Battery life of your hearing aids?

Hearing Aids
#82

Yup, it’s definitely the aid that’s bad. Got a new pack of Energizer (who now own Rayovac it turns out) size 13 with expiration in 2026. Battery in left aid worked for about 5 minutes before it started crackling intermittently and died abruptly. Same battery in the other aid and was able to stream a video over bluetooth for ~15 minutes no problem. Worth noting that these batteries only have two vent holes on them, but I don’t think that matters here. I’ve now tried several different batteries that have all failed in the left aid after just seconds to minutes of turning it on, while seeming to work fine in the other aid.

I wonder if the push to rechargeables means Phonak is cheaping out on components since the aid is seen as a disposable item. Very disappointing.

#83

I doubt this seriously. There is obviously something wrong with your left aid. Take it in to be repaired.

The number of vent holes is irrelevant. After 40+ years of using hearing aids and never paying heed to the “wait for x amount of time” with no problems, I think it is safe to assume that this is not the problem.
Best wishes for getting your problem resolved soon,
Dan

#84

13 days this time
A bit less Bluetooth

#85

Oh if only my size 312 batteries could do this, now that would be something to smile about, although I’m sure technology advances are coming to help with this!

#86

My friends 312s, last her 9 days but hers are BTE Bluetooth rather than RIC Bluetooth.

Not 100% sure how much Bluetooth she actually streams but is connected to her phone all waking hours.

#87

Wow that’s pretty good, the best I’ve got is 7…just, but 6 is normal with a lot of streaming.

#88

9 days for 312 is really good, my brother used to get 7 days or less on 312

#89

In the past, I only occasionally used my hearing aids and then only an hour or 2 at a time.
The 312 batteries would die sitting in the case.
Then I found that putting a bit of electricians tape over the vent hole, kept them going.

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#90

Thank you for this tip. Did not try it but I will do if I am experimenting again with my HA… Knew that they came in taped but had not expected that if you tape them again they will live longer. Great.

#91

14 days this time
less Bluetooth

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#92

Are there any engineering type members that know how to measure the remaining goodness in a battery?

#93

Maybe ask @Volusiano he is an electrical engineer. Or he knows who otherwise can tell you…

#94

I think it can be done by counting the number of times the cell have been charged but other than that i’m no li ion battery software engineer but there gotta be other ways to determine life of a cell…

#95

Rechargeable or consumable?

#96

I’m assuming that we’re talking about disposable batteries here and not rechargeable batteries. But in general, the way people have been able to estimate the remaining percentage of juice left in batteries overall (not just hearing aid batteries) is by measuring the voltage on the battery. For example, for AA Alkaline, if their voltage show 1.5 volts or more when measure, then they’re considered full. Then as they gradually degrade down to 1.4, 1.3, 1.2 volts, etc, then a remaining percentage estimate can be drawn based on the remaining voltage.

For disposable hearing aid batteries, they do make battery testers where you just put in the hearing aid battery and make contact, and there’s an LCD display of bars representing the voltage on the battery. The more bars you have (up toward the “full” end), the fresher the battery. Usually they don’t really have quantifiable markers in terms of percentage for these testers, because it wouldn’t be quantifiably accurate. It’s designed to just give you a rough idea by looking at the LCD bars that appear.

2 Likes
#97

consumable batteries. My 2014 HA’s use 312 batteries. Don’t know what my upcoming 2023 HA’s will use.
Being a retired engineer, I measure AAA, AA & occasionally C batteries all the time.
But old watch and HA batteries hold a surface charge. So a voltage measurement, tells little about the battery condition.

#98

Zinc air batteries have a pretty constant voltage discharge curve.

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#99

My resound omnia and Nucleus 8 last pretty much all day, So i really charge them once a day really, for the nucleus 8, I have 6 battery (4 inherited from the Nucleus 7), one is really old, doesn’t last long like 1-2 hours. the rest last a ridiculous amount of time as i wear them all day. I can’t tell you how long it last because it spans multiday battery life rechargeable wise and it is hard to keep track of it because i take it off if i go into the shower, there is going to be a gap there and multi day battery too makes me don’t want to track it…

I have 2 compact battery and 4 standard battery… I am finding all of them lasting a day except for that old battery…

edit: clarification on battery

#100

Do they use disposable batteries? If rechargeable, that has nothing to do with disposable battery life.

#101

Yeah, and that’s why I have several of these Zinc Air battery tester collected from each time I bought a pair of HAs at Costco, yet I never bother using them except to see if the battery is simply dead or alive, but never to gauge how much is left in in because the voltage discharge curve is so flat that it’s basically either a go/no-go and if it’s in between at all, you know that it’s going to be dead real soon.

Nevertheless, the question was asked about how to gauge the remaining charge of a hearing aid disposable battery, and the only way I know of is via a voltage measurement approach, no matter how crude it is.

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