Rechargeable versus battery hearing aids

@Volusiano said:

One thing you can do is keep swapping them in and out → alternate them

Sort of defeats the purpose of rechargeables. Makes more sense to me to use them as intended and replace if/when needed.

With the swapping plan you are buying two sets of batteries whether you need them or not.

The 'range anxiety’s most people are concerned about does not really seem to be an issue with those who are actually using rechargeables, myself included.

Jim

@SpudGunner said:

Wow, @Volusiano! I’m surprised by this post, as well as by @jim_lewis’, as well!

How can charging regimens this meticulous and intricate as the ones you gentlemen suggest be practical?

@SpudGunner It’s NOT practical!!! If you read between the lines, I was trying to show @gkumar how much of a bad idea it is to try to keep a set of spare batteries for the rechargeables. That is why I went on and on about having to do this, then that, then keep in mind about this, then about that! It sure riled you up just reading that process, didn’t it?

In the end, like I’ve always advocated before, the best way to solve the issue of battery anxiety, if it’s even a real issue to you in the first place, is to top it off mid-day or when you get home from work, whenever you have 15-30 minute down time, to get an extra 12-25% in to make it last until you go to sleep.

You probably don’t know the history, but this is not the first time @gkumar asked about using a set of spare batteries to ease battery anxiety, and I’ve answered this question for him in another post before along the same line as I did here. So I guess I tried to go overboard here just to emphasize again that it’s not a practical idea in the first place.

@Volusiano said:

One thing you can do is keep swapping them in and out → alternate them

@JBC said:

Sort of defeats the purpose of rechargeables. Makes more sense to me to use them as intended and replace if/when needed.

@JBC Exactly! I DON’T advocate the swapping plan. I made it sound as cumbersome as possible in my post just to show my point that keeping an extra spare set of rechargeable batteries just to ease a little bit of battery anxiety (that’s most likely unfounded) would create even more anxiety in other ways than being worth it.

@Volusiano: OOPS! I guess my sense of humour stayed in bed this morning. I missed your tongue-in-cheeck intention completely!

[I suppose it never occurred to me that a guru could have a sense of humour, too! Thanks for setting me straight!]

@MDB said:

Undoubtedly humans have had a profound impact on the planet.

Great links you provided, @MDB . Listened again to Attenborough’s statements on human effect on planet (segment starts ~38 min into documentary). He is referring to mass on land relative to birds and not to all animals but simply mammals in saying only 4% of mammals are wild, the rest is us (~33%) and our livestock. In the PNAS paper you cite, it would appear from the statistics cited that man(and woman) have reduced the plant biomass on earth by 50% and an ~equal effect on the fish population in the ocean. And his concern is more not exactly where we are now but where we’re heading. And his basic summary is that he’s not very concerned about the very existence of life on the planet but more that maybe humans aren’t managing to include themselves in the future of life on earth. He begins and ends with example of Chernobyl, saying that good intentions with poor planning can lead to very bad outcomes and that life has returned to Chernobyl in abundance, it just hasn’t included human beings … Great film to watch just for the exquisite beauty of the scenes he shows. (30% loss of birds in NA since 19701).

Perhaps in or near the Central Valley, you can get by with a swamp cooler (that’s cheating!). Besides living in a climate that requires central air, we have an amazing number of electrical doodads in our house (my Dell XPS 8930 almost qualifies as a space heater when running at full tilt - 850 W power supply). Still, we’re the lowest curve in the graph (people on the ALL NEIGHBORS peak probably spend ~$500 or more just for AC in August): So maybe relative to carbon exchange and also spending time freed up by no longer having a pet, I can indulge myself a little if I’m already saving a lot relative to the typical American. Here’s to renewable practices, including HA batteries!

Truly will the lower temperatures effect hearing aid batteries? They are snuggled either behind or in your ears.

Hey there, 25Firefighter. It’s been a few months. What did you end up buying? I’m trying to make the same decision you were facing in November.

Well I trialed Rexton from Costco and the Hearing Aid Specialist was over aggressive trying to adjust them. I returned them and since went on Medicare. I am on a plan that pays for hearing aids in full. I visited an audiologist chose Octicon under her advisement. Waited three weeks . Called her and she told me my order was listed as pending. Called company handling the order and they said she never ordered them. I was wary of her because she seemed so unorganized. I did decide to try rechargeable. Now starting all over. thanks for asking will keep you informed.

There are quite a few threads on the forum about rechargeable batteries vs. disposables. A lot of times the pro-disposable faction is dissing the rechargeable folks as “Li-ion just can’t be counted on to last.”

I’ve post a number of times on how one can make rechargeables last. But just this week I started researching buying an all electric vehicle and was indeed worried about how long such an expensive purchase would last. The news that I read was that, with care, one should be able to go the 8-years and 100,000 miles that ~all EV’s offer as a minimum in the U.S. The battery should still function very well up to that point. And with further care, the vehicle’s battery should last, probably with reduced performance and range, 15 to 20 years. And the best EV batteries are capable of heating and cooling themselves either from their own charge (if reasonably charged up) or from a wall outlet for extended parking. So no doubt, if one took the time to adequately care for one’s HA rechargeable batteries, they should at least last the 5 to 6 years or so the OEM’s claim for rechargeables. The main thing about car batteries that makes them last so long is the car OEM’s recommend keeping charge between 20% and 80% (don’t go to 0% and don’t go to 100%), don’t expose to high heat, and don’t rapidly charge (use sparingly). So HA OEM’s could build some of these features into HA’s to make rechargeable HA’s work even better. https://www.motortrend.com/news/ev-lithium-ion-battery-life-tips-tricks-advice/1 and https://www.caranddriver.com/research/a31875141/electric-car-battery-life/1 and https://www.carfax.com/blog/how-long-does-the-battery-last-in-an-electric-car and How Long Should An Electric Car’s Battery Last?1

The last reference says at 12,000 mi per year, you should be able to get 17 years use of your EV’s battery.

