Hey guys.
Out of curiosity and saving money in case we get tight in the next few months … Battery drainage. I now it will be substantial almost 3 times more effective if I turn bluetooth off. Bit if i do that I’m wondering what will work
Will t coil work
Will roger work
Can i even turn Bluetooth off or it needs to be in airplane mode only. Is there a setting in target im missing? Thanks
Thanks
If I remember correctly you have Phonak Marvel aids.
Bluetooth can not be turned off on the Marvels.
Your choice is to turn off Bluetooth on all other devices or unpair your aids from all other devices.
You can’t turn the bluetooth in the aids themselves but if you turn it off on you devices you will significantly reduce battery consumption on the hearing aids.
Telecoil will still work, and I think that the Roger will still work as well.
Jim
If i turn bluetooth off phone wont it simply go in search bluetooth and still drain battery.
Airplane mode … if i turn on airplane mode will that cut roger and telecoil
And yes i do have ks9 that are equivalent to Marvel audeo 90. Im getting tcoils on the 5th.
I don’t think so, although I don’t know for sure. I don’t think the bluetooth is running if the HA isn’t paired to a device but it shouldn’t be any different than putting the phone in airplane mode which I know reduced drain on the hearing aids substantially.
Not sure, but I think so.
Roger doesn’t work in flight mode, tested.
Don’t know about t-coil. I think it should work, since it’s not the same chip.
If you unpair aids, then they won’t be connected to anything so no way to drain battery. Battery is drained when you use streaming. Even manipulation through the app is with btle, and is started only when you turn on the app and is shutdown when you exit the app.
Aids are in pairing mode only several seconds after turning on, after that they only can connect / respond to connection. If unpaired, they don’t have anything to connect to, so nothing to respond to. I didn’t test battery usage directly, just indirectly.
I had 312, and didn’t use streaming of any kind, can’t remember if I even paired them. Battery lasted for like 2 weeks.
Now with 13T and streaming whenever, battery is around a week. And rough estimate is that 13 is 50% more juice than 312.
Hearing only part of usage is similar, 6-8h a day. Streaming now is 2-4h of mixed BT and TV.
So yeah, I’d expect you’ll get significantly more juice if you just unpair them, depending how much you stream in the first place.
Even unpairing regular BT and leaving btle for the app, if you like remote control, should bring drastic reduces.
And leave the battery without cover for a 5 min before putting them in the aid. I read on several places that zinc air ones need that in order to prolonge their life based on how air activates them in the first place. I’ve started doing it and I think it works. Don’t have numbers, just a feeling.
Check Youtube channel of value hearing, they explained it better.
Blacky is right, I use Marvel Naida M90 SPs and stream tv maybe 6 hrs a day and I get 6 days per set.
The battery drain as Blacky said will only occur whilst streaming or on phone calls.
My advice, plug them in and relax and enjoy the sounds you were meant to hear and dont worry about it.
Perhaps another approach here would be to find the best battery (lasting) for cheapest price rather than trying to measure BT drain.
Phonak Audeo M90-R RIC — LiIon battery life with and without BT:
I’ve got a fair amount of experience now with my rechargeable HA and with BT. Here’s what I’ve learned that should apply somewhat to the 312 disposables. Note also, there are stock Panasonic specs that likely have the precise LiIon batteries that could be used to replace these, if your HA is out of warranty, (which might also destroy the water resistance rating.), “Factory-only repairs” are true for HA’s and for Cell phones as well. But, you’d have to be a moron to not go to a third party repair house in a few years from now if it wears out. (See note at the END of this, about LiIon longevity.)
