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Jim I am talking about the late 1950s and early 1960s in east Texas we still had lots of open land or we had large farms and ranges that back then the owns did not care if we crossed or even camped as long as we did not disturb them.
Then back in 2002 I lost my first wife due to a roll over accident, and I was not handling it that well as could be expected. My dad, my uncle and two of my cousins took me out in to the deep woods of east Texas where we roughed it for 10 days, and I was not allowed to be a lone for a minute. It really helped, and having my cousin there that just happened to be a pastor did help a lot too. What none of my family and friends knew or maybe I did not know they knew was that I did not want to be a live any more. My wife was going to retire from 29 years of teaching the week end after the accident, and my daughter was graduating from high school that next weekend. It was like the world was caving in on me. But that 10 days set me back on the path that I needed, because I had to be there for my kids and grandkids.
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I’m personally a huge lithium battery and rechargeable fan. I’ve worked on lots of custom battery projects out of lithium cells from custom e-bikes, RC cars or portable battery packs. I’m working on a custom battery pack right now for our handheld ham radios that we use for racing and building the battery pack out of regular 18650 lithium batteries. It’s amazing what you can do with these batteries and for such a small cost.
The rechargeable batteries in these hearing aids are subject to the same battery principles for any lithium based cell. They are good for a certain number of charge cycles, and they lose X% of their overall capacity with each charge cycle depending on how deep the charge cycle went and other factors like heat, rate of charge, etc. I expect Phonak sourced high quality cells and tested them well to meet the manufacturers specs, so barring manufacturing defects, you are left with the regular lifespan of a lithium cell. They can vary a bit based on a lot of factors, but the general rule of thumb is that a lithium cell with lose about 15% of it’s maximum capacity after 250 charge cycles. A full charge cycle is running the battery dead, and modern electronics shut the devices off at the proper minimum voltage.So a charge cycle for someone who runs their hearing aids down to only 50% each night is theoretically is only using half a charge cycle and won’t lose as much capacity with each charge. Smaller cycles in the middle of the charging range makes a huge improvement in battery life and stress, but no one wants to pull their phone or hearing aids off the charger at 60% and run them to 40% several times per day. In the end, a hearing aid battery may still work after 5 or 6 years, but it will have likely have less than half the capacity at that point and may not really be usable.
Battery tech is really incredible and it’s advancing fast in some areas, but so slow in others. Battery University is a great resource on how batteries work and how you can prolong the life of your batteries. There are a lot of battery myths out there with battery memory, charging, etc. that persist out there that just don’t exist anymore.
My biggest gripe with the rechargeable hearing aids is when I go to bed. Sometimes I like to talk to my wife as we fall asleep. I’ll keep my right hearing aid in until she’s out or until it’s time to roll over and I’ll pull my HA and pop the door cover and lay it on the nightstand. Or… I’ll turn on the light, open the lid to the charger, drop it in, close the lid and go to sleep. Maybe I’ll learn how to do that in the dark, but it’s a pain. I’m totally spoiled from having worn the Lyrics for the last 10 years which allowed me to hear 24x7 and change the hearing aids every 3 months. You really take that stuff for granted with a switch like this. I really miss being able to hear 24x7.
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Jim,
Have you done any research on Lithium Ion Polymer batteries? It is my understanding that this newer technology is better than the older Lithium Ion technology. Lithium Ion Polymer batteries are significantly lighter and supply significantly more power. Battery life is also significantly longer. They are also significantly more expensive. But if they are used in HA’s that cost thousands of dollars, maybe a higher price battery could be justified. Maybe that is how Phonak is coming up with their claims of a 6 year battery lifetime and a full day’s use even with streaming while using such a tiny battery.
Battery University is calling the Lithium Ion Polymer battery hype, but then at the bottom of the article it says:
Last Updated 2017-07-31
That’s almost two years ago and I know that technology can make a lot of advances in two years. But then I’m no battery chemist or engineer.
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I had a FCC General while in the service it didn’t require Morse code, I couldn’t figure out how to understand Morse code and as it turned out it was due to my hearing loss. And as it turned out my hearing loss was due to my job in the service.
And as an Electronics Tech and software engineer my hearing loss made my job much harder. But I managed for many years with out hearing aids but as I look back I wish I had gotten aids much earlier in life maybe I wouldn’t have the issues with word recognition that I have now.
Wow, we do get off track here, huh? Backpacking in the wilderness, ham radio, blowing up things with one’s chemistry set. Ah, I remember doing all those things in the good old days of adolescence (K3GMT here, although W0AOY for a year in the middle).
But to get back on track a bit, I believe my initial resistance to the idea of rechargeable batteries comes from my experiences in olden times when rechargeable batteries were pretty punk. Some still are, like the ones they gave up on with the wireless mics at church (we’ve “updated” with ones requiring AA batteries).
