@bryankek: I get my HAs through VAC. They would take a dim view of any DIY activity on my part.
Hard to believe I canât find aftermarket batteries, ARGHHHH
I recently had a battery failed on my left h/a and swapped battery with my right h/a as left is my worst ear , no problem with charge levels
Still havenât been able to source replacement as Opticon has a short of rechargeable z22 and is only supplying warranty jobs
@sydneysmith200: I donât quite know why youâre directing this enquiry to me, since all I know about Z22 batteries is that OTicon stopped using them years ago.
Welcome to the Forum. You can probably find more information by using the Search function. Iâm busy right ATM and canât provide a link for you.
I sent an email to one of those (foreign country/not USA) EBay Oticon hearing aid/HA sellers to inquire about purchasing rechargeable HA batteries (Li-ion accu 60 L3 (3.7 V d.c. / 20.5 mAh) for the Oticon More. They said Yep, $79. I asked âfor two/bothâ? They said no, $79 each.
That is very expensive and also not the Z22 Li-ion (3.8 V d.c. / 17.5 mAh) battery that you are seeking. But it is a glimmer of hope. Also, you might inquire with another/different audiologist. Recently in my area/USA they were able to replace batteries during an office visit.
Another glimmer of hope?
I saw Z22Aâs available on EBay;
Oticon Rechargeable Lithium Z22 Battery More OPN Minirite Hearing Aids
3 available / 1 sold
$65 each
FYI> The included blue link to the EBay listing will expire at some point in time.
ETA: These are Z22A and are different from Z22;
- Z22 Li-Ion (3.8 V d.c. / 17.5 mAh)
- Z22A Li-Ion (3.8 V d.c. / 20.0 mAh)
Also the seller says for Oticon More OPN Minirite Hearing Aids?? That canât be right??
People see the charger for the OPN S and More looking the same so they assume that the batteries used are the same, but apparently theyâre not.
I think @SpudGunner experienced this when his More batteries went bad. The front desk girl in the office gave him the OPN S batteries (the audi was on vacation) and it still gave him issues with reading accuracy and when the audi came back, he confirmed that they werenât the right batteries for the More.
Yes, I read about the problem above where there was 30% battery level differences between Left/Right after the More1 batteries were inadvertently replaced with OpnS batteries. I am assuming from other comments that the battery specs for those two models were:
- More; Li-ion accu 60 L3 (3.7 V d.c. / 20.5 mAh
- OpnS; Z22 Li-Ion (3.8 V d.c. / 17.5 mAh)
But this is a little different because the EBay sellerâs product is not the Z22 battery for the OpnS, and it is also not the (accu 60 L3) battery for the Oticon More. His product is a different model (Z22A Li-Ion 3.8 V d.c. / 20.0 mAh) and the seller says âI use them in my OPN S1 and my More 1â.
Now I am not saying that we should all run out and buy a new/third type of battery. Iâm just saying that it is getting a bit confusing. Much like what happened with batteries from the first-generation ZPower battery and led to a cautionary statement from ZPower that said;
âZPower is the only manufacturer of its patented 312 Silver-Zinc rechargeable battery. Other ZPower batteries sold are surplus from hearing aid manufacturers sold by unauthorized parties. These batteries are either damaged or over a year old and expired. Leading to numerous comments from those who have bought them over short life or do not work. Do not buy these batteries. Buy direct from ZPower instead. ZPower Silver-Zinc batteries, made in the USA and shipped direct to you.â
So at this point in time there are after-market batteries. But we donât know very much about them.
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I just want to comment about the statement in bold above about being over a year old and expired. The last pair of ZPower batteries that I bought was in January 2019, and theyâre still working just fine today. So the statement about them expiring after one year is not necessarily true.
But let me expand on the situation of the usage of those ZPower batteries to clarify a bit. I keep them in my spare set of OPN 1 and always keep them charged up in the ZPower charger. I occasionally would take those spare OPN 1s out (with the ZPower batteries inside) to use, maybe every 2 or 3 days for about 2 or 3 or 4 hours. Sometimes, like maybe once a month or so, I would wear them for much longer, and they would last me about 10-12 hours before they would run out of juice.
So yeah, these ZPower batteries donât hold up to the 14-16 hour days daily that most people demand of their aids, but to say that they expire within a year is not entirely accurate. Yeah, they probably would not hold juice that would last all day anymore after a year of heavy 14-hour a day use. But if theyâre used more sparingly (like in my uncommon situation), they do last longer than a year and they donât just abruptly fail to hold charge anymore after a year. Itâs almost as if they can serve a finite numbers of hours, and itâs not how many set day (like 365 days) and they abruptly go bad. Itâs more like theyâll go bad after youâve exhausted the number of hours they can be in service.
Letâs take an example, and letâs say that they can give you a 14 hours of juice per full charge cycle, but after 3 months, this may go down to 12 hours of juice per charge cycle the next 3 months after that, then 10 hours of juice per charge cycle in the third quarter, then 8 hours of juice per charge cycle in the fourth quarter. Then itâs ready to be discarded. So you get a total of (1490)+(1290)+(1090)+(890)=3960 or roughly 4000 hours total of use before itâs ready to be discarded. But instead of the above usage, letâs say if you only use 3.67 hours per day, and always keep it fully charged in between, it can last you for 3 years just the same. So what Iâm trying to say is that it doesnât actually abruptly go bad and expire after 1 year unless you try to get full charge cycles from it daily. It can last you for much longer than a year if you use it less than depleting the batteries completely every day.
