Can I see battery level of Phonak Marvel M90-312T in myPhonak app?

Hearing Aids
#1

I just started a trial of Phonak Marvel M90-312T HA’s. I’ve been using Oticon 2’s for a few years and maybe just used to their app. i searched, but couldn’t find anything other than battery vs. rechargeable. Am I just to assume 4 days? On the My Phonak app, is there a place to find out the level of how much battery life is left in the hearing aid?

#2

I think I found the answer to my question. It appears the answer is on the battery version of the Marvels, the My Phonak app will not show the battery level, but it does on the rechargeable aids. Perhaps another reason to push users to rechargeable aid. I’m not against rechargeable hearing aids. So it’s not a case of battery versus rechargeable. I may go with the rechargeable if I decide to go with Phonak.

#3

I think you are right. The high-tech recharge batts have a chip inside which tracks battery drain and condition. Dumb old 50-cent air cells don’t, and it may not be trivial to get a good read on their state with outside (in-HA) circuitry. (Despite the existence of “battery testers”-- they know “empty” but may not know “how-full”.)

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#4

I guess I don’t know why the Oticon app as well as the native iPhone accessibility screen for HA’s (at least for Oticon aid, but not Phonak) you get by clicking the power button on the right side of the iPhone quickly 3 times can give you the percentage of how much battery life you have left, but not on the My Phonak app unless you have rechargeable aids. I guess I’ll have to pop the battery into my OPN hearing aid and open the Oticon app to see the battery life. It may not be accurate because it’s a different aid, but it should be close.

Just a note regarding the rechargeable and the Roger microphones is you can’t sync a microphone directly to a Marvel aid with a battery. You can with the rechargeable. You need a boot to pair the battery run aids to Roger. What does the boot cost? $500. What is the additional cost to upgrade to rechargeable HA’s? $500. So with a Roger microphone, either way you get a $500 up charge.

#5

Oticon aids are MFI and the Phonaks are not

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#6

I have read somewhere on hear that the batteries hold voltage well until they don’t. I think most battery gauges rely on voltage drop so a gauge would go from 100% to gone not count down. You should get an audio warning, Maybe that could show in the app?.

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#7

That seems to be the case. Zinc–air battery - Wikipedia says “terminal voltage is quite stable until the cell approaches exhaustion”. Since the only good way to measure “fullness” is the voltage, if voltage hardly changes then we really can’t tell. The graph I found says voltage hardly changes from 10% to 90%.
Zinc-Air-Voltage-Curve
From https://data.energizer.com/PDFs/zincair_appman.pdf

https://www.audiologyonline.com/ask-the-experts/voltage-of-zinc-air-batteries-477 has some notes on why the observed voltage is what it is. (It isn’t the chemical theory voltage, and it varies between makers, and from storage to aired-up.)

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#8

Are most rechargeable battery aids also offered in replaceable format also? I’m not convinced that rechargeable is the way to go. How many years do you go before you change aids? How will the usable life of the rechargeable battery be in a couple of years?

#9

Lithium Ion batteries are being replaced today by Lithium Polymer batteries. Lithium Polymer has a much longer lifespan. Phonak Audeo Marvel Lithium Polymer rechargeable batteries claim a lifespan of 6 years.

#10

This is good to know. I have always bought used aids with high hopes for reliability. The rechargeable aids have put a damper on this thinking.

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#11

Thanks to everyone for their response. I seem to recall the oticon xceed showed me battery life when I trialed it but now I wonder since I was reminded that hearing aid batteries don’t slowly drain like alkaline batteries. I also notice that the resound aids I’m trialing don’t show batteries on their app either. At least not for the Enzo. I just liked the idea of knowing where I stand because it always seems that the hearing aid warning comes at the most inconvenient times.

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#12

I didn’t realize this when I got the P90s but I doubt I’ll get Phonak again. I notice little difference, in my experience, with my prior OPN 1 aids. The only difference I notice is that I now change batteries more often. If I am going to dinner, appointments etc. I change batteries before.

#13

Classic Bluetooth drains more battery then Low Energy Bluetooth.