Won’t be much longer until I get my very anticipated Phonak Audéo Sphere Infinio BTEs. Now as y’all know, these ears have rechargeable batteries inside. I’ve always had battery powered ears in the past…and would dry them in a UV / heating hearing aid dryer.
So, my question is, with these new ones, will it affect or damage the internal battery if I dry them in that sort of dryer? If so, am I just supposed to turn them off, dry them in that thing, then put them in the charger? I really don’t want to buy those desiccant dryer things over and over and over.
I imagine some will have a different answer but I have never used a dryer for my Phonak rechargeable aids. Unless you are in a very wet climate, I figured that the charger would be dryer enough. The qualification is that I am long retired and produce very little sweat.
Like @raylock1 I have never used a dryer with my Phonak Audeo p-90s. I asked about it when I received them in Sep 2021, and I was told we’d worry about drying when it became an issue.
Be careful about dryers that use heat with rechargeable HAs. Heat can damage the batteries.
Agreed; heat cycling a Lithium battery makes very little sense and may have some inherent dangers. At the very least, it’s going to shorten your battery life.
If you had an air-drying/UV case which simply used silica gel or air flow, I’d bung them in there for a bit, but not a a heated system other than an ambient level from the coil inside.
Do you mean BTE or RIC? I’m asking because I’m looking forward to the release of the BTE version, I thought it wasn’t out yet! It would be excellent news for me
Anyway, I’ve never used a drier, although I’m starting to think that maybe I should. I’ve always put my hearing aids in their case or in their charger, when not in use
I never needed dryers, for any of my HAs. Now using the Spheres, and as always, periodically I rest them on either my main computer with high powered graphics cards exhausting warm air, or to the side of my notebook, also meant for graphics work and exhausting warm dry air. Neither are hot. But warm. Does the job.
On the other hand, I have a variety of Lithium batteries in my car. Smaller power banks, Ryobi tool batteries, and several huge 600AH batteries.
It gets quite hot in a car, in the summer.
I have never thought to remove those large batteries, that I wired with 4/0 cable.
Never. No matter the heat.
I have a slightly different possible solution. I have NOT tried it with hearing aids but have for other items which need to be stored in cool, dry environments. Another participant mentioned silicon dessicant dryers. They are available in hearing aid specific devices OR you could use either 1) silicone dessicant dryers which are sold in sporting goods stores for home safes or 2) buy bulk dessicant from Amazon and make one or two containers to swap out.
I bought a gallon container full of dessicant and used glass quart Mason jars to make open dessicant packages since I didnt need to place items in the dessicant, rather the dessicant in the safe.
It would be easy to use a cloth bag to store the dessicant pellets in a tupperware plastic container. One could place the aids on the bag and seal the container. Every month or so, the dessicant can be dried in a low oven thus recharged. As long as you keep the container closed, except while you have to put in/take out the aids, it should work well. If you use a sporting goods dessicant system, you would still need to place it and the aids in a closed container. Low cost, reusable method that does not heat the batteries (as long as you let the dessicant cool after you recharge it in the oven). And don’t put the plastic in the oven either.
Good luck,
KP
Oticon supplies this drying system (desiccant and tub) with all of its ITE aids - any dispenser who’s got a fitting history with ITE and using DeMant will usually have loads on the shelf and will supply them very cheaply too.