Should I be skeptical about rechargeable hearing aid?

Although I haven’t tried it yet, I hope they are secure much like an Ipod charger/case, and will charge in my bag. Chargers that have battery banks allow you to unplug and take the charger with you. I believe the battery bank on the Resound Nexia holds 3 or 4 full charges without having to plug in. Some HA chargers do not have a powerbank and you would have to find an outlet to charge every time.

Yes, my Signia Ax HA portable charger also has a lid that closes. It’s entirely secure and will charge in a bag or elsewhere. And the battery holds three full charges for two aids without having to be plugged in.

In the case of Signias Stylettos, the case is both the charger and the power bank. It has an usb-c cable interface for charging and I’ve used dozen various chargers, coming from random assortment of devices (including one for my laptop) to charge.
It has a wireless charging interface too (these are sometimes embedded into tables) where you just put it onto marked place without connecting anything.
Or put it on the back on some phones, to charge.

Thats cool, because i cannot imagine the hassle of keeping around batteries

Having had both rechargeable and replaceable battery (13 & 312) HAs, I have a few thoughts.

1. There are cases that can be made for replaceable battery HAs as being the better option. IMHO, these situations are fairly rare, but real nonetheless.

2. IME, I have never had a rechargeable HA die during a conversation. I have, on multiple occasions, had this experience with replaceable battery HAs.

3. My Starkey Evolv 2400 rechargeable HAs last all day except when in a noisy environment for a prolonged period of time - where hearing protection is the preferred option. In such an environment, I have learned to turn the HAs off before removing them so they aren’t just amplifying noise for no reason.

4. If I have been in a noisy environment and forgot to turn the HAs off, putting the HAs on a charger, together or one at a time, for 8 minutes gives several additional hours of use to the HAs. This can be at lunch or, in a pinch, you can get a quick charge while using the restroom.

5. I keep my turbo charger, which is a spare charger, in my briefcase. This goes on ant trips as well as to the office.

6. Both the main charger and the turbo charger have an internal battery that holds 3 full charges for the HAs. For weekend trips, just bring a fully charged charger and there is no need to find an electrical source.

7. If I have to get up in the middle of the night, I would have to put on my HAs as I do not sleep with them on (either type). The rechargeable units will have either a full charge or enough to get by for several hours. If I have to stay up all the next day, the rechargeable HAs will need a top off.

8. I could not care less if folks know I wear HAs. I have a crew cut, so they are plainly visibly. I prefer grey or black HAs and with today’s ear bud fad, I look like the cool kids anyway - not that I am one.

I was pretty resistant to moving to rechargeable HAs. My AuD suggested trying them and if I did not like them, I could return them for the replaceable battery units. I tried every way to not like the rechargeable HAs. I put them through their paces and they did fine for my lifestyle. At the second fitting appointment, the AuD and I talked about the new HAs. I indicated that the only time they needed a top off after dinner time was if I were in a noisy environment most of the day and forgot to turn them off. He tossed in the turbo charger at his cost. I have used the turbo charger occasionally, but mostly it gets used as a travel charger.

I am sold on the rechargeables and the new generation has significantly longer battery life than mine. I have had mine for 2 years and plan to keep them for several more years. The plan is to do an end of warranty refurbishment which will get new batteries in the HAs. I expect them to last for at least 6 years and would like to get 8 years out of them. By then, there will probably be enough additional features that I will want new HAs.

@x475aws said:

If you don’t like how I’m doing it, you could suggest how to do it better.

Have you directly contacted any HA manufacturers?

@Volusiano said:

Something like the Oticon Smart Charger below has a lid to cover up the top portion so I can’t imagine that the aids can be dislodged once they’re put in place. I’m not sure, but there may be some kind of magnet that may snap the aids into the slot securely as well.

The lid is kept closed by a magnet and the aids require a bit of force to remove from their charging wells.

BTW, the Oticon SmartCharger works with Costco’s Philips HearLink aids. The SmartCharger is an extra-cost Oticon accessory, but as of recently Costco is including the Philips branded equivalent, Charger Plus, with HearLink purchase.

No, I haven’t contacted any HA manufacturers. What would be the point? If they don’t sell enough conventional aids they won’t keep making them.

As a disclaimer, I really only skimmed though most of the posts on this thread because at this point, this topic becomes a tiresome circle of debate, so some of your questions, if not all, may have been addressed and answered to help you either make a decision or alleviate concern, but I’ll provide my thoughts anyway.

@mtjarrett said:

What about hiking/backcountry camping? Currently, my batteries last me about 10 days but I can throw a battery pouch or two in my pack and have no concerns about hearing aid dying.

What are we talking about here; a weekend camping trip, or a prolonged week(s) journey? Most travel chargers hold up to 3 full charges and would suffice for a weekend. For longer trips, I would just use a portable battery pack (the same ones you would use for phones/headphones) to charge the travel charger itself. And what are the frequency of these trips? If you’re someone who makes a high number of extended trips like this, then I would completely understand why you would want to remain on the disposable battery train. But if you’re a weekender with camping/hiking, I don’t see why rechargeables would really cause any issues.

@mtjarrett said:

What happens if I leave town for 2 weeks without my charger? Same thing, I have battery packs in my suitcase and in my brief case and in my car. Plus, if needed I can pull into Walmart or similar 24/7 to get batteries.

Yes, if you leave town and completely forget your charger, it would be a hassle. I suppose your best bet would be to find a local audiologist office and see if they would be kind enough to loan you a charger for the duration of your stay, or unfortunately, they might make you purchase it outright (the latter being the more likely outcome). For me, at this point, when it comes to travel, my HA charger is at the top of my priority list to double check before I head out the door, same as wallet/keys/ID. It’s more or less ingrained into my habit now, so it hasn’t been an issue (yet).

