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Hearing aid issues

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I’ve had hearing aids for 3 years now. My first pair were Costco Resound Preza. Unfortunately about every 6 months a receiver quit working. First one then the other. After 2 years I got fed up and bought some expensive Phonak Audeo L70’s. They were a definite step up in improving my hearing. But after 6 months the battery in one quit charging all together. Then another 6 months and the other one just quit working. So now after 3 years and $8000 later I’m very dissatisfied with the quality I’ve seen. Is this typical? When the warranty expires I’m not sure I want to waste anymore money on hearing aids.

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Hearing aids are a must for me. I am very fortunate and I guess also lucky. I have been wearing aids for almost 20 years. I have had 3 failures in that amount of time. Twice aids failures due to moisture, and once a rechargeable battery replacement. My aids are from the due to my hearing loss being due to my military service. Over those years I have learned to keep my aids clean, dry and always in places I know where they are. My ears, and my storage place at night, regardless if I am at home, traveling or camping. Aids are high tech and they can fail, keeping them dry is very important. I wear MiniRit aids and have found that the receivers fail more often when using domes than when using custom ear molds. The early rechargeable hearing aid batteries were not as good as the newer ones now. But I haven’t had hearing aids fail from moisture that are rechargeable like I did when using disposable batteries.

I don’t think your experience is typical, but still well within the realm of possibility. Receivers can fail kind of randomly. Usually moisture or wax related. Hearing aids help me a lot. I’m ok if they occasionally require maintenance.

Those Resound Preza aids did have those issues for others.

Give Costco another try and ask for disposable battery hearing aids. I don’t remember which ones do have that option but know they have them.

All three hearing aids at Costco are top of the line aids. Reports from all of them are pretty good so far. The Rexton is the latest and greatest and Phillips should have a new one there very soon.

Good luck

Thanks for the replies. I think moisture was probably the issue with the Preza. I don’t know about the Phonaks. I am very good about keeping them dry and clean. I don’t know maybe just a run of bad luck. But for the kind of money they get the hearing aid companies have to do better.

You have to understand that due to their location when worn the aids are always in an hursh environment.

Edited

I’m on my third set. One had a broken battery door. The second one, no issues, still works fine, just no Bluetooth, and the third one I’m using now is going on almost a year now with no issues.

So one out of three had a mechanical issue.

All three use disposable batteries.

All three bought at Costco.

My first aids were Hansaton and only thingnthey needed in 4 years was a battery door.
Next were Resound One’s. Over 2.5 years they each needed receivers replaced once or twice and i just sent them in for rechargeable battery replacement under warranty and now they work fine.
Now i have a new set of Jabra’s so i expect receivers to need replacement every year or so and will send them in for new rechargeable batteries when they are 2.5 years old.

I have similar hearing loss to yours. I’m completely dependent on them. I can’t hear without my hearing aids.
My hearing aids are almost 3 years old. I understand that’s the warranty end for me here in Ontario Canada.
Before it’s over I plan to have them sent back to Phonak. They’re P90R’s…When they go to Phonak to be checked I’m sending my battery charger kit too.
Unfortunately my rechargeable batteries don’t have sufficient capacity for the long hours I use my H.A.'s. I hope they replace the batteries and the charger.

@Craig54: Costco (at least the one in Prescott, AZ) has been very good at maintaining my (KS5, KS7 and now KS10). Next week I’m scheduled to get Philips Hearlink 9040.

I’ve had a few battery/charger issues with the KS10s. Costco updated the firmware last year, which helped for a while. Then about 3 months ago, when similar priblem popped-up, the lady at Costco suggested sending them back before my 3-yer warranty was up. I got new KS10’s and a new charger and they work much better with longer battery life 'tho not perfectly. Also, a few months ago, Costco replaced the receivers in my KS7’s so I could use them as backups.

I have a PerfectDry Lux drier that I used to use daily (with HAs off) but now use only 1/week. To minimize degregation of the recharagable batteries, I do not charge my HAs all night. I top-up to ~85% in the evening, turn the aids off & put in the unplugged charger until morining when I finish charging.

In reply to @FRED_O

@FRED_O

Thanks for your post.
I have Phonak Audeo Paradise P90R’s which I believe are about the same as your KS10’s.
Mine are coming up to warranty so they are going to Phonak before the warranty dies.
My rechargeable batteries need to be jump started or changed. I can’t get through the day. They’re in at about 6:30 a.m. Out about 11:30 pm. And I’m working in the evening and need them.
I’ll take my charger in too (thank you!)…I had asked my wonderful hearing instrument specialist if there was a software update. He called the mothership. Listening in the Phonak person said there was no update for my Paradise P90R’s charger. I have Power Receivers. I’ve had them changed once. I really, really need support from Phonak. It’s been a difficult path because the dispensing audi didn’t set them up right. 2- years of hearing heck.

I wish you well with the Philips Hearlink 9040’s.

My Lumity are a year old now and i get the same battery life as when new, about 18 hours with 4-5 hours of streaming. Maybe you will get better batteries when you send them for warranty repair.

I have just had to replace the rechargeable battery in my Phonak P90RTs. They are just over 4 years old and the left is down to 15 hours per day with very little streaming. I have replaced only the left as the right still has 20% left when the left shuts down.I am also a critical users that cannot be without them.

Apparently the design life for the battery is 5 years. The is no health check function in target which isn’t useful. The cost is $500 per aid, however it looks like they replace the whole internal aid and just use the shell from the older aid, so it isn’t just the battery being replaced.

Hi
I feel what you’re going through, if your Resound hearing aids that you bought from Costco has just receiver issue it’s very simple to replace the receiver on them & you can do it yourself.
You can find the receiver for them on eBay & changing it is very easy. If you may need help, I can give you step by step how to do it. Best regards

Get yourself a good hearing aid dryer. Learn to use it every night. Keeping your aids dry will double their life expectancy. I have a Zephyr and love it. You don’t have to spend a lot either. Get a good used one from Ebay.

I had the Phonak but returned it and got the Rexton R312’s. They work well with bluetooth. The 312 batteries are inexpensive and you get about a week use. You don’t have to worry about rechargeable batteries going bad.
A bonus in noisy areas is you can “steer” the hearing direction to point to the area you wish to hear.
Good luck

In reply to @MDB

I swim regularly, and instinctively don’t put my back in for at least an hour, figuring the environments is not ideal for the devices. I tell my HA wearing son to wait an hour even after a shower.

And yet, nowhere in the Philips or Oticon manuals is this mentioned. Seems a glaring omission.

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