Of course itâs not practical to do that and thatâs why most people consider it useless if it doesnât last at least 14-16 hours a day for at least a year. But to simply that and say that it expires after a year is not entirely correct either. It seems to depend of the daily usage demand. Itâs more like itâll expire after the number of hours of service it can provide is exhausted, but the shelf life of service can be longer than a year. In my case, itâs been 3 years and 3 months with very moderate use and itâs still performing OK, although I can only get about 10-12 hours per charge cycle now.
Sorry, I didnât mean to bad-mouth ZPower technology. I sometimes use bold in place of italics just because it shows up clearer in the text of this forum. But I forgot that it also means shouting, so I changed it back to italics.
My point is simply about the confusion involved with rechargeable batteries. I wish we had an after-market source for replacement batteries. I donât know if the Z22A is an acceptable replacement?? But I would like to find out. Perhaps some brave person will test it for us in the future 
btw> The EBay seller sold out and relisted another/second group of (Z22A Li-Ion 3.8 V d.c. / 20.0 mAh) batteries.
I wonder if folks who bought the Z22A from this seller were buying them for hearing aids or not? And which brand? I guess if anyone were really curious, they can ask the eBay seller if they knew that the OPN S and More batteries are actually different types per Oticon to see what they say.
Just to be clear about the source of my offending bold-syntax comment mentioning ZPower batteries that are either damaged or "over a year old and expiredâ. Those are not my words! The words are a quote from Amazonâs ZPower Factory Direct store.
If you click the link and read the ZPower Store comments, I believe you will find that the reference pertains to batteries from unauthorized sellers, and not official ZPower store batteries.
btw> If you think my bold-syntax quote was offensive, scroll down to checkout the HUGE ZPower Store text!
Not sure to whom this was directed at, but hopefully not me because I never made any criticism about the bold-syntax text. I only wanted to clarify my personal experience that what ZPower was saying about their battery expiring after 1 year that mine havenât expired after 1 year like they said because mine still seem to work fine after 3 years as long as I havenât exceeded the amount of hours used (whatever that turns out to be, 4000 hours or whatever it actually is).
So I just want to clarify with @pvc that I was never offended with the bold-text syntax used in the first place. And it was also clear to me right up front that the â1 year expirationâ claim was from ZPower themselves and not from @pvc.
So itâs all good.
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I have Both OPN-S and More.
The Z22 is for the OPN-S 17.5 mAh
The Z22A is for the More 20mAh
Both are made by ZeniPower.
I have tried communicated with Zeni and they said they do not have Distributors, and they could not sell to me because they have an agreement with Oticon.
They are certainly not worth the $60 the ebay seller is charging.
Looks like the More requires a bit higher capacity battery, I am thinking that using the 20 mAh batteries in the OPN-S would give you more run time.
I may switch mine and give it a try, I donât think the 3.7 vs 3.8 V should make any difference.
I charge both with the same charger, which is actually a Philips charger.
Mike
I agree. Though, I have no Li-ion battery expertise, and (at this time) I have no skin in the game. Just to recap the three batteries being discussed;
- OpnS; Z22 Li-Ion - 3.8 V d.c. / 17.5 mAh (ZeniPower)
- More; Li-ion accu 60 L3 - 3.7 V d.c. / 20.5 mAh (PowerOne)
- After-Market; Z22A Li-Ion - 3.8 V d.c. / 20.0 mAh (ZeniPower)
The Z22A EBay seller maybe has a supply-chain-leak source?
Another eBay Listing for Z22 Batteries.
Price is high though I think.
Yikes!! I think the EBay seller got that wrong. That is, the listing says for RUBY MORE. Correct me if I am wrong, But I think (Ruby and Opn S) use the lower-power 17.5 mAh Li-ion cell.
Which should not be used for the More which uses the higher mAh (PowerOne 20.5 mAh or the ZeniPower Z22A 20.0 mAh) Li-ion cell. Caveat; The Z22A 20.0 mAh has not been proven/tested yet.
Hereâs the three batteries listed again.
- OpnS; Z22 Li-Ion - 3.8 V d.c. / 17.5 mAh (ZeniPower)
- More; Li-ion accu 60 L3 - 3.7 V d.c. / 20.5 mAh (PowerOne)
- After-Market; Z22A Li-Ion - 3.8 V d.c. / 20.0 mAh (ZeniPower)
I agree, not for the More.
If the batteries are the same physical size, there should be no problem.
Capacity. The capacity of a battery is basically a measure of how much power the battery can hold. Think of it as the size of your fuel tank. The unit of measure here is milliamp hours (mAh). This is saying how much drain can be put on the battery to discharge it in one hour.
If the voltage is sufficient and safe, then the other concern would be can the battery deliver the current at the desired rate while sustaining that sufficient voltage. Capacity affects run time, but other than that doesnât come into play. Similar to what @Fred_Flintstone says, if the battery fits, it sits.
WH