Oticon More Battery Life with heavy streaming

[Luga]

Just picked up a pair of Oticon More 1’s moving up from OPN S1’s as part of insurance benefit. Initial first impression is good and like others in the forum is that there are “more” and different sounds being focused on.

My experience is that overall things are louder and now i can hear things like the fan in the refrigerator . Speech does sound a little clearer but not sure if this is all due to programming against my old pair of OPN S1’s or if it is new capability. My S1’s went for service when I picked up the More’s and will be able to compare better when they come back.

The key question i have is all around battery life. My S1’s were not rechargeable and a single battery would last 5 days or so. I rely on iPhone and TV streamer (connected to my laptop) for work and can stream a combined 5 or 6 hours (sometimes more) in one working day (including my personal TV watching at night).

A key consideration is whether the batteries will survive an entire day without needing to be recharged particularly when the “return to office” happens and I’m not home all day. I will keep the S1’s as backup so i could always switch to those in an emergency but not looking forward to “battery anxiety”, if that makes sense.

So… what are other’s experiences with the rechargeable More 1 (or S1’s) under heavy streaming? How long is reasonable to expect? The 24 hours advertised in the Oticon web site do not consider heavy streaming.

Many thanks for reading and your input/experience.

[Volusiano]

I don’t own the More so I don’t have first hand experience with its battery life, but I thought I heard somewhere (could have been from a Dr. Cliff YouTube video but not 100% sure) that with heavy streaming, you can expect a 16 hour battery life per day out of it.

Maybe some folks with actual experience with it will chime in soon.

[cvkemp]

Yes Oticon says that the More aids will get 16 hours with what it calls heavy streaming use. My audiologist told me that with my usage I should get over 24 hours. With my OPNS1 rechargeable I have managed 32 hours once, due to traveling. But most days I have about 15 hours of use with about 3 hours of streaming, and I will have about 45% battery life left.

[Um_bongo]

Our customer feedback tends to suggest about 40-55% battery residue on More 1 for approx 16hours use; depending on streaming. Moderate/Severe HF losses, 85dB receivers in both cases.

This is based on the App record, which may or may not be a good measure of the absolute state of the battery.

[Luga]

Thank you for the replies and 16 hours would be acceptable/manageable.

Yesterday I wore them for 15 hours 17min with 4 hours of TV streaming and perhaps 2 hours on phone calls via the iPhone (is this considered streaming?) and at bedtime I had 28% battery left… Today so far 12 hours 27 min of use with 2 hours and 44 mins of TV streaming and 3 hours of iPhone phone calls and i have 36% battery left so far. I do wear 85 dB receivers.

At this rate 16 hours seems a reasonable estimate.

Will report back once i have more real world usage/data.

Thanks again.

[cvkemp]

Your hearing loss also effects the battery life, and yes iPhone calls count as streaming, and the More processor is about twice as powerful as my OPNS1 processor so I am not surprised at heavier battery usage.

[gkumar]

Thanks for sharing this data. The 16 hour battery life is concerning to me with heavy streaming. If there was a way to charge spare rechargeable batteries and swap them with the depleted rechargeables every other day, that would be ideal to overcome this battery life range anxiety

[Volusiano]

Let’s not forget that with just 30 minutes of charging, you can regain 25% of the charge or up to 6 hours.

Even if you’re gone from work all day, it should be easy when you get home to find 15 or 30 minutes of down time where you can just flop them into the charger for a short period of time to replenish just enough to last until the end of the night.

And let’s not forget that 16 hours is with heavy streaming already. So unless you spend much less than 8 hours a day sleeping and spend all your waking hours wearing the More, the risk of having 16 heavy streaming hours not being enough to last you through the day is almost nil.

In my opinion, the strategy of taking just 15 or 30 minute down time some time after you get home from work to top it off just enough to last through the rest of your day (even an unlikely necessity unless you sleep less than 8 hours a day) is much better than a strategy where you keep a spare pair charged up to swap when necessary.

Even trying to swap spare batteries in and out of the hearing aid every other day to keep them charged up like you’re proposing is already a much clunkier approach full of more hassle than just finding a 15 -30 minute down time when you’re at home to flop them into the charger to top it off, if that’s even necessary.

