Phonak Paradise hearing aids have died 2X

@KiwiJohn said:

Let’s give you an instance from my own experience: in the middle of a chamber music concert.
And another that comes to mind: as a panelist on stage during a panel discussion.
And another (perhaps not impossible, but awkward and embarrassing) at a formal dinner, during the after-dinner speeches (which went on longer than I’d anticipated while my batteries ran out sooner than anticipated).

Were these situations where you change batteries on a schedule (say, you change them every 5th morning because they usually run out on the 6th day of use) and they ran out earlier than expected? Or do you use batteries until you get the low-battery warning?

Gee. A whole 'nuther reason for me to avoid rechargeables like the plague. Not only is the charging cradle a factor for failure, but not being able to UV AND dry my aids every night would simply gross me out. I live in a very humid place now, and try to do some form of exercise daily, so I feel that putting my battery-operated aids in a UV drying box at night is a GOOD thing.

It seems that requiring the charging station at night after 16 hours of daytime use leaves zero time in a de-humidifier with UV sanitizing.

@KiwiJohn said:

Let’s give you an instance from my own experience: in the middle of a chamber music concert.
And another that comes to mind: as a panelist on stage during a panel discussion.
And another (perhaps not impossible, but awkward and embarrassing) at a formal dinner, during the after-dinner speeches (which went on longer than I’d anticipated while my batteries ran out sooner than anticipated).

@x475aws said:

Were these situations where you change batteries on a schedule (say, you change them every 5th morning because they usually run out on the 6th day of use) and they ran out earlier than expected? Or do you use batteries until you get the low-battery warning?

Good question!
I’m a skinflint, so I always wanted to be sure that I’d drained each battery completely before I put it in the recycling box. This meant that it I was heading off to a concert, for instance, I’d swap the 312s out for fresh ones, then afterwards, swap them back, taking care to carefully mark each pair as partly used. Big hassle! I’m glad that my P90Rs make it a thing of the past.

@1Bluejay said:

It seems that requiring the charging station at night after 16 hours of daytime use leaves zero time in a de-humidifier with UV sanitizing.

Not so. See Phonak Charge and Care16 : “The Phonak Charge and Care is a charger that dries hearing aids with active ventilated air flow and treats hearing aids with UV light”.

OKAY!!! That is fantastic news! And now I am impressed with the Phonak charger. Thanks so much for setting me straight!

@1Bluejay You’re very welcome. Best wishes!

@KiwiJohn said:

I’m a skinflint, so I always wanted to be sure that I’d drained each battery completely before I put it in the recycling box. This meant that it I was heading off to a concert, for instance, I’d swap the 312s out for fresh ones, then afterwards, swap them back

And here I thought you lose your skinflint card for using size 312 batteries at all. They cost the same as size 13’s but contain about half the energy.

So how much do you save for all that trouble? If a set of batteries lasted 3 1/2 days on average (died in the middle of the 4th day), you would do 104 battery changes a year, and use 208 batteries. If you decided to change batteries every 3 days instead, so you seldom or never have to change batteries while wearing the aids, you would do 122 battery changes a year, and use 244 batteries. That’s an extra 36 batteries a year. At 25 cents each that’s $9 a year.

Do the same calculation for size 13 batteries that one changes every 7 days, rather than letting them die inconveniently on the 8th day, and it’s around 7 extra batteries a year, costing less than $2 a year.

Do what you like, of course. Some of us hope that we won’t lose the choice of doing what we like, namely using the mature technology of replaceable batteries and not dealing with possible buggy chargers, possible early battery failure, possible unavailability or exorbitant price of backup chargers, etc.

@KiwiJohn said:

And another (perhaps not impossible, but awkward and embarrassing) at a formal dinner, during the after-dinner speeches (which went on longer than I’d anticipated while my batteries ran out sooner than anticipated)

@richardsondc said:

But for me, if I am heading into a situation like that I simply open my app ahead of time and check the battery level. Throw them on the charger for 30 minutes and now I’m good for hours and hours. …

Yes, I was using that as an instance of where I’d been caught out with my previous Audéo V70-312s. No such hassle now with my P90Rs.
@richardsondc That’s a great tip about doing a pre-event battery level check with the app - I hadn’t thought of doing that.

@richardsondc said:

Do the battery units have an app to connect with and check levels?

Most apps I’ve seen do show battery level for disposables. But it’s next to useless because battery voltage, and the displayed charge level, don’t drop until shortly before the battery gives out.

Yes, that is how that type of battery works.

A Costco rep told me that the KS10, a near Phonak copy, has been their most unreliable aid she has dispensed. Maybe other Audi’s can chim in if they are seeing similar?

My Costco HIS told me that mine (one aid with battery problem) was the first problem one she had seen in six months.

Interesting. Strange that both have such different experiences with reliability. Hoping some Pro’s, and users, will add any insights.

When I first got my P90Rs, I had some problems with one of them draining the battery too quickly and/or not charging fully, so I got the HAs and charger replaced. The new ones worked great (still close to 50% charge at the end of the day) until about a month ago, when I started noticing the left HA (the master for Bluetooth) would get down to 10% after just 11-12 hours. The right aid would still be close to 50%. So my audiologist sent them in to Phonak and I just picked up the repaired/replaced HAs this week. I didn’t get any information about what Phonak found or did, but it seems like they just swapped out both HAs. The new ones seem fine, again.

I asked my audiologist about using a dehumidifier, and she said that’s not necessary here in non-humid CA, and she’s only heard of a couple clients using them.

Also, Phonak has a whitepaper on their website discussing their rechargeable batteries. The paper suggests that even with 16 hours of usage per day with several hours of Bluetooth streaming, the batteries should last six years. Lithium-ion batteries like these lose their capacity over time. They have a limited number of charge-discharge cycles, and their life gets shorter if you keep them fully charged a lot. So in theory if you wanted to maximize your HA battery’s useful life, you could put your charger on a timer so it doesn’t charge them up until shortly before you need them, e.g. have it start charging an hour or so before you get up in the morning. But that’s a lot of hassle for a possibly minor benefit.