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Is the battery in the Oticon ConnectClip user replaceable?

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There is no “connector” in the OEM battery that i could see. I think its soldered into the board but i didn’t disassemble the whole thing. You can actually open the ConnectClip and access the old battery and wires fairly easily. I just cut the old one off and spliced the cables soldering the new one in place with some heat shrink tubing to cover the splice.

The new battery had just the wires and no connector at the end.

As always… its an “at your own risk” sort of thing :slight_smile:

@Luga: I apologize if my memory has failed me wrt the presence of a battery clip. I didn’t mean to muddy the waters with the insertion of questionable “facts”.

@Luga said:

You can actually open the ConnectClip and access the old battery and wires fairly easily. I just cut the old one off and spliced the cables soldering the new one in place with some heat shrink tubing to cover the splice.

Suffice to say the battery can be replaced by those brave enough to attempt the fix (even though it was not designed with that in mind)!

Thanks for your clarification.

What I’ve heard so far from the few Oticon owners on this forum when they need their ConnectClip battery replaced and inquired about it, is that their told them that the way to replace the ConnectClip battery is to basically buy a new ConnectClip.

So what Oticon says above, while not incorrect that the battery can be replaced, is misleading because apparently the way to replace it is to pay the same amount that it would cost for a new ConnectClip.

So you have 2 choices ->

  1. surrender in your bad ConnectClip to get a new ConnectClip and pay the same amount as you would for a new ConnectClip,

or 2) keep the bad ConnectClip and buy a new ConnectClip so you’ll end up with 2 ConnectClips, the old/bad one and a new one, for the same cost as option 1 above.

I have NOT heard from anyone in this forum who’s said that their HCP replaced their ConnectClip battery for a reasonable amount of money. I sure would love to hear reports like this, but so far no luck.

Of course the third (but also not ideal) option is to try to replace it yourself for much less.

@Volusiano: Well, that’s disappointing. Now that you mention it, perhaps I do remember the reports from members saying they were quoted a battery replacement price that was equal to the price of a new one.

I thought that I had stumbled upon some policy change that had been made in response to the complaints made about lack of replaceability.

No such luck, I guess. Sorry for the red herring … :pensive:

Edited

In reply to @SpudGunner

I asked my audi if the battery could be replaced, and she said replacing the battery is $250, but getting a new ConnectClip is also $250.

At that rate, getting a new one is a no-brainer.

So now I have a new ConnectClip and an old one with a dead battery that I will experiment with to see if I can replace the battery and make it work again.

It seems having a non-replaceable battery is not good customer service and has soured me a bit on Oticon.

After my rechargeable hearing aids which ended up costing more than replaceable batteries while giving me inferior service as the batteries lost their capacity to keep the aids alive all day, that’s the second disappointment.

Their slogan, People First should be changed to Profits First

I might try Phonak next time.

@BobbyBoomer said:

After my rechargeable hearing aids which ended up costing more than replaceable batteries while giving me inferior service as the batteries lost their capacity to keep the aids alive all day, that’s the second disappointment.

Can you elaborate on this? Which rechargeable hearing aids do you have? And they don’t last you all day anymore?

I’m not giving an excuse for Oticon not making the ConnectClip battery user-replaceable, but if you look at the industry of wearable electronics, popular items like the Apple Airpods are not battery replaceable at all, neither their charging case nor the ear pods themselves. It seems like a trend that for wearable electronics in the few hundred dollars range, they’re all guilty of trying to force consumers to shell out money for complete replacements.

Apple is even worse with their iPhone 12 lines now. They’re not designed to be third party serviceable anymore. You can pull out a perfectly good working part from an iPhone 12 to replace the same part that went bad on another iPhone 12 with it, and the replacement still would not work because Apple does something to prevent it from happening on purpose.

I recall the good old days, when “Cell Phones” were built to last, around 2002, they brought out “The Nokia 5100”, rubberized phone, I always kept a couple of spare charged batteries in my car, that phone was bulletproof… Unfortunately not lorry proof though, one day whilst in town I sat it on the top of my car and drove off, and a lorry crushed it, I bought another though, and It’s still kicking about the house somewhere, I saw it a couple of months ago, probably still works if you stuck a fresh battery in it? But, you are 100% spot on @Volusiano, Apple have an abysmal track record with making it as difficult as possible to change anything that needs to be renewed, especially batteries… I love their products, I have an iPhone X, iPad and iMac, the iPhone and iPad, I have changed the batteries, and both still run perfect, the iMac I run Windows 10, IOS is way too restrictive… I believe companies like Apple, and for that matter Oticon, should be forced to make their products easily excessible to changing batteries, and other perishable parts, we pay overly inflated prices for these goods, and a battery has only a certain lifespan, it should be easy to remove, and replace! Cheers Kev :wink:

In reply to @Volusiano

My iPhone 7 battery went dead the other day so I bought a replacement battery. The phone now charges correctly but the home button failed. Even after trying several YouTube diy to fix the home button it still doesn’t work. I was asking myself if Apple has some sort of security in place. There are small shops in the mall who change batteries and do phone repairs although Apple may weed them out as it seems with the latest iPhone models

I don’t think Apple prevents third party part replacement on the iPhone 7 yet. I’ve only heard about the third party repair shutout starting since the iPhone 12 only. It’s possible that something else got messed up in the process of replacing the battery that caused the Home button to fail.

