I am a new hearing aid user. I am trialing two different digital aids and they both behave similarly and both use #10 batteries. My wife is enjoying the hearing aids as much as me because the word, ‘What?’ doesn’t come out of my mouth quite as often.
Here’s the thing, though. She can always tell when it’s the day before my batteries go dead. I start saying, ‘What?’ a lot more. Her comment has been ‘Batteries going dead?’ When I finally get the beeps (that the battery is exhausted), I change the battery and am surprised at the difference a new battery makes. Because it happens so gradually, I don’t realize that the HA is losing sensitivity.
Since these are digital aids, I would have thought they either worked or didn’t, but that’s not what my experience over the last couple of months has shown me. As the battery wears, the amplification diminishes.
Is this pattern typical? When do you replace batteries? Do you wait for the beep? One of the HAs I have is the America Hears Freedom SIE. The only adjustment for the battery is the volume of the tones. I don’t see anywhere I can adjust when the beeps sound.
I don’t mind changing the batteries more often (localbattery.com) makes that less of a financial decision. I want to keep the aids operating at full capacity as long as the batteries will last.