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

LMAO!
The rest of this is to get enough characters for this to be a message…

This was a great read about your experience with ‘waterproof’ hearing aids. Signia actually tried to do a waterproof hearing aid way before Phonak tried (the Signia Aquaris) and it also didn’t live up to expectations. Waterproofing on phones is mainly sealing the edges of the phone so water can’t get in there, but you need a gap somewhere for sound to get in, and another gap somewhere for sound leaving, and where there’s a gap water will find a way to get into it. But how do you stop water from getting into the microphone or speakers? You can’t at the moment. There’s no mesh anywhere that will allow sound through but not water…

I get the sense that you will get waterproof phones before you get waterproof hearing aids since the tech will probably carry over once it’s available.

If you absolutely needed to wear hearing aids while swimming in the ocean… playing with fire, I would redo your trial, but with the addition of several layers of tape over the microphones and over the sound outlet (if you have an earmould? domes would be way harder to waterproof) before swimming, and then remove tape after swimming - I suspect the tape will dull the sound but it won’t get rid of it entirely. Then remove the tape and dry them out after every occasion, as you have been doing. Ideally when drying there would only be a few drops of water drying out - if you notice heaps of water leaving the hearing aid there is definitely going to be issues with electronic parts corroding later down the line.

Alternatively, the other solution is TWO pairs of Phonak Life hearing aids - I’m not sure how long your warranty is, but basically you would be using one pair, until it inevitably breaks down, in which case you would switch to the other set while the first pair gets sent back to the shop to be fixed under warranty. Then when the second pair dies, you would revert back to the first set which has now been fixed. Rinse and repeat. Hopefully you live close by to the shop and can drop in and out, to drop off and pick up the hearing aids as needed. This will only work until your warranty period expires. The shop won’t care as long as you’re nice about it, but the manufacturer will hate you.

My son put his iPhone 13 Pro’s water resistance to the test by taking underwater pictures of our grandson in the pool. No problems that I’ve heard of, and neat pictures.

@x475aws

My brother did the exact same thing and it’s still going……4 months later…….for how long? I don’t know!

Maybe i need glasses but the person clearly pictured with the aid is the female already sitting in the pool. In that situation a splash even if significant should fit the definition of waterproof as defined. Worst case the receiver taps out.

Hi @glucas, I live just off the A9 main trunk road north, a tiny village called Achnagarron, ‘it’s in between the Ross-Shire towns of Alness, and the port of Invergordon, approximately 20 miles north of Inverness, stayed here for about 10 years, prior to that, I lived on the Black Isle, in a centuries old village called Avoch, pronounced “Och”, Avoch is quite a famous place in Scottish history, it was from here in around 1296 at Ormond Castle, that Andrew De Moray first raised his standard, to begin the war of Independence, he was mortally wounded at the battle of Stirling Bridge, fighting alongside Braveheart himself, William Wallace, it is said, that when the English surrendered, Andrew De Moray signed first, meaning he was regarded as senior in rank to William Wallace… Betty Hill is another of my favorite Sea Trout fishing spots, I also lived on the Shetland Isles for about 5 years… Cheers Kev

Hi Kev,

Ahh…OK. I have just googled you and can see where you are. The closest I came to you was when I stayed overnight in Cromarty and then went on the ferry across the Cromarty firth, through Nigg and then northbound!

Amazing part of the UK! So unspoilt.

@Baltazard said:

if you want to exercise in water, do it with confidence

Yes, sadly the key word here is EXERCISE! I thought “swimming” was a form of “EXERCISE” until I tried swimming with my Phonak Life aids and drowned them. Even tho the Phonak marketing says “waterproof” up to 19" in water, and my aids were pretty much just bobbing at the surface (as I swim with a snorkel mask on), I killed 'em after 2 short swims of not even half an hour.

Now I can clearly see that “EXERCISE” in the pool seems to imply NEVER put your head under water! Most of the folks pictured in a pool are either on a flotation device or they are standing waist-high in water. How aids would be splashed silly in either event is a mystery to me. Swim with the aids on and you’re gonna get them soaking wet and really put that claim of “waterproof” to the test.

BUT take it from me: DON’T DO IT. You’ll just kill your aids, and if they aren’t under warranty you’ll have a very expensive replacement on hand.

@kevels55 said:

Whilst swimming around, it suddenly dawned on me I had my iPhone 12 in my jacket pocket, not to mention a pair of Naida P90’s in my ears… Fortunately, my aids, and iPhone dried out fine, with no apparent lasting effects

You sure got LUCKY! Over the weekend, hubs tipped a glass of water over his 2018 MacBook Pro laptop. Just WATER - and not a whole lot! He immediately blotted the water, used a hair dryer, let it dry with lid open … Nope. Dead.

That makes me respect my own Lumity Life aids, cuz I’m pretty sure I could dump a cup of water on them, and if I’m quick enough, dry them off and they’d be good to go!

The Life Hearing Aid itself is water proof but the receivers and custom ear molds are not waterproof (Phonak cant make receivers waterproof sadly but at least the device is waterproof).

I know. That is the irony of the NOT waterproof Lumity Life aids! Unless the ENTIRE device from BTE thru wire all the way to the speaker & tip on it are all WATERPROOF together, then NONE of the device is waterproof. Water resistant, yes! But that’s not what Phonak claimed.

A screen door in a submarine is still a DOOR, but what good is it at 20’ under the surface?