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Getting Your Rechargeable HA's "Refurbished" Under Warranty Doesn't Always Work Out So Well

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I got my ReSound Quattros through TruHearing.com1. Back around September when I was within a month or two of the end of my 3-year warranty, I got an official, very nice letter from TruHearing that reminded me that my 3-year warranty was about to expire and the letter suggested that it would be a good idea to visit the local audiologist they had fixed me up with originally to have the hearing aids inspected and refurbished under warranty if needed. Originally, three years ago when I expressed concern to the audiologist as to how the rechargeable hearing aids would hold up over time, she reassured me not to worry as she could send them back to ReSound just before the expiration of the warranty and they would probably replace the rechargeable batteries (an approach that’s been suggested also many times on the forum). Well, here’s how it worked out for me.

My right hearing aid was the original from three years ago but because I had been treating it like a pricey EV (electric car), I had neither been fully charging nor discharging the battery (keeping it between 30% charged and 70% charged). It could go at least 5.5 hours on 20% charge (27.5 hrs estimated per full charge). The left was a 6-month old replacement and seemed to have the promised 30 hours on a full charge based on tracking partial rundowns. I think because I’d been vacuuming the microphone openings with my Jodi-Vac at least once, sometimes twice a day, both had problems with external sound reception but streaming worked great (subject of another future post - a smartphone decibel meter app says the air rushing into a Jodi-Vac needle is up to 106 and is distributed over a very broad frequency range going up to 20 kHz (where ultrasound begins) as judged via a spectrum frequency analyzer app.

Anyway, I got back two new or refurbished ’s. The left one had a battery life estimated to be 20 to 22 hours per full charge, the right 25 to 27 hours per full charge-the sound reproduction on both HA’s was fantastic, though. I complained to the audi that the HA’s I got back, at least the left one, had worse batteries than the HA’s sent in to be refurbished. She said no problema. We’ll just send the HA’s back to ReSound and ask them to be checked again. (Unfortunately, I didn’t keep a record of the serial numbers of the supplied sets). I got back presumably another set of HA’s based on battery life with the left having a battery life of about 25-26 hours per charge and the right having 28 to 29 hours estimated per full charge. For the 2nd set of aids, I’d basically charge them to 100% for at least three hours, then run each until they dinged the warning sound that they had reached 10% remaining charge. I divided the elapsed time by 0.9 to get the estimated full charge run time. I did this with Bluetooth turned off and with Audio Routing in Accessibility Settings for Phone and Media set to Never Hearing Devices so Bluetooth usage presumably wouldn’t come into play during the battery rundown test (even so certain alerts like hazardous weather notifications from Dark Sky (owned now by Apple) still came through to my HA’s through some sort of Apple magic).

I haven’t complained to the audi about the latest “refurbished” HA’s. I think she said that the refurbished HA’s were warrantied for one additional year. Since I’ve been bother to her with trashing a number of Quattros through my Jodi-Vac usage or whatever and since I hope to get new HA’s within the next year running or a competitive offering from Phonak, I thought I’d just wait and see how these replacements, now out-of-the-original-warranty, hold up. Perhaps ReSound provides end-of-warranty refurbishments with HA’s that got made with less than the brand-new 30 hours per full charge as a way of making use of HA’s that have perfectly good batteries but just not up to the spec charge level? So I’ll see what happens.

At any rate, just wanted to note that my experience has been now 2x over that when you send your rechargeable HA’s in for refurbishment under warranty, you don’t get back refurbished HA’s that have “like new” batteries. I’d invite anyone else to relate their end-of-warranty rechargeable battery refurbishment/replacement experience and see if it turned out better than mine.

If someone wants to suggest that, well, my left ear probably just uses more battery than the right, my previous experience with 4 or 5 left Quattros is that all but one got the equivalent of about 30 hours on a full charge with little or no BT streaming, going the same length as the right before needing recharging.

And, as I’ll detail in a future post on Jodi-Vac needle noise, I just brush the microphone openings on the HA bodies these days. I do still use the Jodi-Vac on my silicone molds and the receiver openings. My MP receivers have a Maximum Power Output of almost 120 dB (116, I think) so they’re presumably immune to any loud noise from air rushing into a Jodi-Vac needle. (and I have only a suspicion, no proof, that’s been the cause of my external mic problems).

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The down time has varied. For the refurbishment under warranty, the first try was about 10 days, the second try after me complaining was several weeks (I was wondering if they were waiting 'til the original 3-year warranty expired!). For replacements before the end-of-warranty ones, it took as little as 5 days and usually no longer than 10 days - intervening weekends and the fact that the audi only infrequently had an appointment on the day she got the aids back lengthened the usual turnaround time a bit. The ReSound replacement service has been excellent except for the battery longevity bit at the end. I repeated requested an analysis of what was wrong with any aid sent in but never got any replies back. Since before the end-of-warranty replacement, I was only returning one aid (usually the left one), I still had my other to use so I usually never had “complete” downtime - my hearing is pretty decent without my aids except for high-pitched consonants and important little things like arming/disarming alerts from our house security panels (obviously the designer didn’t think of hearing-impaired users with typical age-related ski slope loss!).

I have decided that a further good use of the Jodi-Vac is actually to vacuum the ReSound-supplied brush that I am now using exclusively to clean the microphone openings. I’d be interested in anyone else’s tips on how, if ever, they clean their HA brush.

Clean the brush with neat alcohol now and again as they do accumulate wax and debris.

