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KS9 Hearing Aid Lost and Found

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I wanted to share an experience from this morning.

My wife has the KS9 hearing aids. She walks daily our 1/2 mile long driveway listening to birds.

Today she got back to the house to realize she was missing her left, master hearing aid. She immediately took off looking for it. After about 30-40 minutes I noticed she was still gone so I got up to go help and noticed her phone was here at the house. I grabbed it and went and found her looking for the missing hearing aid.

Using the phone and the hearing aids Bluetooth we eventually found and narrowed down the location area. This was a 50’ stretch of driveway on a steep area, we live on a hill.

It took both of us looking for about 45 minutes is grass and rocks off the pavement but finally found the hearing aid. It was one of the biggest smiles on her I have seen in a while.

It’s going to be a great day!!

6 people in this conversation6 min readJump to latest

Finding lost hearing aids is quite a feeling. I recall a lost, non pair I dropped from a pocket on an evening out and having the genius idea of going back to the bus stop I got home from. Hand, pocket, wallet, hearing aids drop.

Yup, just lying there in the street.

Before I needed hearing aids all day, I used to put my hearing aids in my ears when I got to work and one day there was only one in my pocket when I came to do that. After panicking for a couple of minutes, I thought about the fact that I had pulled my security pass on a lanyard from that pocket on my way into the building. But when I went back and looked on the ground, it wasn’t there.

On a whim, I asked at the building reception desk and the girl smiled and whisked a piece of paper off the desk. An underneath the paper was my hearing aid. Someone had noticed it and handed it in.

In one respect though, hearing aids are behind on the technology. A couple of weeks ago my daughter dropped her Apple AirPod Pros in their little charging case when she was out walking the dog. Because they pair to your Apple account, they are part of the Apple ecosystem for finding lost products. So in the Apple Find my IPhone app, she saw that evening that they were apparently at a particular house in the next village. The app even had the actual number of the house and the postal code.

Come the next day she went to that house, knocked on the door and she showed the guy who answered what her phone was telling her. He said he would ask his girlfriend. And two minutes later he came back with them in his hand and gave them to her. The interesting thing here is that they must have actually used the finder’s own iPhone to relay their position back to my daughter. So hearing aids could be made to do that too presumably.

@david.hendon said:

So hearing aids could be made to do that too presumably.

I totally agree with you. It seems the past 4-5 years hearing aids have started doing what you describe. I don’t remember which hearing aids do this but there are a few at this time.

My cochlear processors have a “Find my processor” function that is pretty neat.

My wife was so happy to get her hearing aid back. She was like a little kid happy and bouncing around. We were lucky not to step on it having searched the area heavily.

During the hearing aid search the subject of buying new hearing aids came up. She has been very happy with Costco so the big question of which aids were best, Jabra, Phillips or Rexton. It’s always a hard question to answer.

For the heck of it I took a look on eBay for KS9 and KS10 hearing aids. There were a few available.

In reply to @david.hendon

I misplaced (ok, lost…) my Phonak Roger On in a restaurant. It was connecting to my , I could see it connecting to my phone but…couldn’t find it. So next day I call the restaurant, nope. Place had been cleaned, nothing. I’m totally freaking out as it wasn’t insured and was of a value that my home insurance would need specified to be covered.

On my way home from work I’m going past and just decided to look in. Seems their lost property is cleverly photographed and images placed in an Excel spreadsheet. As the dude was scrolling there it was!

Reunited I walked to the local Apple Store and bought an AirTag which lives in the case I keep the Roger in.

All of which is to say, as tech like Tile and AirTag reduce in size, can’t be that hard? There are 3rd party apps to do similar if less precise finding using Bluetooth. I know Phonak is wedded to Made For All connectivity, but maybe partnering with an outfit like Tile which works across the board might be smart?

I’m really glad you posted. Please tell me how you used your phone to find the hearing aid.

(Yesterday I discovered my hearing aid was hanging from the plastic anchor that’s attached to my receiver in the ear…Phonak Audeo Paradise P90R’s. I would have surely lost my hearing aid if I didn’t have that attached.)

DaveL
Toronto

In reply to @frans.leferink

That’s nothing like as effective. All the app tells you is the GPS location where the missing aid was last seen by the app. And when you go back there, it’s all about the strength of the Bluetooth signal from the aid, if it’s still there.

But it doesn’t help you if someone picked it up and helpfully took it somewhere to hand in. Or if you dropped it in a bus or train or car.

The Apple system tells you where it is now, even if it’s nowhere near where you lost it.

@david.hendon

Good comment. Except the hearing aid is so small I can’t attach an Apple AirTag or other brand to it.

I think prevention is the best defense. When I got my first Phonak hearing aids 20 years or so ago, I asked my audiologist how can i keep them safe–they are perched so dangerously behind my ear. She put 2 locks on and I’ve worn them ever since.

It seems to take a long time for my hearing aids and myPhonak App to connect.

In reply to @DaveL

@DaveL said:

Please tell me how you used your phone to find the hearing aid.

If this question was aimed at me with the KS9 aids I knew the Bluetooth with those aids is good for 50-60 feet. That meant as long as the hearing aids were powered up they could be localized with the phones app.
We slowly went the path my wife took until the phones app received contact with the missing aid. We then went past the aid and lost the Bluetooth connection. Knowing both ends of losing and finding the connection got us in the right area.

This is the reason I posted this thread. I wanted to share a way to find your missing hearing aid.

Thanks for asking.

In reply to @DaveL

@DaveL said:

Good comment. Except the hearing aid is so small I can’t attach an Apple AirTag

Of course you can’t!

Read my post again. I am suggesting that the hearing aid manufacturers could build this technology inside the aids if they wanted to. Not that any of us could do it ourselves.

In reply to @Raudrive

You really helped me! Thanks so much.

I’ve just tested and found it to be possible. However, it does take some time to connect.

DaveL
Toronto

In reply to @david.hendon

@david.hendon

You explained it well. Thanks. I didn’t need to read it again…After I read the posts here, I set up an experiment to see if it’s possible to find my hearing aids with the myPhonak app. I can find the room they are in; I’ll have to search hard visually to find where they actually are.

Help … lost my KS10’s
My PC and the Easy Line App report the same battery level.
I am unable to find it with Android Bluetooth Scanner which has worked, and still lists the device (right hand Aid)
When I returned home, my Audio Dongle to Alexa was still in a solid paired state.
But for all that I still cant locate with the Bluetooth Scanner which has worked well in the past.

Use your phone to get it centered.
Walk away from the aid with your phone. When you lose Bluetooth mark that spot. Do this in all directions.
Your aid should be in the middle.
Good luck.

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