@mtjarrett said:

What happens if I lose power/forget to charge/etc. right before a big meeting? This happens with my phone all the time. But my phone can be used while charging

HAs charges should easily last a full day. I pop mine in shortly after I wake up, and don’t think much of it at all throughout the day, and when I go to sleep, I place them in the charger. I stream anywhere from 2-4 hours a day on average, take and make calls with them, for work and personal, and generally have anywhere between 20-35% left by the end of my days. If you have a somewhat regular schedule, and you sleep an average of anywhere between 5-8 hours a day, I don’t see if being a problem. (I have Oticon Mores, for reference) ***I will say, from having seen a few other threads, that the Phonak Luminity does seems to toe the ‘last the whole day’ line a bit, and some people have issues with those aids making it through a full day, so you may have to keep that in consideration. But this seems to be a nonissue for most other brands.

And honestly, if for whatever reasons, you find yourself enamored with those Phonaks, your workaround is simply popping them in the charger for a short period of time, for example, when you take a shower, or when you, erm… use the bathroom… but I would completely understand people choosing to avoid it altogether.

@mtjarrett said:

What happens if hearing aids die in the middle of doing something important? This is related to number 3, but I’m just wondering what happens. I cant hear without them.

For the most part, my answer for #3 covers this. But if you were to forget to charge your aids overnight, or fall asleep with your aids in, then yes, you’d be stuck trying to intermittently charge your aids throughout a day, which quite frankly, would suck. It hasn’t happened to me yet though, as it’s simply a built in habit to pull my aids out and put it in the charger when I go to bed. I suspect for most rechargeable wearers, that is also the case. You may have to learn that habit the hard way once, but it quickly becomes an automatic function given how important the aids are for your day-to-day function.

As for home power loss, my solution is the same as an extended backcountry trip. I always have a charged up portable battery that I have for my phone anyway, it can also charge my hearing aid charger. If your power loss were to be incredibly extended, then yes, I suppose in that particular scenario, you could be SOL.

I only started wearing HAs a couple years ago, so don’t have as many reference points as some users here, but I have had zero issues with rechargeables, at least from a day to day use (I have had issues with the aids not functioning and needing repairs, but the issues have had nothing to do with the batteries). I travel a bit, have had multiple ER trips (when they happen, and family or friends comes to see me, they grab my HA and phone chargers from home, and bring them to me). On one of the occasions that my HAs were sent in for repair, the loaner my audi provided were the disposable battery version, and I absolutely hated the two+ weeks of random time battery changeouts, and having to have spares on me or accessible nearby. A lot of the firm stances here one way or another are really resistances to change (like my 2 and half weeks with disposables) rather than true issues of capability and function. There are most definitely cases where one is absolutely better than the other for certain people though – I’m not trying to discount that at all, like if you have frequently changing work shifts and don’t keep a regular wake/sleep schedule, or if you’re in a non power-reliable place, etc.

Hope this is somewhat informative and helpful, sorry for the novel. And I’m not looking to get into any drawn out back and forths with any of my points with other people other than the person who posted the original questions, so you can all take it for what it’s worth, or not. Cheers.

@WhatDidYouSay said:

The plan is to do an end of warranty refurbishment which will get new batteries in the HAs. I expect them to last for at least 6 years and would like to get 8 years out of them.

This is where you may be disappointed.

Even if you manage to get to 6-8 years of life.

The battery will probably behave like this. At 40–50% battery level and suddenly zeroed in and shut down. You will be puzzled as to why it suddenly lost all power in one swoop from 50% to 0% instantly.

Unlike Oticon which gives more flexibility and a longer life span by buying a new rechargeable battery, you can replace them yourself every 2 years. While other brands. Offer no such option.

@jcw11 said:

random time battery changeouts

These days some conventional battery aids have a battery gauge and an app. Here’s a screen on the app for my Oticon Real 312’s:

The battery gauge isn’t linear, so an indication of 50% doesn’t mean half the battery life remains. But the fact is there are indications of the battery expiring long before you get the warning beeps. For conventional batteries, I think the choices on this screen ought to be more like 80%, 60%, 50%, because in my experience 80% means the batteries will be gone in a few hours. Other brands or models may be diffferent, so you have to get familiar with your aids if you want to get the most out of the batteries. Even with these IMO too-low warning thresholds, you can check the battery level before a round of meetings, and change them if it’s below 80% or 70% or whatever level you think is appropriate.

So there is a middle ground between squeezing out every last drop, at the cost of being caught short, and being conservative, at the cost of throwing away maybe a dime’s worth or less of battery power.

As the old curmudgeon used to say:

@Neville said:

Manufacturers are deciding that there’s nothing inherantly broken with you having an “old” battery in your “old” hearing aid. If it’s malfunctioning, they may replace it with a within-spec similarly aged battery. Sometimes you do get a new battery, but this is more variable than it was initially. I’

Hmmm., first I’ve heard of any of this. “similarly aged battery”. Are you suggesting manufacturers are just swapping out old batteries that have been sent in for replacement? That seems really unlikely. A wearer would know instantly if the new battery was performing poorly-exactly like the one they just sent in for replacement. And honestly, the cost of installing a new battery as opposed to an old one is tiny. Not worth the grief. In any case I’m guarenteed two battery replacements under warranty if I need that, but I may just need one. Then I should get another three years after that (6 years total). Meanwhile I spend zero dollars on replaceable batteries over six years. The cost is a wash.