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Rechargeable battery replacement

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Continuing the discussion from My Phonak Sphere Infinio I90 vs Lumity L90 Shootout:

The above-mentioned Sphere thread mentions, in passing, @Bimodal_user’s experience trying to get the batteries replaced in his 3-year-old Paradise aids. His audiologist asked Phonak about it, and they answered that they wouldn’t do it, even at the customer’s expense.

A post earlier this year, in a different thread, belied the often-voiced belief that manufacturers, through their beneficence, can be relied on to extend the life of their rechargeable aids:

https://forum.hearingtracker.com/t/should-i-be-skeptical-about-rechargeable-hearing-aid/83786/294?u=x475aws

But this adds the twist that they wouldn’t do it even if the customer was willing to pay for it.

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There must have been some miscommunication somewhere here. Manufactures still repair out to five years.

Not servicing a device after only 3 years does not seem right. I would hope that if this is the case, then we should do what we can to force Phonak to change their ways.

It sounds like rubbish to me: they were only launched in ‘19.

Looks like a ploy to get the customer to upgrade their aids.

What? No, I also said it was untrue. Phonak would repair. Yes, once the service warranty is off there would be a charge, but repair is guaranteed out to five years.

I just had my Costco KS-10 (Phonak) battery replaced outside of three years for $135 each. Worked perfect!

I suppose we can count on every manufacturer to honor their warranty. But if and when I get rechargeable aids, if I see the batteries deteriorating I won’t want to wait until they’re out-of-spec before getting them replaced, even if I have to pay for it. By doing it in advance, I can try to time it to minimize my inconvenience.

@Neville and @Um_bongo, what is your experience if a client comes in wanting to replace arguably still-good batteries in their rechargeable aids?

My rechargeable Paradise aids were nearing the end of their warranty and I wanted to maximize the battery life. I told my practitioner that the batteries were deteriorating and they were fixed under warranty. I did not have to “prove” the battery condition. My aids came back with the same serial numbers and all programming intact.

In reply to @x475aws

They just get replaced anyway: we send most aids in for warranty just before the two year anniversary and the whole lot gets replaced.

There’s no reason why manufacturers would anything less than brand new bits going out. It makes no economic or commercial sense to ‘part repair’ units (in aids) as you’ve got to have manufacturer level tech’s floating about at distributor level. Swap out of whole aids is much easier with a fresh ‘module’ that’s passed all the QA at the factory. Economically it makes no sense to open the case if either.

Custom aids are different, but they’re individually made.

In reply to @Um_bongo

This has been my own experience with servicing on my KS10s.

All the work I had done to them under warranty resulted in new (or functionally new) coming back. Only minor issue was Phonak borking the firmware on one aid leading to the loss of a Roger license (but I used the regeneration trick to create more).

I did wonder what HA manufacturers do with the warranty failed units? Repair and donate to charities (must be a tax break in there…) or strip down and recycle parts?

Not to totally spam this discussion, but…on the Sphere thread I noted a comment that basically said ‘the is awesome, battery tech not so much. Wait for Sphere 2 (polyhedron? cube?)’.

With that in mind, could newer battery tech be retrofitted into legacy aids (assuming they were the right sizes/specs etc - I note Sphere has a bigger battery to handle the added demands)? If there is greater interest by regulators across the world in repair of costly devices, might this become an option? Idle Sunday morning thinking…

In reply to @Gilbert

Yes, they basically just laser your numbers onto a new module and dump the programming into it. Unless the aid is completely broken and they can’t read it.

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