Should I be skeptical about rechargeable hearing aid?

@brec said:

60+ replies here in two days. And cousin “Lumity battery isn’t good enough” is up to 308 and counting in two months. Gee, that’s so much new and useful information it’s hard to keep up.

Haha, this topic is always guaranteed to stir up lots of discussion for sure. Not sure if there’s anything new that hasn’t been said already, though. I take it your “so much new and useful information” is a sarcastic remark anyway.

Exactly. I carry batteries inside my wallet and another in my car. Plus a pack of batteries in front of me while working from my computer.

I think this is solely because when these manufacturers decided to push these type of hearing aids they only had on segment of their customers in mind.

Posted this somewhere else but it definitely applies here as well:

According to Oticon
“Your batteries should last for approximately one year, and they can easily be replaced by your hearing
care professional at that time.”

For me it is an excellent reason to avoid rechargeable hearing aids. I love my 312 batteries.

Z-power batteries were garbage,and the company went bankrupt. The VA makes the hearing aid manufacturers back the rechargeable aids including batteries for 3 years. My first set of rechargeable were the OPNS aids, early on i had issues with them having static all time, and they were replaced, and they are still working to this day.

@FrastNH said:

My main concern is reliability—fearing they’ll stop working mid-conversation

Phonak provides a one-hour warning; Oticon and Philips, two hours.

It is impressive how it goes on and on. I get the sense the disposable crowd still doesn’t feel heard.

I have Phonak Lumity L90. They are only offered in rechargeable. I was skeptical but I’m getting 18-19 hours a day, so I’m assured of not having dead batteries at a bad time. I understand Oticon and Resound have even more battery life.

I’m sure i will never go back to replaceable.

Yeah Chuck, as you are acutely aware, when it comes to hearing aids, no one size fits all… Even if, I wanted rechargeable aids (which I don’t at present) the simple truth is, they do not make them powerful enough to accommodate my loss, so a BTE UP is the only game in town, until they develop something other… On my left side, my MPO is sitting around 131db, although this disturbs me, when I point it out to my A.uD, she says its fine… RIC’s are okay, but they simply don’t have the power, for certain losses! A 105db receiver ain’t going to cut it for me, when I used the Marvel 90 RIC’s, I kept on blowing receivers, a real pain in the proverbial, getting custom 105db moulds frequently remade, in the end, I had a spare set made, so I wasn’t “Aid-less” or one aid down, for a couple of weeks or so! When we go up into the higher thresholds, there is no substitute for sheer power & the sound scope of a BTE, it is always going to sound much better, than any RIC aid, its just the way it is… In truth, I am way past any aesthetics of wearing hearing aids, so I could easily envisage me wearing a “Neck Banded” aid, similar to the military communication bands, this could in theory, accommodate extra Lifepo4 batteries, FM radio, LE Audio, Bluetooth, and whatever other paraphernalia we now deem necessary, and perhaps run for a week on a single charge… At the moment, rechargeable aids, aren’t a viable option, I have tried them, they do work, but, for my level of loss, they are perhaps a severe compromise, and in certain circumstances, they aren’t fit for purpose, and until such times, I will stick to my 675 batteries… Cheers Kev

I have Widex Moment rechargeable. They work for me. They offer a long-lasting charge - more than a day of work, for sure! However if you are doing a lot of audio streaming - I do quite a few hours listening to eAudiobooks - you may find that after 12 hours or more, they run out. However, a quick charge of 20 minutes gives me some hours more!

I agree with most of your sentiments Ruth, thank you for your input I learned a long time ago, not to judge an Audiogram at face value, more often than not, there are other things at play… Some losses look fairly mundane, and easy to fit, in theory… But, in practice, it might be an entirely different story… For instance, Chucks Audiogram, looks fairly straightforward, but he has a slight cookie bite, alongside his Moderate to Severe loss, that cookie bite, might be enough to throw a spanner in the works, if Chuck wasn’t aided early on, that could also have had an effect, with auditory deprivation? And me, in theory also, looking at my Audiogram, you might say, I am going to struggle aided, in almost every situation, I don’t, and if anything, I hear exceptionally well, given my loss… I believe, this is because, right from the start of SSNHL (Around 6 months?) I have always been aided, and always persevered with my aids, so there wasn’t any auditory deprivation? I could be entirely wrong? One thing @cvkemp, if you don’t mind me asking please, and you are entirely free to ignore my request Chuck Are you Dyslexic? I am, and numbers are also problematic, if you are, it would explain a lot to me, sometimes one dyslexic can spot another… Cheers Kev

I have Signia Ax7 rechargeables with telecoil battery. I have a super power reciever in my right mold. It seems to be plenty powerful. Is it true that rechargeables can’t handle UP/SP? by the way, my impression is that these two categories are the same, and that different brands use different terminology to inidicate the same thing. I may be wrong!

P.s. I get plenty of power and battery life with these aids, which claim 36 hours of life. But I place them in my charger when I take a nap or read in the afternoon. No matter, they would last all day without that.

UP/SP mean different things depending on if they’re in RIC or BTE (“real” BTE with receiver in aid instead of in the ear) Nobody that I know of has an UP rechargeable in a BTE.

I am wearing Signia rechargeable with T-coil and have older Resound with replaceable batteries and an old iPhone that I use when I go to bed to listen to audio books.
I can’t wait until I can afford inexpensive-ish rechargeables (or new daytime aids) to use at night!! I stream a lot during the day and have never run out of battery (wearing aids from 6 am to 10 pm most days). But I hate being almost asleep and the hearing aid starts beeping because I need to change the battery!!!