[Um_bongo]

I’d go with this; perhaps consider a second charger to go in your car for your commute home (if you still have a commute, that is).

Swapping the batteries is a bit fiddly due to the locking compartment and there’s no way currently of charging a loose battery anyway.

[Luga]

This past Friday i wore the More 1’s for 15 hours and 25 minutes and did probably a total of 7 streaming hours (phone plus TV adapter). Went to bed with one HA having 14% and the other 15%.

I have thought about the spare rechargeable and have to agree that there is no practical way to keep them charged because you can only charge them inside of the instrument. For me, this would make it unworkable in practice because you need the HA’s in the charger longer to charge two sets of batteries. I would also have to store them safely given they are Lithium-ion and presumably a (small) fire risk if they shorted out against each other somehow.

This suggestion from Volusiano is what i will end up doing if i run into issues. It’s what i do for my Apple Watch which i wear during the day and at night for sleep tracking. A small inconvenience and its all about routine.

Will keep tracking usage and the 16 hours still seem reasonable so far… It will be interesting to see what happens as the batteries age. I understand replacement is under warranty so we’ll see.

[Luga]

@Um_bongo Also considered a second charger and just amazed at the cost! I dont think there is much going on in there

It’s definitely an option and something i will need to eventually do for travel…

Oticon Charger 1.0 - Hearing Aids 365

[cvkemp]

I have the OPNS1 rechargeable aids and I have 2 chargers, and it comes in handy when traveling. My wife and I are retired and have a camp trailer and the second charger is always in the go pack for quick packing for trips.

[orient8443]

Thanks for sharing. I got my Oticon More 1 about one week ago and feel quite satisfied now comparing with my previous Oticon Opn 3.

Since I am quite often using streaming with my iPhone or ipad, I would like to know the time I spent on streaming. May I ask where do you know the time of streaming? From the Oticon on APP? Or other way I could find it out?

Thank you for your reply in advance.

Alex

[cvkemp]

The ON app is a best guess. But it is fairly close as long as the hearing fitness site is working, but it doesn’t show streaming phone calls. I can only see that from my iPhone call logs

[Luga]

Yeah, that is what i did… added the TV streaming time from the Oticon app to the phone call logs. It’s an approximation.

[orient8443]

Thanks for reply. From the HearingFitness on Oticon On App only showed the daily total time used and time for each program, not the streaming time. I think there is no place to show the time of streaming in the App.

[Luga]

I got the streaming time to the TV adapter (which i use on my computer) from the Hearing Fitness portion of the app which you found. As noted earlier, phone calls are not recorded here and that time came from the phone “recents” log.

In this example the 2h 54m is the time on the TV Adapter

[orient8443]

Got it. Thanks for the explanation.

[Luga]

Just an update here.

So far I have not run into a situation where the More 1’s run out of power early.

The closest I’ve come was yesterday after a long day at work on calls, some TV watching and streaming the Apple keynote…

15 and a half hours of use with over 9 hours of TV streaming (I use a TV Adapter on my computer for MS Teams calls).

Right before going to bed i got the chime for low power for the first time. When i powered them down the left HA was at 6%.

Not bad at all so far…

With respect to the sound quality, i still hear “more” sounds than with the S1’s so i can feel an improvement that may not be “Wow!” but its definitely there. Speech understanding over road noise (my main challenge) is better after several adjustments but maybe not significantly better.

Looking forward and hoping that true hands-free can be delivered via a firmware update as some have suggested after the MFI announcement from Apple last month and the update from Oticon posted elsewhere in the forum.

Thanks!

[cvkemp]

Thank you for this post, I now have the OPNS1 rechargeable aids and will be getting my More1 aids on the 18th of this month. I wear my aids about the same amount of time each day as you are showing but not near as much streaming, at least not in good weather. I am retired so I stream, personally calls, listen to audiobooks, and stream Tv with the TV adapter. Normally about 3 to 4 hours a day. With my OPNS1 aids I have normal over 40% of the batteries at the end of the day. My Audiologist did tell me that the More aids would use more of the batteries.
Find my OPNS1 aids are doing much better than any aids before them, so I do hope the More aids give a little more still.