More recently, I started to remember visiting my nonagenarian mother. The first thing I’d have to do when I’d go visit was to replace the batteries in her HAs so that we could chat. She no longer had the digital dexterity to change them herself. Good son that I am, I’ve inherited my mother’s penchant for arthritis. As a result, I’ve recently noticed that changing those tiny batteries is getting difficult. I still think my next HAs will probably be the replaceable type, but I’m guessing that in another 10 years, I’ll be looking at rechargeable ones myself, if only to save my children from having to change batteries for me, and during times before they visit, not being able to communicate with my spouse.
Glad to see another battery nerd on here Jim! And I mean that as a compliment. Battery University is great for a battery primer, but definitely not cutting edge or always up to date. There are lots of new lithium based battery types out there now and polymer has been really popular for custom applications. We’re about to try out some Lithium Iron Phosphate, (LiFePO4) which are pretty promising.
I’m sure the manufacturers are getting better and better at the number of charge cycles which is great. My concern still with these hearing aid batteries is that they are likely to run pretty full charge cycles each day of use and there is limited ability to top them off during the day due to inconvenience unlike a phone where you can handle having it plugged in or resting on a charge pad. Like TraderGary said, I’ll probably be on new tech in 2 years anyway, so it’d probably be fine.
The HAM radio stuff has been really interesting for me. I just got my license a few years ago, but it was for the sole purpose of communications during off road riding/racing. It’s cool hearing about guys bouncing signals off the ionosphere, but I’m not even playing in that realm. The real HAMs can be really hard core about that stuff! Maybe someday.
For Chromebooks if one wants a battery test, enter CROSH (like C prompt in Windows) by hitting CTRL/ALT/T and typing battery_test
Sorry, @jim_lewis, if my comment came off as critical. It was not meant to be. I was trying for a touch of lightness, I think. I actually love getting to know people better and getting to know their backgrounds and proclivities. I rather enjoyed reading your flagged “off-topic” post. Such things bring back memories, and I certainly knew people who became chemists in later life who did some weird stuff with their chemistry sets back in the day (some even with MIT associations). I tried, but never managed more than some brilliant flairs and stinks. I think it also helps to know from where one might be coming when they opine about hearing aids, batteries, audiologists, and the like. So throwing in the bit of the personal helps with the filtering process.
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That’s hilarious! I wouldn’t be surprised if the forum platform auto-flagged it with the technology these days. I did a lot of dumb and dangerous things learning things the hard way, but I’m to prideful to share 
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Hate reviving old topic and don’t mean to restart a rehash, but got some interesting feedback from my audiologist on rechargeables. I was actually considering them. He sees them as definitely useful for those that want the convenience but doesn’t consider them quite “mature” technology. The have occasional (estimated 10%) issues with both the batteries and the chargers. His biggest frustration is that when issues crop up, his only option is to send them in–nothing he can do about it. Just something to factor into one’s decision.
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I think it’s good that you did revive the topic.
My take is that lithium ion batteries may very well be maturing. The Li-ion batteries in my phone easily last a day and a half with hours of screen time every day. Li-ion in my laptop easily last for more than 12 hours of use when out and about in the day with no need to carry the charger. The new Li-ion polymer batteries, and I assume that’s what is used in my Marvels, are supposed to last 6 years. Although I’m sure that within another year or two I’ll be upgrading to the next amazing thing! I do recharge all my devices every night.
I’m almost 9 months in with my Marvels and I can’t detect any lowering of daily use. I still have 30 to 60 percent of battery left at the end of the day, depending on how much music streaming I do, and so far reliability has been 100%. KOW (Knock On Wood) 
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I see that in iOS 13, one of the claimed improvements is the smarts to monitor your phone use habits and when the phone is recharged each day, it is only recharged up to the level you need for the next day, not a full charge. It is claimed this extends the life of the battery.
I know in my Toyota Hybrid a similar strategy is used with the NiMH batteries in it.
Perhaps HA chargers will get that smart at some point…
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I’m grateful I found this thread…I’m a brand new owner of Phonak Audeo P90-R HA’s. First full day of use today. I am disappointed in my rechargeable batteries. I typically wear my hearing aids 17 hours a day. Today I’m charging my batteries after only 11-1/2 hours of use. 10% life left in my L, and 12 % left in my right HA.
If I can’t figure this out I’ll be really disappointed.
Dave
My first thought is how much streaming do you do. That also includes time streaming phone calls. I don’t have the same ads as you do, I have the Oticon More1 aids and t does depend on the amount of streaming. I have gone well over 24 hours in a charge without streaming. But it get at least 18 hours with about 4 hours of streaming.
Make sure they’re fully charged and see what happens tomorrow. Keep track of time spent streaming. If still an issue tomorrow, report to person who sold them to you. It might just be a bad pair of aids or you might be better off with disposable size 13 batteries.
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I don’t stream.
However, at lunch I found the hearing environment bad–noise behind. So I turned to one of the programs “talking with noise, or loud noise.” And I never switched back to auto.
I wonder if that ate extra battery time. That was from 2:00 pm or so to 8:00 pm.
Well I’ve never had rechargeable but there have been times when I have forgotten to put my aids in the dehumidifier at night.and there have been times when I’m out and about and my aids notify me that the batteries are about to die so it’s easy to pop in two tiny batteries that I carry as spares instead of heading back home. Take this for what it’s worth