After two years of taking my hearing aids and charger(s) back to my audiologist and Oticon, I continue to have problems every day. Most days the left hearing aid emerges from overnight charging only half charged, so I start the day one-eared. In an hour or two the other one it up to 100% charge and I can get on with my day. My audiologist https://www.selectivehearing.com.au/ dutifully sends the tech back to the local Oticon lab, who dutifully say they have conducted tests and repairs and “hear you go, try this” when I get them back. Most times (let’s say we’re up to six returns in 2 years) I am told “we never have this problem with other users.”. Hmmm. But on this forum I have read plenty of identical complaints about the same thing and still no action from the manufacturer. What can I do?
If you want to go back to traditional batteries, you could try to get Oticon to do an exchange under the terms of the loss/damage provision. It wouldn’t be free, and you might forfeit the possibility of a future loss/damage claim, but maybe it’s worth it to you. I did a similar exchange with ReSound, not involving rechargeables.
Not saying it is your issue but after I had similar issues I found that if wipe my aids down with a cloth that I normally use for my glasses that i don’t have the charging issues.
I suggest you take a test. Try to put the left hearing aid in the right slot and the right one in the left slot. That’s how we’ll find out if it’s to the hearing aid or to the charger. … I have a hunch that it’s the charger, that it overheats after charging for a while and stops charging. It is possible that after that it is easier for him to charge only one hearing aid because it uses less power to charge
I would say that I monitored this forum closely for issues with Oticon rechargeable batteries, and while yes, there have been complaints about Oticon batteries not lasting the whole day for people, or have reduced full-day capacity sooner than the expected 3 year warranty, that is different than your description of your issue here, which is that the charger doesn’t complete a full charge on your left aid by morning time (only half charge). Your issue description is very specific and is totally different than the usual failure to provide a full-day capacity in less than the 3 year warranty.
Actually, I don’t recall any complaint about Oticon battery charging issue that is identical to what you’re reporting → failure to completely charge overnight in one of the aids. If you do have specific links to forum threads/posts that complained about your EXACT same issue, please share with us so we can review them more closely.
I’m also puzzled why it would stop charging at 50%, then in another hour or two, it finished charging the remaining 50%. I presume that you must have removed the partially charged left aid out of the charger, to find out that it’s not fully charged yet, then put it back in for another hour or 2 for the charge to complete. Is that the correct assumption?
You said that you must have made Oticon resolve the issue for you about 6 times in 2 years. So does that mean that they resolved the issue for you but each time only lasts on the average of about 4 months before the issue returns again? So it worked for a good several months before it broke, then the pattern repeats itself? Or did you actually spend a lot of time living with your workaround before you turn it in for repair?
If it’s always the same left aid that exhibited the problem, did you at any time (after a few failures) insist on Oticon giving you a brand new left aid replacement to eliminate the issue that it’s specific to that lemon left aid? If you did switch to a completely new left aid replacement and the issue reoccurred, did you also insist on getting a completely new charger replacement in the case that it’s an issue with the charger?
I know that the Oticon charging instruction tells you to make sure to put the correct aid into the correct slot in the charger (right aid in the slot for the right aid, and left aid in the slot for the left aid), but did you ever try to swap them into the other slot to see what happens?
Hi and thank you. But I don’t want to go back to traditional batteries. These units cost me plenty for the recharge facility and backwards would be a waste of money.
Thank you and yes, I have had this advice from Oticon and do it now and then. But the problem has become so prevalent that I believe Oticon should come up with something better than “wipe every day”.
Good idea. I was a little reluctant to “put the left in the right” etc but hey, what have I got to lose? will let you know.
Hi and thank you for a curious response. You seem to focus tightly on whether my issue is EXACTLY the same as others in the forum, and fuss about whether the issues are IDENTICAL. From my point of view the issues are the same because previous reports and mine all concern the design of the power circuits and the fact that Oticon is slow to hear what its customers say. With a little bit of knowledge about how design engineers work, and how they must approve and sign off the testing and subsequent manufacture of the units, my position is that this is a problem for the design engineers and I hope they hear about it and fix it.
It all depends on what your goal is with the thread. If your goal is to bash Oticon to let off some steam about your issue with their rechargeable battery system then by all means feel free to do so.
But because at the end you asked what you can do, so I thought you genuinely wanted to know how to get help debugging the issue to see if you can help yourself resolve it or not. So that’s why I asked probing questions to help out.
But apparently that’s not what you are interested in, you just want to get off your chest about Oticon’s failure to resolve your battery issues 6 times in 2 years. So what can you do now? I think you should dump Oticon for another brand’s aid because Oticon hasn’t been able to resolve your issue after many times like this.
Yes, I suppose I have reached the point of wanting to get this off my chest, but not just to bash Oticon. Actually, it has been my experience (and others, including Chris Anderson, author of “The Long Tail” and “Makers”) that publicly shaming companies attracts their attention and gets something done about the problem at hand. No offense to your good self, Volusiano, I can see now that you were trying to help. Possibly some misinterpretation in the cultural communication. Apologies.
It is just a part of the normal cleaning of the aids in my book.