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KS9 battery life has changed

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@wdgowen said:

what could cause the battery life to change?

Read the whole thread. Still no idea what the problem with battery life change on your hearing aids. But I will break it down for you. Regardless what you done.

  1. change or Volume control change - The more gains the more power hungry. Volume up also consume more battery.
  2. Feedback kicking in - The more frequency feedback kick in the more power consumption. You may not notice feedback or sound leakage? Some people can’t heard their hearing aids whistle until someone tell you that your hearing aids whistling.
  3. Wireless connecting - This will always increase battery power consumption. Weather you use it or not.
  4. Bad batteries quality - You may have a bad batch?
  5. Not waiting for 2-3 mins before use the new fresh battery - This is real phenomenal. Wait a couple 2-3 mins before you insert the fresh battery into hearing aids can increase battery life as much as 1 day. I tried this myself. 5.1) I put in as soon as I peel off the tap, lasted less 1 day than usual. 5.2) I peel off the fresh battery, wait a couple mins. Its lasted more 1 day.

I seem to have gotten a bad batch of costco batteries. Some of them only last a few hours. If I leave them out for an hour or two the will work for another few hours. Strange. It happens now and then. I am wondering if the contacts inside the aid could be corroded causing voltage drop? The battery doesn’t show any corrosion. Seems to be on my right ks9 more than the left. But left is doing the bluetooth master. I can’t see inside. Costco is 100 miles away so not rushing over there yet.

Also probably doesn’t apply to most but I read somewhere altitude affects battery life. I live over 6000 ft. Maybe the tiny holes are too small. LOL

I tried another brand with similar results. 3 or 4 times as expensive. Kind of points to the aids?

In reply to @mami2529

Gosh I would have never thought of any of those things.

As for#5 I’ve done experiments with no wait time, 2 minutes wait time and 5 minutes wait time. I found zero difference in battery life for all 3 methods.

In reply to @miket

I recently replaced my Pixel 3aXL with a Pixel 6a. I have Android 13 on the 6a. So far battery life has been strange. First set performed about the same as the 3aXL (3 days on side). Second set was considerably better with 5 days on both sides. I guess more data is needed.

I recently upgraded to a 6a too from an original pixel. (Liked it better.) About the same battery usage. The latest version of the 13 beta is supposed to have some battery fixes for the phone. Maybe they have reduced the amount of bluetooth activity? Just a guess. I loaded it yesterday but it will take a few days to see any effect.

The Hear Clear batteries made a slight difference but changing phones to a Pixel 6a made a big difference in the Bluetooth side. The 6a is running Android 13 while my old 3aXL was limited to Android 12.

I just went into Costco and got a “mandatory firmware update” for my three year old KS9’s. The battery life went from less than a day to 3-4 days. Some other random flakiness (occasional buzzing) went away as well.

I am pretty sure that this is a Bluetooth compatibility issue of some sort.

In my case, my KS9’s were paired to an iPhone Xr running the latest iOS version. But If you use Bluetooth, and are seeing very poor battery life, ask Costco to verify your KS9’s firmware level.

I didn’t. But hearing aids do have computer processors in them, so I thought I would ask.

The person I talked to said that battery problems couldn’t be caused by firmware, which sounded bogus to me, but “they are the experts, right?”

They told me that I’d need to send them to the factory for repair at $200 each, since my warranty expired. That is why I decided to schedule a hearing test.

It was only when I went in for the hearing test that they actually checked and updated the firmware.

The firmware on my KS9’s is presumably the latest, which is “1.2.0.0” as reported by the Easy Line Remote app.

I raised a bit of a stink about this - in particular because I specifically came in asking about a firmware update and they did nothing to actually check the firmware.

But, based on what I have seen in Google searches, nobody has reported the KS9 + firmware + battery issue.

So I am trying to spread the word…

I was not aware of that. But I just downloaded myPhonak, and as far as the hearing aid controls and visibility, it looks identical to the Easy Line app. The only difference seems to be the general health and activity tracker - which may be useful, but seems a bit far afield for a hearing aid app.

The latest version of Easy Line is a big improvement over the old Easy Line that was available when I first got my hearing aids. I would not be surprised if myPhonak got improvements released long before the Easy Line Remote app, but they seem to be at parity at this point.

So, if you want to check firmware levels, either one will work.

And unless you want the myPhonak cloud health monitoring, there is no real advantage of one over the other that I can see.

The firmware that came out in 2019 that you’ve only just got, allows other things as well.

  • pairing to two devices rather then one.
  • works with the Phonak Roger System if appropriately set up. Before it wouldn’t work.

Also a lot more features.

Thanks! I had no idea they had added the two-device pairing. That is a big plus for me (though nothing compared to now having hearing aids that don’t burn through batteries in less than a day… :wink: )

I still don’t understand Costco’s strategy for rolling out firmware upgrades to their customers. How is the average user supposed to get their hearing aids updated?

I went in to Costco specifically asking about availability of any firmware updates for my KS9’s, and they didn’t even check the firmware level. :man_shrugging:

In reply to @Zebras

I must have just missed that firmware update, as I bought my KS9’s in either April or May of 2019.

I don’t know if that was the 1.12.0.0 firmware, which fixed my battery issue, but it does tick me off that I was unable to use pairing to both iPhone & iPad for 3 years simply because I was unaware of the availability of a firmware update.

@jimglidewell

It seems to of actually come out in June 2020, the firmware update.

Costco Kirkland Signature 9.0 (Product Information)
FANTASTIC NEWS!!! As soon as I read this I downloaded the update - Target 6.2. IT WORKED!!! I can pair to 2 devices at a time. I just tried it. You just have to manually disconnect from one device. This is much better than having to faff around and switch off the hearing aids each time. Thanks so much.!!!

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