Rechargeable versus battery hearing aids

Mostly it boils down to personal preference and stereotypes.

With one exception - depending on the brand, and your need for BT streaming (think 8h or more daily), since brands (phonak) might not hold the charge for whole day. Rough estimate is 10% battery less for each hour of classical BT streaming. Tv connector streaming eats significantly less, let’s say around 3% per hour.
And you probably want them to hold you whole 16h day.

If you don’t BT stream so much on phonak (eg stay under 4h of bt and 4h of tv as they estimated), you’re good.

Those who use btle will eat less battery (eg everyone else except phonak /unitron).

In other words - don’t forget to stress test the HA endurance for your heaviest imaginable (but still realistic for you) use case and you’ll get your definite answer.

I thought I’d really love my OPN rechargeable system. I ran the numbers and at the rate I use disposables, the rechargeables were more expensive, but I always feel bad throwing away dead batteries. It’s a ‘be kind to the earth’ thing with me.

I went with the extra bucks and bought the rechargeables and the charger.

In less than a year, the rechargeable batteries wouldn’t hold a charge all day anymore. I got a second set of rechargeables, and they didn’t last 6 months. I’ve gone back to disposables.

I know that all rechargeable lose their capacity to fully recharge gradually, but I never expected this to be less than a year. I guess you can only do so much in that small disk size.

Now I understand Oticon has solved the problem with a newer model that has this restriction - you can’t put in disposables if your rechargeable batteries die. Please correct me if that’s wrong.

That may be all fine and good until you go on vacation and can’t find a place to recharge. Without disposables as a backup, a rechargeable system does me no good.

My disposables last 4 and a fraction days. So I change them every 4 and never have a dead battery.

It saddens me a bit, because I really wanted to eliminate disposing of spent batteries.

Bob

@BobbyBoomer said:

OPN rechargeable system

I think it’s important to say what rechargeable system you were using. There are various Li-ion systems and then there’s stuff like ZPower, which most people found unsatisfactory.

So it’s not right to apply a general label to rechargeables as a whole that really only applies to a special bad type of implementation of a non-Li-ion type of battery (I think ZPower are a form of zinc-air battery). So some bad engineers tried to make disposable battery chemistry “rechargeable” and screwed up. That doesn’t make the rechargeable category bad. It makes the OPN choice bad - they screwed up whereas Phonak and ReSound were smart enough to use Li-ion technology. Planning on giving up your smartphone or laptop because they use this terrible, undependable, unreplaceable inferior Li-ion rechargeable technology?

That’s the ultimate joke: all the folks dissing rechargeable technology here while depending on it for their smartphones, their tablets (iPads or otherwise), and light laptop computers, etc. Yeah! It’s a terrible technology that you’d never try to build a multi-billion (trillion?) dollar industry around. Who’d ever want to use it? Let’s use the more reliable zinc-air disposable batteries for our phones, tablets, and laptops and change all those batteries out every few days! It will help create a lot of jobs! (hauling away dead batteries).

Whatever the audio gave me. Batteries left in the hearing aids while I put the aids in the charger overnight.

Bob

That’s true. I’m referring to the “unreliable” technology aspect - that a Li-ion battery is likely to fail within a year’s time or so of normal use or fail suddenly without warning, etc. On the charging them while using them, the fact that some brands, e.g., ReSound give quite a bit of use on one charge, 30 hours with no streaming, 24 hours with 12 hours of streaming a day, it’s unlikely in normal use that one would have to charge any time one needs to use. HA’s users go through a whole litany of daily care, e.g. cleaning, storing, drying, UV-treatment(?), etc., and I hear few complaints about what an onerous chore daily HA maintenance is - but then we come to putting in the HA’s in a charger at night, instead of a dryer, a case, or what not, and suddenly it becomes an impossible extra burden, all the while one is charging one’s smartphone, one’s tablet, one’s laptop computer, perhaps even more frequently than a daily basis. So it’s the “burdensome, unreliable technology” aspect that I’m addressing…Also, given the dedication that most people devote to HA care otherwise, that one is suddenly going to forget to charge one’s rechargeable HA’s one night, although one religiously does everything else in one’s daily HA routine … Especially when with smart app functionality you always have easy access to how much charge your HA’s actually have, unlike with disposables…

My guess is that resound is aware that liions will lose charge with time, so they put a bigger one, in order that when it loses the capacity, it sill will be enough for a day. That’s smart move, unlike what phonak did.
.

