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Oticon Smart charger vs. Desk Charger

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Knowing what I know now about the desktop chargers and the smart chargers, regardless of all of the data and back and forth here I would still choose the smart charger over the desktop charger. Why the lights that are on the desktop charger can light up the bedroom at night, there is no led light issue with the smart charger at night, and the smart charger gives a small amount of drying for the aids that really helps. All of this data is great to a point and totally distracting to the real point.

Edited
@cvkemp said:

totally distracting to the real point.

@cvkemp: And that point, Chuck, would be …?

(I don’t know about your desktop charger, but mine just has one bright green LED on it that I covered up with a tiny piece of Gorilla tape. No more bright LED!)

Addendum: I apologize, Chuck! The LEDs on the themselves are like landing lights! But - because my getup is cordless and lives inside a drawer in my night stand - extraneous glare has never been an issue.

In reply to @SpudGunner

@SpudGunner said:

@Volusiano: I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill. I just thought that @Chirp might be letting himself in for an expensive disappointment by assuming that a “dead” SmartCharger would still work to charge HAs if its own batteries were shot. I feel vindicated for my caution - I think it is warranted - at least enough caution to ask
Oticon for the straight goods. Then he can decide on which charger he wants to buy with some basis in facts.

Yep, the OP asked what concerns to look out for and you raised a valid concern. We all know rechargeable batteries don’t last forever. It’s one thing if the battery is affordably replaceable, it’s another thing if it’s not and you’d have to throw away the entire device when the battery goes dead.

@Chirp → beside asking Oticon if the SmartCharger can be used as a plugged-in (dumb) charger with a dead battery, another question to ask is whether they provide a battery replacement service for it, and if yes, how much it would cost. Please share here if you get answers for them. Thanks.

I’ve only had the desk charger for over a year, until last week when I finally received the smart charger. I pay for mine from a private Audiologist. I wanted a backup charger, and the convenience the smart charger offers. The Smart charger was not available when I got my Mores, then Covid chip shortage happened.
Size-wise, it is about the same size as the plug in regular charger.
The lights are not going to bother anyone in a dark bedroom like the plug in charger - which I find to be a huge annoying issue.
As far as the built in battery pack - the Smart charger has a 3 year warranty, which is the same as the Hearing Aids. Send it back to Oticon thru your provider, if the battery begins to be an issue. Same as your hearing aids - send in under warranty before the 3 years expiration date.
Ask your Audiologist if they provide a loaner charger for if/when the charger fails - or needs to be sent to Oticon for repair/replacement.
I am surprised there is an up-charge to get the Smart charger instead of the plug in charger. I though they cost the same.
I hope I provided another everyday, practical insight. I have severe to profound hearing loss, therefore I want back ups for hearing aids and chargers.

It does make a lot of sense to have a backup charger just in case. Or else you’re dead in the water until you can get a replacement. And it also makes a lot of sense as long as you have a backup to have one of each kind. If I had 2, I’d use the plug-in one for everyday charging, and keep the SmartCharger at 2 out of 3 dots full indicator (to keep its battery happy) as the backup in storage. And when I travel, I can simply top up the SmartCharger and I’m good to go. Even if I don’t have a chance to top up, I still have 2 full charges out of 3 before I have to plug it in.

In reply to @Mago

@Mago said:

I hope I provided another everyday, practical insight. I have severe to profound hearing loss, therefore I want back ups for hearing aids and chargers.

@Mago: You did provide valuable insight, as usual, Mago.

I hope I haven’t left anyone with the impression that the Oticon SmartCharger isn’t a great backup charger, because it IS that. My point is that I personally wouldn’t pay an upcharge for the SmartCharger just to solve the issues that the standard desktop model comes with. I solved my issues by:

  1. Powering everything from a pretty big external power pack that I only have to charge once a week. With my other batteries, I can juice my for a month-long power outage.
  2. I got my standard charger travel getup down to a reasonable size by using a smaller power brick, in case I have to attend an emergency room before my More1s are fully charged at home. That was a big issue for me before the advent of the SmartCharger.

That being said, the Oticon SmartCharger is a much more elegant and portable backup solution than what I managed to rig up as an emergency getup. I’m happy to have it. Now that I do, I think I’m pretty well going to be obliged to use it as my principal charger just to keep the batteries healthy. Since I never let my HAs become fully depleted, I will end up getting way more than 3 days of charges out ot it. That’s good.

But I still don’t think I would have anted up $300+ of my own coin to buy the SmartCharger … but I am genuinely grateful to :canada: VAC :canada: for having provided me with this piece of kit.

In reply to @Volusiano

@Volusiano said:

If I had 2, I’d use the plug-in one for everyday charging, and keep the SmartCharger at 2 out of 3 dots full indicator (to keep its battery happy) as the backup in storage. And when I travel, I can simply top up the SmartCharger and I’m good to go. Even if I don’t have a chance to top up, I still have 2 full charges out of 3 before I have to plug it in.

@Volusiano: I always feel stupid when I read practical, common sense stuff like this - like “Why didn’t I think this way?”

Thank you, MrV! I’m going to adopt this regime! (It’s staying right handy in my night stand, though → ready to go!)

