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How Hearing Aids Behave as the Batteries Age

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I am a new hearing aid user. I am trialing two different digital aids and they both behave similarly and both use #10 batteries. My wife is enjoying the hearing aids as much as me because the word, ‘What?’ doesn’t come out of my mouth quite as often.

Here’s the thing, though. She can always tell when it’s the day before my batteries go dead. I start saying, ‘What?’ a lot more. Her comment has been ‘Batteries going dead?’ When I finally get the beeps (that the battery is exhausted), I change the battery and am surprised at the difference a new battery makes. Because it happens so gradually, I don’t realize that the is losing sensitivity.

Since these are digital aids, I would have thought they either worked or didn’t, but that’s not what my experience over the last couple of months has shown me. As the battery wears, the amplification diminishes.

Is this pattern typical? When do you replace batteries? Do you wait for the beep? One of the HAs I have is the America Hears Freedom SIE. The only adjustment for the battery is the volume of the tones. I don’t see anywhere I can adjust when the beeps sound.

I don’t mind changing the batteries more often (localbattery.com4) makes that less of a financial decision. I want to keep the aids operating at full capacity as long as the batteries will last.

17 people in this conversation16 min readJump to latest

I am new to hearing aids and I think you have a good question. I am posting this response trying to revive your post, hoping that both you, me, and anyone else on this forum will receive some feedback on this. Wish I knew the answer, but this my first full day with my hearing aids. With all the knowledgeable folks who post to this forum, especially those who are professionals in this field of endeavor, I would expect that someone can provide a response to your question.

There was more discussion on another forum. You can find it here: http://hohadvocates.org/wwwboard/list.php?bn=hohadvocates_hohconcerns&site=hohadvocates&expnd=none5

Basically, others agreed that the behavior I experienced was typical. I spoke with America Hears and they offered to increase the sensitivity of the low battery warning. Unfortunately, the result of the adjustment was that the alarm would go off when a new battery was inserted.

Rayovac claims that their battery power remains the same from the minute you peal off the tab to when the battery dies completely. The say that unlike alkaline batteries that slowly decline in power the longer you use them, zinc air batteries do not do that and when their lifetime is used up they just stop working. Based on that you shouldn’t replace your hearing aid batteries until they die on you.

@Hask12 said:

Rayovac claims that their battery power remains the same from the minute you peal off the tab to when the battery dies completely. The say that unlike alkaline batteries that slowly decline in power the longer you use them, zinc air batteries do not do that and when their lifetime is used up they just stop working.

I think, like most advertising, you have to look a little beyond the statements they make. To date, I haven’t found any #10 batteries that aren’t zinc air (but I have only been looking for the past couple of months). I have tried four different brands, but I haven’t tried Rayovac. In all cases, they caused two brands of hearing aids to behave pretty much the same (which is how I described them in my original post). I tried Renatas which are supposed to be top of the line. While I am not running a stopwatch on my tests, they behave the same as and last about the same as iCellTech batteries. On the localbattery.com web site, Renatas cost about 45% more the the iCells (when buying 60). Based on my informal testing, they are not worth the premium price.

A quick internet search turned up the best price for Rayovacs (Amazon) at more than $0.75 each. This represents a more than 50% premium over the Renata batteries and a 129% premium over the iCellTech ones. I get about 5 days from the iCellTechs. At more than twice the price, I would need the Rayovacs to last more than 10 days to be of equal value to the iCellTechs.

I am definitely a creature of habit. My true quest is to find batteries that will last more than a week with the same perfomance characteristics. That way, I can change my batteries on the same day every week. I’ll probably pick up a small package of Rayovacs (and maybe some other ‘premium’ brands) to see if they are worthy. My guess is that they’re not.

I like your battery investigation, but I had an idea: Instead of paying more money to have longer lasting batteries, have you considered locating the point where you notice a deterioration (eg 3 days) and just changing the batteries then? Maybe Mondays and Thursdays?
(I think after your posts I will do that).

I can change my HA batteries in about a minute, maybe two minutes if it is in the morning and I haven’t had all my coffee yet. So a twice a week schedule doesn’t seem to be terribly time consuming to me.

@Lucille said:

I like your battery investigation, but I had an idea: Instead of paying more money to have longer lasting HA batteries, have you considered locating the point where you notice a deterioration (eg 3 days) and just changing the batteries then? Maybe Mondays and Thursdays?
(I think after your posts I will do that).

I just started doing that this week. I still want to find ones that will last at least a week, though.

The point here is that the company says that zinc are batteries really don’t suffer from deterioration, certainly not like alkaline batteries. They don’t even say that theirs deteriorate less then others. They say that that’s how zinc air batteries work. Their power remains steady until they just stop working. So changing them after a few days would just be throwing good batteries in the garbage.

mrschwarz is using a 10 battery in Costco Kirkland Premium aids (Rexton GEM 12’s) and America Hears FreedomAD SIE’s, I’ve deduced from reading various posts.

Over almost 7 years, over several types of aids with different battery sizes, I can’t say that I’ve seen similar deterioration. For me, the low battery beeps sound, and I replace the battery. Or I figure out how long they last on average, and develop a schedule.

What I have determined is the batteries “usually” last as follows:

Battery Size--------Days
10--------------------5-6
312------------------7-10
13-------------------20-21
625------------------28-30

Good luck in your quest to find a 10 battery that lasts 7 days in the aids you’re wearing, and please let us know what they are if you do, mrschwarz.

