Battery life

Hearing Aids
#21

Yes, it does. Once the oxygen is consumed the reaction will stop. I recollect doing a paper napkin calculation (I forget what battery size) and concluded the volume of air consumed in it’s life was roughly the volume in a coffee cup. I would expect the oxygen trapped once you tape is back up is consumed in a matter of hours.

From what I’ve read on this topic the expected results of doing this will be mixed. The app note did not detail why but alluded to temp and humidity being factors. My personal experience has been good, the aid I use skiing has a 312 where I can get >2 months out of a battery using it twice a week and taping it between uses.

#22

Ok. So you are using your battery / HA twice a Week? Someone who wears their hearing aid every day will not nototice a significant difference in battery life if they tape the battery every night.

#23

I don’t know if it’s worth the trouble but next time I change my batteries I will take them out each night and tape over the holes and see how much longer they will last. Right now I get about 12 days out of a #13 battery.

#24

I am very interested to see the result. I get that people want to save money…but I can’t imagine this helping wearers who wear their devices all day, every day. I mean what are we expecting to get in extended life??? 1 day, 3 days? When does it become cost-effective to even bother?? These are all genuine questions. A person should be spending probably $40 - $70/year for batteries if they are wearing 2 and wearing them as intended (all day, every day). How much in savings is needed in order to make the extra effort worth it??

#25

Measuring the HA current draw for troubleshooting purposes is a bit of a hassle so I guess you can use battery life to determine HA current draw to some reduced level of precision.

#26

I don’t think it is worth the hassle either but this battery life question keeps coming up and I just want to see what happens. I will re use the pull tabs removed from the batteries(because they are metalized mylar and retain their stickyness for a long time). I don’t have any Blu-tack and I have a feeling the battery manufacturers use metalized mylar because though testing it probably had the least oxygen transfer and remained sticky for a long time.

#27

:smiley:

You will probably spend more in tape than actually buying a few extra batteries.

#28

For what its worth (to op) I just finished trialing a pair of Starkey Ignites. The battery life was ridiculous - less than 3 days, wearing them all day long. Using the same Ray O Vacs from the same batch/same package that lasted over a week in my previous Resound RICs. I asked my audiologist, but she maintained that was normal. (this was with 312s)

#29

The FTC should look into this but IIRC Nader called them a sleepy little agency.

Either the battery people’s quality control is terrible or they are not living in the same reality that I am living in.
Manufacturers have production control charts to see whether the process is in control or not. This much variation can’t be in control.

How much variation is possibly due to environment (noisy, quiet)?

Imagine having a car that some days can go 300 miles on a fillup and on other days can go 800.

#30

Given the cost of hearing aids, which run into hundreds if not thousands of dollars, are people seriously worried about replacing batteries that cost pennies? :confused:

#31

I don’t worry about the cost of batteries, but since I use a streamer and a Phone Clip frequently, I like to try to maximize the consistency of the batteries.

I used to get about 3 days, but the time of day would vary a lot.

So, by switching left/right, plugging up the holes and keeping them out of the Dry and store, I can now count on changing both batteries every fourth day in the morning.

No more sudden failures.

#32

Posted for troubleshooting purposes only /

#33

IIRC, the Cheeks lady used a variation of this same fallacy but her posts seemed harder to deconstruct than yours.

#34
#35

It’s not a straw man argument to suggest that different aids use batteries more quickly.

#36

My two paragraph answer to you has disappeared into cyberspace. :frowning:
Evidently I took too long to write it.

#37

Looks like the karma police intervened. :wink:

#38

Yeah, that would be my take on this event. . .:cool:

#39

wish you would have posted that two paragraphs… I still bewilders me this deal about batteries. I’m using rechargeable now but when I was using 312’s in my Rextons they would always go 7.5 days. Every night when I took them out I took the batteries out and dropped them in the case with the aids. So, randomly they were getting switched. I just got in the habit of changing them every Sunday morning and all was well. All these endless theories on how to save battery life might at the most save you a 6 pack a year. put a couple in your cars, desk at work, pocket… and relax.

#40

The 312s are rated at ~180 mAh so if you got 7.5 x 16 = 120 hours then your HA must draw 180/120 = 1.5 mA.