Well, your strategy of using the SmartCharger on a regular basis to exercise the battery and not let it sit at a full charge state all the times is viable, too. The only disadvantage with that is that you’ll be burning up charge cycles on it while you could have saved the charge cycles for only when you truly need it on the go.

If you’re going with the store-until-you-need approach on the SmartCharger, I would only charge it up for only 2 hours from depletion, knowing that a 4 hour charge would provide a full state of charge, so a 2 hour charge should give it roughly a half state of charge, the medium where the battery is the happiest.

If the charge state LED indicator does light up during charging to let you know what level of charge is in the SmartCharger while being charged, then another approach (instead of timing it for 2 hours like suggested above) is to keep an eye on it and keep charging until 1 LED shows, then 2 LED shows, but stop before or right after 3 LED shows. So 2 out of 3 LEDs showing would indicate a 66% charge, which is not the ideal 50%, but still better than 100%.

Sometimes charging Lithium-ion batteries is not a linear process time-wise, meaning that charging from 0 to 70 or 80% full may go more quickly, then charging the last 30 or 20% takes a lot longer. In this case, the “time the charging” method and stopping at 2 hours may not get you to exactly 50% state of charge, it may go beyond that a bit. So you may have to eyeball the LED state of charge indicator as described in the second method or use a combination of both methods for best result if you want to achieve 50% state of charge.

I know that this is really nit picky here because of my engineering background. In general, just avoid keeping the SmartCharger at full charge or at full depletion state continuously day-in day-out for weeks-on-end or months-on-end, and it will minimize the stress on its battery.

@Volusiano: Thanks for your helpful answer. I’ve got the SmartCharger in my GO pile with only 2 out of 3 LEDs lit. I’ll check charge status again at the end of November.

I am using my new Smart Charger instead of the plug in desk charger to make sure it works as it is supposed to. Sitting in storage, unused makes the warranty pretty useless. I don’t want to find out in an emergency or during travel, it doesn’t work.
(My final torture with the ZPower disaster was multiple charger failures, in addition to the batteries themselves. Lesson learned.)

@Mago said:

I am using my new Smart Charger instead of the plug in desk charger to make sure it works as it is supposed to. Sitting in storage, unused makes the warranty pretty useless.

@Mago: That is a valid point, however, if you could actually experience how well my charger-in-a-drawer works, you’d understand why I trust it so much and how easy it is to integrate with my lifestyle. I’ve been using my new SmartCharger since I took delivery of it, and it’s operated flawlessly. I’ll probably end up alternating between my two getups just for fun!

In reply to @Mago

If I had both types of charger, I would ask my whether I can send in a warranty claim for the SmartCharger to get a new one at the end of 3 years even if it’s still functional, albeit maybe it’s not delivering the full 3 charge cycles anymore, like maybe you can only get 2.5 charge cycles out of it by the end of 3 years or something like that.

If the answer is “Yeah, sure, getting it replaced during the 3 year warranty is an easy process without too much scrutiny”, then yes, I’d use it as my primary charger during the 3 years, and then even if it holds up OK after 3 years, I’d still try to turn it in for a brand new warranty replacement before the end of the 3 year warranty, then I would relegate the newly replaced SmartCharger as the secondary charger after that to “save” it from the wear and tear because it no longer has any warranty.

But if the answer is “No, Oticon needs to verify that the device actually isn’t up to par enough before they agree to give you a replacement”, then of course I’d test it out a few months in the beginning as the primary charger, and once I’m happy that it’s fully functional, I’d relegate it back as the secondary charger to “save” it from wear and tear. Then maybe once a quarter, if I don’t travel during that time to get to put it to use, I would take it out to use it for a week or so to make sure it’s still fully functional, and at the end of the 3 year warranty, give it a thorough work out the last 3 months to ensure that it’s still fully functional or else claim the warranty replacement on it.

Hope this logic makes sense.

Edited
@Volusiano said:

claim the warranty replacement on it.

@Volusiano: Up here in the Cold Cold North, I’m not so sure that automatic replacement is necessarily de rigeur at Oticon.

When I was having my first problems with my More1 rechargeable batteries and desktop charger last year, when my devices were only 6 months old Oticon took 3 weeks to try (unsuccessfully) to repair my charger, which failed after supposedly having been repaired

I was not issued new equipment until after one failed repair of the original unit. Therefore, I’m reluctant to conclude that devices returned to Oticon at the end of the normal warranty period are automatically replaced with brand new units. (At least in Canada)

In reply to @Volusiano

@Volusiano said:

maybe it’s not delivering the full 3 charge cycles anymore, like maybe you can only get 2.5 charge cycles out of it by the end of 3 years

A related question: In the 3rd year, does a full charge of the aids, which have diminished battery capacity themselves, require the same amount of energy from the Smart Charger as when they were new?

I am using the charger that came with my Mores. It is labeled C1A2. It sits on my desk plugged in but when I travel I unplug its USB connector from the wall plug/charger and use it with my Anchor backup battery. I wear my ’s all day with lots of streaming and at the end of the day the C1A2 charges them quickly and then shuts off which triggers the backup battery to stop supplying power. It will charge for days this way.

Are you sure, one of the updates to the More aids fixed that for More aids, I believe it was the one that came out when they released the smart charger

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