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Phonak Life aids for water sports enthusiasts ... NOT!

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I bought a pair of Phonak Life aids about 3 weeks ago. They’ve been back and forth to my audi’s office to have the molded silicone tips re-done, then tried again, and the 2nd set of molded tips finally swapped for good with the traditional, double-dome silicone domes.

I had my audi transfer over the entire setup from my older Phonak Marvel aids - frequencies and programs. And FINALLY I got to start testing them out to see: Are these aids really “waterproof” as the Phonak website says?!?!?

Well, I’m cautiously optimistic on that front, altho more testing is needed!

TEST 1: Shower. I’ve done two full shower tests with the aids in - both times under the shower head for 10 min or so. The first time I had the custom molded tips; the second time, just my double domes. It was amazing to HEAR the water rushing over my head for the first time in 30+ years. After each shower, I put the Life aids in my ReDux dryer, and both times, it pulled about 5uL of water out in under 20 min. There was absolutely no problem with the aids at any time during or after the shower! Worked like a charm throughout.

TEST 2: Pool. Today I donned a snorkel mask & pipe and swam in the pool for about 25 min. I never DOVE in, didn’t go below about 6" in the water. I swam on the surface only, but continuously. Throughout that swim, my aids got a bit flaky. The didn’t reboot, but they made a sound in each one (at different points in time) like rapid beeps going up a musical scale. They never stopped working, but I definitely got water in my ear canals cuz I’m wearing the double-domes again. That made speech and ambient noises sound strange. I could still hear with them, but it didn’t sound normal. Even so!!! I have not been able to converse with anyone during a water sport in 30-odd years, so WOW, I can’t complain! Got out and dropped them right into the ReDux dryer. This time, 8.8uL of moisture was removed in about 25 min. So! I’m definitely soaking these puppies!

TEST 3. Ocean. I will be doing that this coming week, snorkelling and swimming with dolphins in the wide open sea on multiple occasions - can’t wait! I’ll be in locations where I can’t just swap out my aids until/unless I return to the boat and do so. I’ll definitely have my Phonak Marvel aids as backups at all times this trip. I wasn’t planning on lugging the heavy ReDux dryer with me, but SO much water was removed from a half hour swim, I’m having second thoughts.

So far, I’m SUPER happy with the Phonak Life aids!! Their Noise Management seems to work so well that I’ve yet to put them into Speech in LOUD Noise. They’ve passed 2 of 3 water tests - not with flying colors, but at least still functioning, and letting me talk to people when I’m in a pool swimming. I do wonder if I had the custom molded silicone tips on would they have prevented water from getting into my ear canal? But I think I’m allergic to that material, cuz every time I have the custom tips on, my ear canals burn and turn red. Even so, my audi gave them to me, and I can easily remove the double domes and insert that matchstick-shaped speaker into the custom tips if I ever want to try that out.

I’ll update this post in about a week when the 3rd test is done.

31 people in this conversation32 min readJump to latest

Oh! I wanted to add that I got something to secure my aids when swimming with them. Unlike the custom molded tips (which had to be PRIED out of my ear canals!) the double domes definitely work their way out of my ears all day long. I wouldn’t want them to just drift out of my ears and have the aids sink in the water when I’m swimming!

So I bought a set of these lanyard clips at Amazon52. I thought it’d be cool to have colors to match my bathing suits! And then I put 'em on my aids and couldn’t figure out for the LIFE of me how to open the dang CLIP that would secure them to my suit. Luckily someone had posted that very question at Amazon, so I was able to make it work. :slight_smile:

@1Bluejay , thank you for conducting these tests. The results indeed have been encouraging! I suspect that you don’t know what that series of beeps going up the musical scale meant. It would probably be a good idea to find out.

I wonder how important it is to place the in the dryer for 20-25 minutes after soaking them. Obviously better than not drying them, but it would be nice to be able to soak the HAs and then just let them dry out naturally while continuing to wear them. Maybe putting them into the dryer is unnecessary, but it’s so hard to know without actually trying it. And you just spent thousands of dollars of your own money on these HAs. Also, maybe the CUMULATIVE exposure to water over many dunkings would eventually cause them to fail.

In any case, I really appreciate you trying out the Lifes and posting your results here.

@ziploc said:

Also, maybe the CUMULATIVE exposure to water over many dunkings would eventually cause them to fail.