There are softwares that can mimic your Home button and put it on the screen. You can’t read fingerprints this way, but at least it’s a workaround until you retire your iPhone 7.

@Volusiano said:

Can you elaborate on this? Which rechargeable hearing aids do you have? And they don’t last you all day anymore?

@Volusiano. I had the Oticon OPN aids with ZPower rechargeable cells. Within 6 months, they would no longer power the OPNs all day. I had to put them in the charger mid-day if I wanted to use them at night. By the end of the first year, they would only last a couple of hours.

For the cost of the charger and the batteries, if I bought disposable batteries at 88 cents per week I would have spent about $20 less in the first year than the rechargeable cells and I wouldn’t have had to worry about them not lasting all day.

Ah, OK. I thought you were talking about Lithium-ion rechargeable. But the ZPower rechargeable is a total disappointment for everyone for sure. And it’s not just Oticon who got screwed (and in turn screwed their customers for it), just about all mfgs who went with the ZPower system got screwed. Now ZPower had already filed for bankruptcy.

Edited

In reply to @Volusiano

You would be right no doubt as i must have broken the home button ribbon unknowingly when I took the back cover off?. I decided to buy a replacement iPhone 7 as the screen ribbon snapped too after messing about too much trying to locate the problem. Wish i knew about the app for the home button, darn! IPhone 12 would be nice although I would only need it for better quality photos.

In reply to @Volusiano

@Volusiano said:

Ah, OK. I thought you were talking about Lithium-ion rechargeable. But the ZPower rechargeable is a total disappointment for everyone for sure. And it’s not just Oticon who got screwed (and in turn screwed their customers for it), just about all HA mfgs who went with the ZPower system got screwed. Now ZPower had already filed for bankruptcy.

I suppose Oticon (and others) didn’t do enough testing before offering it for sale.

I suspect a qualified engineer with knowledge of rechargeable batteries could have figured that out.

Live and learn.

Edited

It’s definitely a shame that all these major mfgs got duped by ZPower with their data without doing their own testing first. It only takes a year to actually test it out and verify that the battery lasts a year as advertised before rolling it out. If they did that, I’m sure they would have found out the truth about these batteries. Not even a year, they’d only need about 6 months to find it out. But instead they used us as their guinea pigs. I really think they should have upgraded everyone to their OPN S R to make up for this gaffe. Shame on them for not doing it for everyone.

@Volusiano said:

But instead they used us as their guinea pigs. I really think they should have upgraded everyone to their OPN S R to make up for this gaffe. Shame on them for not doing it for everyone.

@Volusiano, I agree with this statement 100%, and - do you know what - Oticon’s dodgy business ethics on this and the ConnectClip battery fiasco have significantly reduced my former resistance to considering other brands.

[I don’t think Phonak and Unitron would make my short list, however, I find myself less averse to considering the others.][Or perhaps I’m merely grumpier than usual, tonight.]

In reply to @Volusiano

@Volusiano said:

But instead they used us as their guinea pigs. I really think they should have upgraded everyone to their OPN S R to make up for this gaffe. Shame on them for not doing it for everyone.

I totally agree with that.

I own two small businesses.

I feel all businesses are in the customer service business.

Problems will happen, no matter how hard you try to minimize them, the gremlins will have their way sooner or later.

If someone has a problem in my business, I figure it’s an opportunity to gain a customer for life, or lose a customer for life. I try to handle the problem in a way that makes the customer happy he/she had the problem. That often includes giving them a little extra, so they end up with more than they bought in the first place.

It costs a bit, but it’s worth it’s weight in gold.

IMO Oticon should have done something to make me glad I had the problem. Then I wouldn’t be considering another brand when it’s time to get new ones.

Bob

@Fred_Flintstone said:

For the DYU’s, there is an exact replacement battery for the Connectclip on ebay right now. Chinese vendor with feedback. $7+ gamble.

Thanks!

I’ll order one. I have an eye exam next month, so as soon as I get my latest prescription glasses I’ll put it in.

I bought a new one, so I have nothing to lose.

Bob

I bought 4 of the Synergy batteries from a company in Poland that has hundreds of them. They are not available from the Synergy, the manufacturer. They will only sell them to the Oticon or another OE vendor. The batteries are not easily replaceable, because the connectors are glued in place. When I tried to disconnect the connector, it pulled away from the PCB and there is no way it can be reattached. It might be possible to drill holes into the PCB and solder the battery wires in the holes, but I haven’t bothered trying, because I have a couple of other ConnectClips. It’s really a shame that the manufacturer glued the connector, because otherwise they would be very easy to replace.

UPDATE: Sorry for reviving this dead thread. For some reason, it showed up in the list with unread posts.

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