If your manual dexterity is that bad, then it’s time for a rechargeable hearing aid.
I have never, never, never got 14 days from a hearing aid battery. You must have the record!
Whine! Whine! You don’t have to carry a pair scissors everywhere you go. There are cheap battery carrying cases sold on Amazon. You can leave the battery packaged in the pie shape that is cut out and store them in a old pill bottle. You can cut the package so the pie shaped package is still attached and remove them as needed.
And for your information, packaging can be discarded in a wastebasket, or garbage can.
Frankly, if you want to whine, please do in the battery packaging whiner thread.
Etsy had some really nice hearing aid battery holding cases.
The ones I saw are 15.00.
As others have said, you can get a little case for the batteries. I’ve got one that holds 2 and I attached a little single pill holder onto the chain. I keep it in my pocket change purse.
No schedule on my part. I let the HA’s let me know when - they will beep long before the battery dies. 1 aid uses up batteries quicker and dies first. I typically just let it die unless I have something important that I will want to hear.
I take the battery from the other aid and put it into the one that dies first. The first new battery goes into the aid that uses less battery. When the transferred battery dies, it gets a new battery. I get an extra day or two out of the batteries that way.
Plus the battery case holds the used batteries until I get home & restock. Keeping the used batteries for recycling.
Thanks, my first-ever hearing aids are, in fact rechargeable. And bad dexterity being a factor in which type to choose is exactly the point I was trying to make.
If you want to whine, please do it in the battery packaging whiner whiners thread.
I’m not at all surprised that my desires and my lifestyle are different from yours. I’m pretty surprised that you would think your lifestyle is universal.
An update: Last night I went to the noisiest restaurant I know. Texas Roadhouse, wearing my Jabra EP 30 hearing aids. The noise reduction was excellent and I could easily understand both my daughter sitting across from me at the table and the waiter who served us. If you haven’t been to this steakhouse it’s excellent for reasonably priced steaks. But, it’s one of the noisiest restaurants in the world. I assume they designed it that way so you don’t loiter after you finish your meal.
My son used to be a waiter in a high end restaurant.
He called places like the Roadhouse, Outback, etc churn and burn.
He’s a banker now.
It’s not a knock on the food.
Hello, Flyboybob, to clarify, you mean you wore the rechargeable version, right? I wonder how you would have rated the HA performance if you were using the version with disposable batteries.
I’ve had both. If I’m paying full-audiologist prices, I like to have aids that last longer than 6 years, and I’d say that means not having rechargeable battery aids, though it may depend on the brand and model. But Costco only sells rechargeable aids now, and at Costco’s much-lower prices, I’m more willing to replace the aids every six years, so rechargeable makes more sense.
Here’s why I say the lifespan of many rechargeable aids will only be about six years. If you are using rechargeable aids all day, recharging them at night, the lithium ion batteries will steadily lose their ability to hold a charge. At the 3-year mark, if and while still under warranty, you definitely want to send them in for service to get the rechargeable battery replaced. Those new batteries will last another 3 years. At that point, it may not be cost-effective to have the service done again. You don’t get an additional three-year warranty on the replacement batteries; your warranty ends at the three-year mark from date of original purchase, generally. But even if you’re willing to pay the manufacturer’s out-of-warranty price (which I have not seen anyone here share), at some point, the manufacturer is going to say your aids are at end-of-life, and they are unable and unwilling to service them, and I’d expect it to be difficult to get someone else to service them either. Maybe this happens at the 6-year mark, or it’s too expensive; it becomes increasingly likely after 6 years.
And here’s why I say that: many rechargeable aids do not have a replaceable battery, the way we think of a replaceable battery. People think the battery can be replaced by opening the case, popping out the old battery, and popping in a new one. There may be some rechargeable aids like that, still, but certainly the ReSounds and Jabras, as far as I know, do not have a battery that can be swapped out. The battery is built into the aid circuitry, and the entire guts of the aid must be replaced to get a new rechargeable battery. When the manufacturer runs out of replacement aid guts for a model, that’s it; I don’t think it will be possible to get the aid going again. Maybe you can get it done at the nine year-mark, but the longer you go, the more likely the manufacturer is to say, can’t be done, and independent service centers won’t have a way to do it either, because they don’t have spare aids either. And if a service center has spare aids, the older they are from date of manufacture, the less likely the lithium ion battery will have any kind of life.
With the button batteries, it also can become difficult or impossible to find replacement parts as you get out towards a decade of life, but at least people are willing to work on them, and in many cases, spare parts remain available for a while.
You asked:
Will turning the rechargeable hearing aids off for months or years degrade the lithium ion battery to the point where it’s no longer holding long enough of a charge to get through the day?
You should not allow a lithium ion battery to go dead for a long time. For one thing, doing that doesn’t extend its lifespan, which is always going downhill to some extent, more with daily use-and-charge cycles, but also just with age. But also, if a lithium ion battery sits too long without any charge, it may be difficult or impossible to get it to take a charge again. Again, this suggests to me that for really long-term use of say, a decade plus, the button-battery aids have a better shot.
Don’t know because I never had replaceable battery hearing aids. I don’t think that the Jabra hearing aids nor the ReSound Viva with the DNN chip are available with replaceable batteries.
I have the rechargable pro 30’s, first time for me to not have batteries and so far it has not been a problem at all, these last easily 20+ hours and costco gives you a travel charger that will recharge 3 times without plugging in and if you forget to charge, 20 minutes gives you 8 hours
As long as Costco continues to carry top of the line hearing aids at deep discounts, they will have the latest and greatest hearing aids. Eventually, everything will wear out and become obsolete. Replaceable hearing aid batteries may become a thing of the past and may not be for sale anymore. Who knows what battery technology will replace lithium ion and may be rechargeable for many more years than today’s technology. If I could predict the future I would living on my private island.