YES! That is what’s gnawing the back of my mind. On top of which the ocean swim trial would involve salt water - to me that’s even worse than a chlorinated pool. Once the water dries off, the salt deposit would likely remain.

The irony of “waterproof” aids is that even tho they function after a dunking in water, they don’t seem to keep water out! Where it’s going, and what damage it might be doing inside the aids are the questions. 8.8uL of moisture is way more than has ever been removed from workouts or the shower test.

I’ll sum things up in an email to my audi. She’s sharing these findings (on the ReDux, my custom molded tips, the aids, now the water tests) with her colleagues as I am the WILLING guinea pig here. When she gave me her email addy I had to warn her, “You realize that you’ve just given me the keys to the KINGDOM!” I’ll make good use of it to keep her informed. :smile:

Descending beeps is ‘lost my partner’ and ascending beeps is ‘reconnected to my partner’. It’s intended to alert you to a lost hearing aid. Interesting that it’s happening in the water.

OMG! You da man! Very interesting to know, cuz I hadn’t heard that pattern before. Now that I think of it, I wonder if the first set of beeps (from the LEFT aid) was descending, and the second set of beeps from the RIGHT aid (about a min or so later?) was the ascending tone. That’s the one I remembered: going UP the musical scale.

So. If you were me and faced with a saltwater swim, would you DO it? I may hold off till the last day of the trip for that test. Altho, I’ll be taking my battery-operated backup aids, the Phonak Marvels.

I would do it whenever I wanted while the hearing aids were still under warranty, then I would send them in for an end-of-warranty overhaul and consider more caution after that moderated by my experience with breakdowns across the warranty period. :smile:

We’re in a place where really only time will tell how well these hearing aids will stand up to water in the long run.

@Neville said:

We’re in a place where really only time will tell how well these hearing aids will stand up to water in the long run.

Right. Even Dr Cliff said he’s spent 500 hours trying to kill the Life aids with moisture … but he doesn’t NEED to wear them. I do. :neutral_face:

In reply to @Neville

@Neville said:

Interesting that it’s happening in the water

This is interesting but obvious. The frequency used for communication between the does not allow transmission in water. Too much attenuation.
But in my opinion, no problem, each HA works independently for itself until the connection is re-established. That is, until they are out of the water again.

@sterei said:

each HA works independently for itself until the connection is re-established. That is, until they are out of the water again.

AH! your explanation sounds right on. Both aids continued to work fine under water despite the beeps, but when I got out of the water, they still worked! Granted I didn’t try to stream a phone call or change programs or volume, but there were no other beeps or indications that the aids needed to “find” each other. Maybe the software just resolves to paired mode again?

Perhaps I’ll swim with them on again today and see what happens? Pushing the envelope for the greater good of WO/MANKIND!

Hi Bluejay,

You mentioned that you are wearing double domes with these aids. Is that because you normally wear double domes or is it that it is not possible to wear a custom receiver because they are waterproof?

glucas, I’m back to the ol’ double domes I’ve been wearing for about a decade now. I seem to be allergic to any material used for tips/domes EXCEPT the smoke topaz colored silicone domes OR the old fashioned flesh-colored plastic molds. Even the few hours I wore my custom molded clear silicone tips made my ear canals BURN and turn red.

(Don’t tell anyone, but I have them in a small box and am mighty tempted to put my speakers into those tips JUST for water sports! I think they’d keep water out of my ear canals in a BIG way.)

The downside of my comfy, non-allergenic double domes is that they let a good amount of water into my ear canals, so I may subject that “weakest link” - where the speaker tip ENDS - to more water.

In reply to @Neville

@Neville said:

Descending beeps is ‘lost my partner’ and ascending beeps is ‘reconnected to my partner’. It’s intended to alert you to a lost hearing aid. Interesting that it’s happening in the water.

I am guessing that the signal is not able to go from one aid to the other when one or both are submerged.

Heart Rate monitors often have this issue. If you have a Garmin with a chest based HR monitor only the latest bands will work under water.

Jim

OK. Well that didn’t take long. I cooked 'em. Or should I say I DROWNED them. I was back in the pool today for another half-hour swim. Almost immediately, the aids started to “lose” each other, so the entire time, I had the descending followed by ascending 5-beep musical scale. I almost stopped halfway through, but I’m mule-ish.

By the time I got out of the water, my aids sounded weird. I could comprehend speech, but they sounded like my Marvels would after a SLATHERING workout, which would typically impact the sound quality of my Marvels for half a day.