As we have discussed before, I have had similar failures and had a few replacements now. Most recently both and similarly I notice now usually right will run down quicker than left, where as before all have generally been equal always.
I guess this either varying battery quality or materials, much like mobile phone batteries seem to vary for users.
I to have not heard anything back Resound about the failure issues even after being promised a report etc and reasons why. I have just over 2 years left of warranty so will just keep sending back in if happens again.
Since last replacement not had any issues and even think might sound better than before, as I think before failure sometimes was gradually getting quieter to.

My understanding is with the 2nd return you have increased the estimated battery life of both hearing aids and they both sound great. Sounds like success to me. I suspect there are lots of variables. I don’t know Resounds at all, but there are different demands placed on the different hearting aids? (I know with my KS9, the right side always dies first which I’ve attributed to the streaming going to the right side, as well as having a somewhat worse loss of hearing) It also sounds like you used different methodology to estimate the battery capacity (discharge 20% and multiple by 5 versus discharge to 10% and divide by 0.9) I also wouldn’t rule out lapses in quality control with supply chain issues. I also think the odds of something else failing (most likely a receiver) before you have battery issues is very high. The data you reported is definitely interesting though.

In reply to @hass5744

@hass5744 said:

Is there a reason why you’re vacuuming them so much.

I’m a psoriatic and even with medicated shampoos, I produce a lot of dandruff. Recently a new younger dermatologist suggested that I alternate between ketoconazole (brand name: Nizoral) and zinc pyrithione (brand name: e.g., Head and Shoulders). Using both, one after the other (probably my dermatologist wants alternate showering days) has really reduced dandruff to point where I don’t find some always sitting in microphone openings. I take ’s out once a day to recharge following battery management strategy of keeping within 30% to ~70/80% charge range-when I did and noticed excessive wax or dandruff in openings, I’d vacuum the HA’s the better to hear. I’d probably spend 15 to 20 seconds vacuuming each microphone slot from different angles or directions, e.g. rotating the HA body 90 degrees, 180 degrees, etc.!

@MDB said:

It also sounds like you used different methodology to estimate the battery capacity (discharge 20% and multiple by 5 versus discharge to 10% and divide by 0.9)

With all Quattros up to the final “refurbished” HA’s, timing the length of time to go from 60% charge to 40% charge was always very close to 6 hours or more in length (charge checking every minute until 4 LED charger lights come on-means aids just crossed 60% full charge, check every 15 minutes for charge level as 5.5 hours runtime approaches). The refurbished hearing aids I initially checked EVERY 15 minutes or so for their full run-time and estimated full charge span based on discharge to 80%, 60%, 40%, 20%, 10% full-charge (I would shut down and restart the HA’s when I went to sleep, etc.). Unlike REALLY GOOD Quattros, I noticed that the problematic refurbished left ones did not go down evenly between charge levels (they drop from 60% to 40% quite rapidly even though the software/firmware indicates that they last ~6 hours between 100% and 80%. They also “charge up” much more rapidly than a normal Quattro-as one might expect if capacity is defective. I don’t think it’s the normal luck of the draw on Quattros. Every previous Quattro had a great battery lifespan. I decided the discharge to 10% with all turned off on iPhone was the fairest away of evaluating the defective (IMHO) refurbished Quattros, since it measures the time to run through 90% of the possible charge capacity and inherently takes into account any uneveness in the 20% decrement ranges. The previous Quattro timings were always done with BT turned on my Galaxy Note 8 or iPhone and with ~1 to 1.5 hours of BT streaming per day. So I gave the refurbished ones much more opportunity to have a longer battery life and, IMHO, they flunked the test.

Um_bongo has noted problems with Quattro batteries over in the U.K. and has stated on the forum that he (or the firm that he’s associated with) extracted an extended warranty out of ReSound, at least with respect to batteries, as a result of uneven battery reliability with Quattros. For me, my refurbished ones are the first Quattros I’ve noticed a battery problem worth complaining about and I’ve been through about half a dozen previous replacements most likely due to some bad usage on my part (like possibly Jodi-Vac way overuse).

I think there may be sleeves or covers you can purchase that protects microphone openings on your aids. I’ve seen them mentioned here before. Maybe someone can help you with that or do a search on the forum

Edited
@hass5744 said:

there may be sleeves or covers you can purchase that protects microphone openings

Thanks very much for the suggestion. Early on I bought and tried EarGear. While I could see its usefulness, I didn’t like it. It was a hassle to get on and off my Quattros at the time, wearing domes and lengthy earlocks and I didn’t like the “bunny rabbit” ear aspect and wearing glasses, etc., it made the fit of the bodies around my ears just that much little bit tighter. I typically shut off my external mics while streaming and walking so wind noise is rarely a problem and if there is a chance that it might rain, I wear a wide-brimmed hat to protect the HA’s. If I might be sweating a lot or it’s very hot outside, I don’t wear my HA’s as I can still hear well enough in conversation with anyone but soft-voiced and/or high-pitched females like my wife(!). And I can always say, “I’m . Could you repeat that? Sorry I missed it!!”.

I think with the combination of ketoconazole and zinc pyrithione, I’ll be fine on controlling dandruff, although I do worry a little about the toxicity of such stuff. With the ketoconazole many years ago, when it was discovered and originally made only by Janssen Pharmaceutica, something like a white paper on the product argued for its applicability that it wouldn’t be readily absorbed through the skin due to scalp thickness but admitted potential systemic toxicity. Zinc pyrithione can’t be that much better: I read somewhere it kills rapidly dividing skin cells. Ketoconazole is supposed to target fungal cells like yeast in the scalp by inhibiting ergosterol biosynthesis, a steroid used in fungal cell membranes.

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