The phonak paradise rechargeable P70’s I have came with a case with a drying capsule in it. Is this enough for getting caught in the rain? Does anyone swear by a dryer? Does it matter more or less for rechargeable vs. battery hearing aids?
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Thanks, this looks like an interesting option. Do you have any experience with this one? Do you find dryers necessary or worth the price?
If you think you’re going to get rained on, better get a boonie hat or a ghillie bucket hat to protect your instruments.
If they get wet, wrap the aids up in Bounty paper towl, or something absorbent. Pat them dry. Wrap them in fresh, dry paper towl and put the aids into a sealable jar with 1/2 cup of rice. Leave them overnight, if you can.
Don’t try to blow water off wet hearing aids with canned air! It will drive water into the devices.
I always have an Oticon case in my pocket if there’s any chance that I will encounter wet conditions. I pop the aids into the case until it’s dry enough to wear them again.
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I personally use a perfect dry lux box. I was given mine when I brought my first pair of hearing aids 12 years ago and was told that I should use it at least once a week to keep my hearing aids in good working order. I use it more in the summer time. However one day I forgot to take my hearing aids out and took a shower with them before I realized I had them in while washing my hair, I immediately put them in the dry box and they still worked.
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Do not use rice on electronics. It doesn’t dry any better than open air will. If it did, you could leave rice on the counter for a couple days and it would be ready to eat. More importantly, the starchy dust from the rice will get into your devices and wreak havoc.
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This is solid advice. I have a secondary case for mine but I still haven’t gotten into the habit of carrying it around. Its a little larger than expected. Seems like you wouldn’t need a very big case for such small devices but I suppose they want to accommodate as many different types as possible.
Humidity is also a killer for moisture getting in your aids. Moisture of any sort isn’t good for them.
My husband has rechargeable Signia’s. He also suffers from hyperhidrosis, he doesn’t have an option other to put them in the breeze dryer for a couple of hours. Because he has found initially the charging capsule didn’t dry them well enough. The combination of the 2 now appears to be keeping his aids fairly dry.
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I use the dryer every night. When in a situation where I know I am going to get wet, I wear my back up hearing aids. If I get surprised and they get wet, I dry them off and put them in the dryer as soon as possible. If I get surprise rain, I take off whichever hearing aids I have on and put them in my pants pocket until I am inside or the rain stops. I never wear a brimmed hat, as they make you seem taller ,and I am already 6’5" tall. Anyway, my advise is to do the best you can to avoid getting the aids wet, and if they do get wet, get them dry as soon as possible. The dryers are worth their weight in gold, IMHO…
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I wouldn’t “swear by” using my Lux Air Dryer every night because I can’t prove that it has ever prevented my from having a moisture related problem with my hearing aides. But it seems to me that it is just one of those things that “just makes sense to do”.
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Most of the newer hearing aids are rated at IP66 or IP67 to be water resistant and the electronics are sealed, so the electronics are fairly robust with regard to moisture. I still use a dryer overnight, though. It helps keep moisture from building up in the receivers and the battery area. A bigger issue is that the ear canal is a warm moist area, so dryers like the one I have with a UV light will kill any bacteria that could get on the receiver and cones that do go in my ear.
The UV is more important than the drying to me, but it doesn’t hurt to dry them anyway.
I always remove the batteries instead of just disconnecting them when I put them in the dryer. Batteries aren’t totally sealed and the heat and drying effect will theoretically shorten battery life. I doubt I’m getting more than a few extra hours out of them by doing that, but i do it anyway.
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It doesn’t seem to have affected them in the last couple of years I had them. Mine are Widex and they do make a dryer with a UV light, so it would make sense that they use UV resistant plastic.
Drying alone should also kill bacteria for an overnight cycle, though, even without the UV light.
In general UV exposure destroys plastics. Ask anyone who spends a lot of time at high altitude.
Personally I would never use a UV or heat dryer on my aids.
Heat also is an enemy of both plastics and electronics. I have always just used silica gel drying beads for my aids and they have always worked well here in the moist pacific NW. (my last aids are 10 years old and still work great.)
Jim
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What dryer and aids do you have?
As @zuikoholic says too much UV is bad for plastics and too much heat is bad for electronics. Moisture is also bad. However, no-one here really can say which is worse these days.
I put a silica gel capsule in my Phonak charger and change it out when the silica changes color. I could say it works well… but equally I have no idea if it is doing anything at all.
I have Phonak Paradise rechargeables which are sealed with no battery door which is the leakiest part. This means that it is much more difficult and slow for water vapor to get in to the aids. Similarly, it is much more difficult for water vapor to come out using heat or silica gel.
So my question is: Is moisture in normal use as much of a concern with today’s sealed HAs as it used to be?
Sure, if the HAs were immersed in water it is prudent to dry them ASAP and take special steps to do so.
Also it is worth remembering that UV only “disinfects” the surface that the UV hits directly. Any part that is in shadow will not be affected. Also there is no way you can tell if the UV actually did anything useful.
Peace of mind is great though - even if it may be sometimes illusory.
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When I first started wearing hearing aids I dealt with very itchy ears. Based on this forum I bought a used Professional Dry & Store hearing aid dryer. That was about 12 years ago and that dryer still functions as it did when I got it.
When I started using the dryer the itchy ear issues went away. I believe this is from the UV light sanitizing the domes/molds.
I now use this dryer on my CI processors. Between sweating and getting out in wet weather the dryer just makes me feel better about reliability.
I have been using a PerfectDry Lux dryer with Costco KS7s since I got them. I have a set of rechargeable KS10s on order, and wondered if the dryer would be necessary, or its use wise, from reading discussions in other topics here about heat and Li ion batteries.
Time for an experiment - I ran the dryer with the aids inside for the ‘1 hour’ cycle. Maximum temperature was 91F. Moderate heat, not much hotter than they would get in-use on a hot day, stuck behind my ears.
I may use the dryer ~weekly with the sealed KS10s, mainly for the UV exposure.
I’ve seen combination dryers with UV-C bulbs. I too worry about the long term effects of UV on the plastic. Outdoor plastic furniture has UV protection added to the plastic at the time of manufacture to avoid discoloration as it sits outside in the sun, whether you use it in just summer, or if you’re fortunate and live somewhere outside lounging, swimming, and cookouts can be had in all seasons.
As far as heating I was surprised to see some that heat up to 122 degrees. I would never subject my HAs or other electronic devices to temps that high. It is just not healthy and can shorten the life of the device.
I picked up an inexpensive Dry Caddy that has desiccant cartridges that supposedly last two months each. No heat or UV, but at least something to reduce any residual moisture that may enter the HAs (use 312 batteries so not really sealed as well as a rechargeable can be).
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