BTW, If you are listening to music with BT, follow some of my design ideas for HA’s. Here’s my rant on music, BT, Molds, occlusions, and “<100 Hz bass response”. I guess this should become a separate post:
I’ve had acrylic molds from the VA since January, Finally, someone here told me that the VA had “occlusion plugs” that I could get. It really irritated me to be told that, “HAs are 'not designed to be for music, but were made for speech”. BULL!!! They can sound great!! But, ONLY if you ADD “occluded” ear molds. However, there are some problems:
Staying connected to BT devices: Walk more than 20 feet away, or behind a door, and you will have intermittent connect / reconnect about every 30 seconds. When you get back and are in range again, next to the device, it will NEVER reconnect properly!! The fix / workaround is to go to the source BT device, disconnect for at least 5 seconds, and reconnect, (and hope your device doesn’t automatically attach to a different BT device automatically, instead). Irritating to fix your connection when it should / could “just work”, but doesn’t without manual work added, every time you walk out of range.
Using for “Communication”, (AKA, “Headset” that shows a boom mike in the icon), AND ALSO “Earphones”, with no microphone. This is mostly for Windows 10 PCs: These are classed as two different device types, BOTH are paired BT “devices”. So, let say that you are listening to music. If using “earphones”, everything will work OK. But, if you try to listen using the “headset”, you get clicking / static; not terrible, but somewhat annoying. Try to switch from music source to “Meet”, “Skype” or PC phone?? Yeah, well, if you aren’t “careful”, you’ll get to hear, but can’t talk, or you can talk, but not hear. Often, if you “test your settings”, you will get the message to “don’t use unmatched devices”. Then, you can also be using, the “default playback”, or the “default” “recording devices”. Huh?? Yes, well, the Windows device stack is hard to get right. Worse though, is turning on one device, turns off the other, and seemingly ever random combinations. Every time I think I have if figured out, Window or the application tries to outsmart me. RULE: IF you switch devices shortly before a call, and you haven’t tested BOTH the incoming sound AND the mike, it WILL NOT WORK, and you will be trying to fix it, while other frustrated users watch your supposed stupidity. When this happens, get a MANUAL headset, plug it in, and turn OFF BT. Or, turn off BT, and just use th built in speakers and mike from a laptop. Test it, but it will likely work best and fastest.
While using the OCCLUDED HAs, you will NOT hear most of the ambient sound or speaking around you, anymore!! The fix / workaround that works best, is to merely pull the ear molds partially out of your ear. Also keep in mind that like any occluded earphones, eating will create very loud sound, and will also tend to re-seat your earmolds. For me though, the fantastic music sound you get is well worth it. NOTE that with most of these occlusion plug add-ons, they are next to impossible to install, so you can’t just add them when you want great sound.
Installing these occlusion plugs have several problems, at least the ones I had been given by the VA: The hole to fill is “D” shaped, and the plugs are round cylinders. The plugs have a small hole drilled all the way through them, so if using one with a large hole, you also have to fill that hole. The cylinders are NOT tapered, so getting them to start into the hole is difficult. The “D” shaped holes are differently sized, so picking the right plugs is not easy, (but, you do get a large assortment of sizes). The plugs are the same 1/4" length that the molds are, so you can’t grip the slippery plugs, while inserting them into the “D” shaped holes. I used a special pair of tweezers, but it was still difficult.
You now will hear perfect bass, but only down to 100 HZ cutoff. I was shocked to see how little I cared about this fact! Your brain adjusts your perception of this missing sound, so you won’t miss it much, unless you must duplicate your ride’s “low-rider blaring bass”, that trucks from 1/2 mile around can’t miss. I listen regularly to the free Radio Paradise lossless FLAC channels, and the sound is the best quality I’ve every heard, even when I had perfect hearing. (This also the best and largest commercial free, listener supported music station you’ll ever find, build by a DJ from the 1970’s!!)
Even with the problems, these rechargeable Phonaks with occluded molds, coupled with BT PC and phone, have done more to my quality of life, than I could have imagined. The green LED charging light quit on both sides, and so the VA has sent them out to Phonak for repair for over two weeks. Other than that, I really miss them.
Fine tuning the equalizer in my PC, for my $200 Klipsch earphones is much harder than I thought. They pale in comparison to the great sound U get from my Phonaks. Don’t believe that well designed HA’s aren’t for music. That defies common sense. Just FIX the frequency loss that you will get with ANY open HA’s without molds that include occlusion, and you will get nearly perfect sound. Oh, and all the annoying ambient sounds around you while listening?? Most all that annoyance is eliminated!!
