Hey everyone,
Just another short update and tip for those who are concerned about battery drain with Lumity. I have done a ton of trial and error experimenting to see what causes battery drain. I have noticed that on some days the batteries don’t drain down as quickly as others and I’ve been trying to figure out why.
Lumity uses one of the hearing aids as the “Master” to communicate with a bluetooth device. It’s typically set to the right ear but you can have your audiologist choose the left ear too (mine are set on left). This master hearing aids is responsible for the connection with the Bluetooth device and also transmits the audio signals to the other hearing aid. That is why the master hearing aid uses more battery than the other hearing aid.
I’ve noticed that I typically I end the day with the master hearing aid having about 10-15% less charge than the other hearing. This kinda makes sense given the master hearing aid is doing more work by being the broker for all the bluetooth connections for both hearing aids. What is strange is that on some days, I end the day with the master hearing aid at -30% or less than the other hearing aid. This is odd given that the amount of streaming I do each day is fairly consistent.
I’m quite certain that the extra drain happens when bluetooth is left in the on position on my work laptop. My home office is in the basement of my house and once I finish work for the day, I typically don’t go back to my home office until the next day. My theory is that the master hearing aid chews a bunch of extra power trying to reconnect to my work laptop (which is in the basement) as I walk around the house in the evening as the signal cuts in and out. As you can imagine, the signal strength is very marginal when you are more than 20 feet away from the laptop and/or when you are 1 to 2 floors above the laptop. I do leave my iPhone connected at all times but my iPhone is always quite close to me (in my pocket or on the table beside me).
So my advice is to feel free to keep your mobile phone connected at all times but turn off bluetooth on other devices after you are finished streaming with them. This includes laptops, the Phonak TV Connector, iPad, and any other bluetooth classic connections. This seems to minimize battery drain on Lumity. If you do notice that the battery level on your master hearing aid is 20-30% less than the other, odds are that you have have left one of your bluetooth devices on and your distance from this device is draining your master hearing aid battery as the hearing aid keeps disconnecting and reconnecting as your distance from the device increases/decreases.
As example, my master hearing aid was down 35% last night when I went to bed and when I just started working this morning, I noticed that I had forgotten to turn off bluetooth on my laptop after I finished working yesterday. This isn’t a flaw with Lumity. This is just how bluetooth works. I will also say that you will see the same battery drain on your mobile phone when you are in a remote area where the cell signal is extremely weak. Your phone will chew more power as it keeps trying to reconnect.
Just a theory I wanted to share.
Jordan