I like rechargeable things that I don’t have to babysit daily. I don’t want two such babies, one is more than enough, plus phone isn’t crucial like HAs are and can work while being charged.

Or that I can swap rechargeable battery, so I can have them in my pocket.

When HAs would be able to hold their charge for a week under at least 8h BT streaming a day + 12h normal for at least P receivers, I’d consider being rechargeable a feature that I might want.

Until something like that, for me their solutions just don’t work and aren’t attractive.

I don’t like charging things all the time / daily and for me, that really is the single most important reason against rechargeable HAs. Everything else I have as an argument is just a confirmation of my bias

Similarly, about convictions, I wouldn’t wear them if they would only come in beige-brown varieties. I don’t have many limits in my life, but putting that color on myself is one of them. And there, millions of people want them exactly like that.

Yes, I guess if you want a good choice of color, you have to go for the Quattro’s (although there’s nothing there that looks very green or yellow to me!)

I agree when they can make a rechargeable that lasts a week, then it will be hard to make an argument that “it’s impossible to deal with.” As I said, even now the idea that putting them in a charging case vs. any other sort of case, dryer, dresser top or dresser drawer, is a pretty hollow argument to make. You have to do something with your HA’s when you take them out at night and it’s hard to believe one is “challenged” to put them in a charging case overnight as opposed to anywhere else.

@Blacky said:

When HAs would be able to hold their charge for a week under at least 8h BT streaming a day + 12h normal for at least P receivers, I’d consider being rechargeable a feature that I might want.

Yep +1 on this, looks like they have a long way to go tho!

I’m with BobbyBoomer on the rechargeables. I also have the OPN’s which had the Zpower rechargeables in them. I got around 6 months on mine before they wouldn’t last 12 hrs. and they started dying. I asked my Audi the cost of replacing them and if I recall she said $60 EA… I just left the rechargeable doors on the aids and went back to the Rayovac 312’s.

Amazon sells the replacement batteries
46.00 each.

Went to Amazon.
I bought one ZPower directly from Amazon.
I just checked it out and Amazon said it was unavailable.
Someone sells a pair but ZPower said it could be old and expired.
Went to ZPower.
They sell them direct now.
https://www.zpowerbattery.com/product/zpower-312-rechargeable-silver-zinc-battery/10
It’s 39.00.
That’s why I bought the one I did. It came directly from ZPower.

Will these work with OPN and the Oticon charger?

Oticon has used two rechargeable systems. First was ZPower. Then they switched to a built in Lithium ion battery. The two systems are not compatible.

Many responses because it’s not a binary decision.
I have a pair of Phonak B90’s, rechargeable and 312’s. Choice is more to do with lifestyle than functionality.

If you travel a lot or have an unpredictable lifestyle and don’t find changing batteries physically challenging, battery is safer. I have a spare battery holder on my key ring, and keep a spare set in the car, and wife’s handbag. Can almost always source 312’s any where in the world. Have never been left stranded, though have had to change at non ideal times.

If you have a consistent lifestyle, rechargeable are convenient. Consistently used and charged you are unlikely to ever be left with a dead aid. The charging case offers a convenient middle ground (like my Apple AirPods).
-ve Issues are: bulkier, and the “power backup” paraphernalia is also much more cumbersome, as well as being bespoke and not source-able at a local store/pharmacy. Unknown life of rechargeable and replacement costs.
+ves: no fiddly battery replacement, keeping a stock of replacement batteries, running out of juice at an inconvenient moment. Lower enviromental impact.

Sadly, COVID-19 has seen me switch to daily use of the rechargable, where as in pre COVID-19, with international travel especially, the 312’s were my daily driver. Any one need 312 batteries? I’ve got a large surplus now!