Also: if I hadn’t been wearing the nifty lanyard, I’d have dropped a bean. My left was dangling from the double dome, which, itself, was barely seated in my ear canal. Goes to show, a TIGHT custom mold is probably the safest bet.

I immediately put these aids into my ReDux dryer. This time, it took 24 min to remove 40.8uL of moisture. If that isn’t a record-breaker, what is? I put them back in my ears, and - NO surprise - the sound quality was like from Planet Mars - very very soft, distant and muffled. So I put them right back in the dryer for another run, and after just 6 min, only 0.6uL of moisture was removed. It may be safe to say, the moisture is GONE.

But. The left aid is completely fritzed. It makes solid static noise when on. The right aid is seemingly A-OK! Luckily, I’m under the 30-day return for refund AND the 3-year repair/replace warranty, so I have my marching orders for Monday: direct to my audi with these aids.

So. Um. How is it that the esteemed Doc Cliff was laboring 500 hours to kill these Life aids when it took me precisely two half-hour swims on the surface of my pool? Anyone shed light on that? Call me a dumb donkey, but I wanted to put these aids to the “waterproof” test so others can make a more informed purchase decision. I’ll be curious to see what the repair/replacement is on these.

But the bummer is that I’m leaving for 5 days in the FL Keys - had a couple snorkel sessions in the ocean scheduled. Now I’ll be doing those DEAF as cinderblocks and VERY VERY thankful for my still working Marvels.

UPDATE! 8-22-22 8am
I got up this morning and figured I’d try the Life aids on again just in case a miracle occurred last night? It DID. I was beyond thrilled and amazed that BOTH aids are now back to normal: I can change programs/volume, and stream A-OK again. I thought the left aid was a GONER. But some kind of moisture dissipation miracle must’ve happened, cuz today I’d never even know it’d died on me yesterday.

I have to say, the ReDux was likely a part of the success here! How else could I have removed that much moisture in so little time without it? So score one for ReDux!

But Phonak has a messaging problem with these aids! I feel really misled looking at all those soaking wet people on their website touting the benefits of these “waterproof” aids. If I didn’t have my Marvel backups, with my kind of hearing loss, I would’ve had to just hang out in a cave till a miracle occurred. But the Marvels and Life aids sound identical (thanks to the setup transfer I learned about right here and had my audi do). So I have a very good backup when the newer Life aids fail.

LESSON LEARNED: I will NEVER be swimming in a pool or ocean OR taking a full shower with these aids on. I’ll count my blessings that they may do better than the Marvels in a very humid climate where I live. Kind of a let-down, but I’m used to the hype we all hear about in our world.

Two things bug me about these Life aids:

  1. How can they be “waterproof” if they let in more than 42uL of moisture (per the reading on my ReDux)? Where is the weakest link? Is it the tip of the speaker by the waxguard? I simply don’t know.
  2. What happens to the chlorine and salt residue after you wear these in water and dry them out? Does that build up over the delicate electronics over time? Is Phonak hoping the aids last 3 years and a day so they are no longer under warranty if they DIE after being put to a “waterproof” test? I don’t know!

I am already guffawing at the hype surrounding Phonak’s “COMING SOOOOOOON!” announcement. Yeah. Right. Make my day again.

How far down in the pool / sea / ocean do you go?

50 cm depth of waterproof is literally nothing!

The pressure of the water coming out of the shower will likely be more pressure then what 50 cm or less would do.

Even Phonak said on their Twitter account that they are more ‘sweat proof’ then waterproof’.

In reply to @1Bluejay

In my mind, “waterproof” implies that they will continue to work after being exposed to water, not that they won’t let any water in. If I had them and wanted to prolong their longevity, I would rinse in distilled water after exposure to salt water or chlorine.

Does the owner’s manual have any instructions on water use? Or what to do after water use? We all dont have a ReDux, so if I owned these I would shower/swim and then just blow them out with my mouth and towel them off… what does the manual recommend? And agreed, after chlorine or salt water I would rinse them in my hands under the faucet, then blow/towel dry.

My understanding is that these hearing aids are not really waterproof. They have simply been treated to be water resistant. Basically means there is a high tech hydrophobic coating on the outside of the hearing aids and on all the inside components. I think they are splash proof but not really designed to dunk your head under water. The other thing is that there is a big difference between pool water and sea water (which contains salt, silt, minerals, etc). I’m wondering if pool water was ok but the salt water toasted them.

Jordan

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