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Phonak PartnerMic glitch

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Just to follow up on this. It acted up again and all my efforts at fixing failed. I filed an extended warranty claim and it is definitely a hassle. Hardest part is that they want a repair estimate or statement from technician that item is not repairable. Since I bought online I explained to them that I didn’t know how I was going to get that. They first suggested taking it to Costco which I did even though I was pretty dubious. Costco couldn’t help. The then suggested Best Buy which I didn’t bother with. Finally found an audiologist in town who advertises that he does repairs and he has been helpful. So, word of caution if you’re counting on using an extended warranty from your credit card. This seems especially important with hearing aid accessories since the typical warranty is one year. Buying from a physical location does have advantages. If I’d bought from Costco, they would have just sent back to Phonak, I’d get a new one and extended warranty process would have been a lot simpler.

Tried two different times. Not a quality mic by any stretch of the imagination. The second time I tried it, it wouldn’t hold a charge. Give it a shot but make sure you can return it for a full refund

Long term followup. I missed it and bought a used one. Works great. Much lower price. When it breaks it breaks.

Just to let you know, my Partner mic did the same thing, would not shut off and stay off. I tried while charging, while not charging, just wouldn’t shut off. I was going to have a look inside the case at battery but I could not figure it out w/out breaking the case. Went to the landfill with the other trash…

Curious. Do you know if you ever used it with a charger other than what it came with? I’m wondering if other USB-C chargers might try giving it more wattage than what it could handle?
I did take mine apart (broke it in process), but it looked like with proper tools it could be done.

That is the only “story” I can come up with. I will try to be careful with this one.
I do not have any kind of electronics background but it wouldn’t surprise me if Phonak didn’t install the highest quality battery protection circuits. The charger they include strikes me as pretty cheap.

It appears the problem with the partner mic ended without anyone coming up with a solution. I figured out the problem and have come up with a solution that makes me very angry. There was a serious flaw in the manufacture. The on and off are so close together that after enough use to affect the switch it became impossible to turn the mic off. Therefore it was always on, which explains the constant beeps and explains why the mic was usually not working. While it was on the charger, it was constantly discharging. I finally contacted the audiologist who said it would be $300 to repair it. So I sent it back for repairs, thinking they would probably have to send me a new one. I saw no way to repair a mistake in design. Sure enough, they did send a new one. I immediately tried the on off switch and I could see that they had changed it because there is now a click between the on and off that was not present on the other partner mic. So Phonak charged $300, certainly more than it cost them to make, to “repair” something that was their manufacturing flaw. This is not reasonable, especially for an item that cost $450.

No, it’s not reasonable but without oversight they are not accountable, so ethics are what they choose them to be at their sole discretion. From what we already know about what they charge to enable Roger software that’s already resident but dormant in their products, profit apparently comes first.

The PartnerMic is kind of interesting. When it works it’s really helpful for one on one conversations. Their quality control seems pretty bad, especially for a device that’s on the expensive side when bought new. However used they’re pretty reasonable and still seem like pretty good value even if their lifespan is unpredictable.

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