costco Kirkland brand batteries. I’m guessing that this battery brand does not die abruptly toward the end of its life while maybe your battery brand does.

Also, just to clarify, the low battery warning is basically a 3-chime warning. If I keep on using it without replacing it, once in a while (every 5 or 10 or 15 minutes? I’m not sure) I continue to get the 3-chime warning. Then at the end, I get a distinctly different tone sequence signaling that the OPN is now inoperable because there’s not enough juice in the battery to keep it going anymore.

I wonder if you ever got the 3-chime warning, THEN the distinct shutting-down tone sequence signifying that the battery is completely out of juice? If so, how far apart are these 2 tones?

In reply to @TexasBob

You take the batteries out before you put them in the dryer? I open the battery door and but the aids in the dryer with the batteries in the open door. Am I doing this all wrong? I thought the instructions said you could leave the batteries in or out. I just open the door so they power off.

In reply to @debbie_o

No, you’re not doing it wrong.

I originally started doing it when I was having problems with moisture getting into my and shorting out the batteries. By removing the batteries, I felt I was making sure everything got dried out over night. A set of Ear Gears solved the moisture problem, but I kept on removing them. I also hit on the idea that by switching the batteries every day I might even out the battery usage. Now it’s habit and I don’t even think about it.

I keep one of those HA tools with the magnetic tip in my dryer, so it makes removing them easy.

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