I pay $.56 a battery, Rayovac, from hearing Planet, size 13. You can pay $.52 a battery if you but them in quantities of 96. I know that you can get batteries for less but since my aids cost $5500, who cares.

In reply to @jay_man2

Jay and Hask

I don’t want to pitch good batteries but do not want to use batteries that are not working up to par.

I’d like one of y’all since you seem experienced to try an experiment: Do one of those online hearing tests with a fresh battery and then do it again at the end of the good battery life as outlined above.

I know, y’all are not guinea pigs, but a lot of us would really benefit by the test. I would do it myself except I only have earbuds and not the kind of earphones that cover the ears.

@Lucille said:

Jay and Hask

I don’t want to pitch good batteries but do not want to use batteries that are not working up to par.

I’d like one of y’all since you seem experienced to try an experiment: Do one of those online hearing tests with a fresh battery and then do it again at the end of the good battery life as outlined above.

I know, y’all are not guinea pigs, but a lot of us would really benefit by the test. I would do it myself except I only have earbuds and not the kind of earphones that cover the ears.

That’s another good idea, Lucille. I hadn’t thought of doing an online test. I have a pair of headphones I’ll have to dig out. I replaced my batteries on Thursday so I’ll give it a try on Monday. This whole thing may be nothing more than a figment of my imagination, but until Jay_man’s comment about not noticing it, every other response I got that mentioned it, agreed that they noticed it to.

When I mentioned it to the audiologist at America Hears, she agreed that it happened. Being new to this whole thing, I am trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Like the previous poster said, I’d hate to throw money away, but I don’t mind changing batteries a little sooner to keep the aids performing optimally.

It’s unlikely that the Rayovacs are any better or worse than the others (advertising hyperbole excepted), but I’m willing to give them a try. At $0.52 from the hearingplanet.com (when buying 96), they are only slightly more than the Renatas. In relation to alkalines, I am sure that they are more consistent throughout their life. With the low voltage and slight current draw of hearing aids, I would think it’s still possible for there to be a noticeable performance difference from fresh to almost dead. Isn’t that possible?

I agree that optimum hearing is a primary goal. Those of y’all with those earphones that can help with the experiment might actually try to find exactly if and when any deterioration takes place, and if it is at the same point in terms of days for different people using the same battery, could save us a lot of grief and money.

In fact, if there was a valid, repeatable finding it would be such an important finding that the results should be shared not only with us, but with the manufacturers and the battery companies, because it would be of great service to all hoh with HA.

I think we may be getting a bit off track here. I don’t think they make hearing aid batteries in alkaline. But just think of a flashlight. As the batteries get older the light gets weaker and weaker. Zinc air are not suppose to do that. God, with my loss, my aids would be useless if everyday the aids got weaker as the batteries deteriorated. To be honest with you I never let the batteries run out. After about 10 days I usually just change them automatically. Maybe I’ll let them run out for now on. At no time did I wish to imply that Rayovac batteries are superior to others. I don’t know if they are our not, although another thread in this category may imply that they are. I just quoted Rayovac’s explanation regarding how zinc air type batteries work. Use what ever brand you wish. The point is no matter what brand you use zinc air battery power output is suppose to remain the same, or very close to full power, until they just die.

I agree Hask12. I too would never wait until my batteries are close to the end. I have figured out that the aids I used lasted about 7-9 days, depending on late nights. So, automatically I always change my batteries every Sunday morning. I have never had a problem in the 20 odd years that I have been wearing them. I most likely am spending a bit more doing it this way, but for me the whole point is to hear…I do not want to wait until they are absolutely drained at the wrong time.

In reply to @Lucille

@Lucille said:

Jay and Hask

I don’t want to pitch good batteries but do not want to use batteries that are not working up to par.

I’d like one of y’all since you seem experienced to try an experiment: Do one of those online hearing tests with a fresh battery and then do it again at the end of the good battery life as outlined above.

I know, y’all are not guinea pigs, but a lot of us would really benefit by the test. I would do it myself except I only have earbuds and not the kind of earphones that cover the ears.

I’d just figure out how long they typically last, then change them out earlier than that. I may just not have been in any situations to notice any sound deterioration. I have experienced several early battery failures.

And with regard to the idea of an online test, I think there are too many variables that can’t be controlled for it to be meaningful. Besides, at the 23 to 34 cents a battery I pay, losing even 20% of the useful life of the batteries costs me less than $10 a year. I can live with that if it reduces the chances of a battery going at a critical time. :stuck_out_tongue:

Edited

That’s a size I don’t remember seeing before. Something smaller than ?:stuck_out_tongue:

Back to my comments about the #10 batteries; for the first 4 or so days, the performance is the same. It’s just that last day when they dion’t work as good. When the low battery alarm on the Costco goes off, I only have about 10 minutes of life left in the battery. I’m going for the Monday/Thursday thing.

Here’s a link to a perhaps overly technical description of zinc air battery life Battery Life: Technical Issues and Answers8
It has a graph of voltage change over the life of the battery that shows very little loss until voltage drops off steeply as the battery dies. Based on the graph, I would guess that any drop in performance at the end would be for no more than an hour or two before the low battery warning occurs and the battery goes dead. The article also mentioned that the tab colors are standardized, e.g., size 10 batteries have a yellow tab regardless of brand - probably quite obvious in a battery display but I hadn’t noticed before.

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