(If you really want BOTH ambient sound and great music, you can also play with the HA gain, to increase it to max, when BT is playing. You can do that by turning the HA DOWN while listening, and then BOOSTING the source volume. I personally don’t bother, since if I want ambient speech, I just pull the HA’s out slightly, and still must mute / or decrease the source BT sound.)
LiIon LONGEVITY: There an hour video out there someplace, of the Panasonic “Field Application Engineers” teaching the Chevy engineers how to incorporate their batteries into cars. I was told today that Chevy Volt’s batteries last virtually forever, vs their competitor’s electric cars, so the advice must have been great. Here’s what I heard:
Evidently, Chevy engineers did it right and listened, and most others, didn’t. I can only hope that most of the current cell phones that don’t have user-replaceable batteries, have designed in 90% and not 100%. Also, I hope phonak did it right. If not, there will be a great market for someone to learn how to replace these batteries, and also I would hope that Phonak would update it’s firmware to only charge to 90%.
My experience, Marvel: If I tell my Cellphone (and ChromeBook) to un-pair/forget, battery life rises from 6 days to 8 days. A little, not a lot. I do lose instant access to MyPhonak, which is now how I get to Restaurant mode, but the restaurants are mostly closed or too crowded for me…
By default the BT in the HA is “alive all the time”. But if not actively paired, it only blips-on for a millisecond every so many seconds, to say “Who wants me?” So power drain is significantly less than an active ‘real’-time link working steady.
I have not tried Airplane Mode.
This forum’s Store sold me 80 Batteries for $22. That is 28 cents per cell per day. If I get 2 days more with BT shut-down, I’ll save about $9 in the course of a year. It is wise to be watching such expense, but other costs may be more urgent.
I pay 50 cents a battery. But for 4 days instead of 8. So thats roughly 105 dollars with taxes a year Instead of 52 dollars a year.
Annnnnnnd i would agree. I can seriously seriously afford 52$ extra a year. But this matters to me this year because my husband, a nurse has had it. And is returning back to school to become a Roofer. Anything else with no stress. And at this point we will have one salary for a family of 5 or 6 for 10 months. Thats 3 adults 2 kids and my sons gf is almost always here. So yeah it matters. 
A lot.
So im calculating everything. From garbage bags prices to hearing aid battery to Netflix to bus passes.
Covid and nurse shortage has gotten the best of us. Im a nurse too but dont work on the hoslital floors.
So im trying it out. Im using air plane mode. T coil works with airplane mode.
I will keep a journal or how many hours ha work when on aplane mode via no bluetooth via bt.
This forum is awsome…
If tcoil is working in airplane mode, then you can still use mics or listen streaming. But don’t know how much tcoil eats battery as opposed to having receivers in.
Roger mylink and then around the neck.
Or loops to plugin in the music source.
But don’t expect quality.
However, I think both solutions cost more than difference in batteries. Just to keep in mind if you stumble upon someone throwing theirs.
I’m wondering, how you get only 4 days out of the batteries with I guess just S receivers since you don’t have loss? How much of BT streaming?
Lol. I know. I dont have much loss. Unfortunately the little loss i do have is causing me to not understand speech in noise at all. Its about 60% word recognition in noise vs 100% no noise.
I don’t stream much. Its connected but i dont stream. I get notifications. That’s about it.
Hm weird. I’d expect better battery life than your 4. I wonder what eats the juice.
With 312 I got around two weeks with M receiver and no streaming, but short days of 6-8h of usage and I wasn’t careful with batteries, I didn’t wait anything before putting new ones in.
Now I have P, stream several hours a day, size 13, lasts for a week, and for S receiver is 10-12-14 days, I constantly lose the track of it. Average total usage around 8h a day.
I’m using powerone batteries, and always got decent and constant usage time out of them, 5 years now… Maybe there lies the difference?