Hopefully, there will not be a whole bunch more forum posts on “you just can’t expect a Li-ion battery to last.” Rechargeable HA’s just need a better battery management system to make sure they last even half as long as an EV Li-ion battery - which is subject to a lot more stress than an HA battery, for sure.

Yes, electric cars/hybrids put some thought into making their batteries last both in the form of temperature control and how they’re charged (as you mentioned). In California, batteries have to last 10 years or 150,000 miles. On certain Teslas, (S and X) the standard (non California) warranty is 8 years or 150,000 miles. What are you thinking of getting? I think you’ve had some bad luck with an Accord Hybrid. My two Prius (Prii?) have been essentially trouble free. Toyota is supposed to be coming out with a couple of new Plugins in 2022.

To stay somewhat on topic, I’d say that rechargeable HA’s ought to come with “extra” battery capacity so a BMS (Battery Management System) ought to be able to give you plenty of rechargeable hours while keeping you between 20% and 80% of capacity of the total battery capacity-and the HA OEMs ought to advertise if they’re helping rechargeable users out in that way. And just as for cars, there ought to be a really rapid charging mode as needed but the smartphone app ought to mind the number of fast rechargings you’ve done and encourage you to budget only so many per month.

After the Texas Deep Freeze where we were without power for 2.5 days, when I read about the full-house backup capability of the new Ford F-150 Lightning XLT (150 kWh battery), I decided to spring for that (I’ve always wanted a pickup for all the things I could never fit in a standard sedan to bring home or haul away from my house). But you really don’t get a 300 mile range out of it if you stick between 20% and 80% charge (60% of capacity is only 180 miles) and although you can recharge the 60% capacity in 41 minutes at a DC fast charger, Ford itself advises against doing that too much as it degrades long-term battery lifespan slowly (80% of EV owners recharge at home overnight). OTH, the vehicle weighs 3.25 tons but can do 0 to 60 in 4.4 seconds! (that degrades battery life, too!). And the “frunk” (empty space under hood where a big gasoline motor used to be) can hold 14 cu ft of stuff (up to 400 lbs), as much as the rear trunk in my Accord sedan. To come back on topic, the truck can also deliver 9.6 kW both in 120 V and 240 V AC from its many outlets so wherever I am with the truck, even out in the woods, I can easily recharge my hearing aids, presumably without having to leave the key in the ignition and all sorts of other powered stuff on. As long as electricity is produced from greenhouse gas-producing power plants, though, having a fully electric vehicle is not going to save the planet much. Hopefully, I’ll be consuming greener and greener electricity as time goes by…

@jim_lewis said:

After the Texas Deep Freeze where we were without power for 2.5 days, when I read about the full-house backup capability of the new Ford F-150 Lightning XLT (150 kWh battery), I decided to spring for that (I’ve always wanted a pickup for all the things I could never fit in a standard sedan to bring home or haul away from my house).

I’m impressed! You are now a truck guy with a twist.
We now have a Kubota diesel powered light tower for back up power. We were out of power for 8 days.

Our utility, CPS Energy, says to expect more blackouts in the future (and we have annoying transient ones from intense thunderstorms all the time, lasting from minutes to hours). For our electricity consumption usually, except in the heat of summer, we consume less than 600 kWh per month. So with turning some things off, we ought to be able to go ~10 days if necessary with the 150 kWh in the truck (all only available if fully charged, though!). I’ve thought about a gasoline or diesel powered backup generator in the past but its something extra uselessly sitting around almost all the time to be ~maintained whereas the truck is very useful when its not serving backup duty, too! A fuel-powered generator that I heard in action visiting a friend in Falls Church, VA, was very noisy. Ours will be absolutely silent. There are a lot of shortcomings with the Lightning but I don’t imagine going on 76 years of age that I’ll live long enough to see everything sorted out and I wanted to enjoy an EV while I’m still reasonably sentient and am still capable of driving without killing myself or my wife!

We have a second electrical meter at a metal building. I plan to kill the power there and use the generator as needed to power that building. Return will take 2.5 years but we will have a back up power source for our home. If any needed power is needed anywhere else on the property the light tower will fill in nicely.

Yeah Jim, I had a BMW i3 REX for a couple of years, bought it new, lovely car to drive and fast with it, amazingly agile in the snow and ice, 19" tyres that were very narrow, 0 to 60 in around 7 seconds…170BHP, about 180 miles range in the summer, plus another 80 miles with the REX (Range Extender). My main problem was public charging points in the Scottish Highlands, there wasn’t many, although I did charge a lot at home as I have 4KW of solar panels, but on dull days that’s not really cost-effective, and you kind of grudged paying for electricity when you could get it for free with your “Charge Card” (£20 a year admin fee, all the rest of your electricity was free) strangely enough, or as luck would have it, a new charge car electricity service station opened up 3 miles away from me the week I sold the i3… As for hearing aid rechargeable’s, you can keep them, but each to their own preferences. Enjoy your new Ford F-150 Lightning XLT. Cheers Kev