Starkey Hearing Aid Stopped Working

Hearing Aids
#1

I don’t know that anyone will be able to help, seeing as this involves Starkey, which seems to be one of the less popular brands, and CROS, which makes it an even rarer beast, but I want to at least report, and vent, and maybe get some commiseration or advice.

I was fitted with Starkey Genesis BiCROS hearing aids at the end of July, so they’re not even two months old. I charged them last night, as usual, and put them in this morning, as usual. When I got to work, I discovered that the CROS transmitter (on the deaf ear) wasn’t working (since it doesn’t actually produce any sound, it’s often not obvious it’s on and functioning). It wouldn’t turn on. I even ran home to get the charger to see if that would somehow help. It’s now fully charged, and still nothing (the light on the charger blinked to show charging, and then stopped blinking, showing a full charge). And of course, the return period expired just yesterday (Friday the 13th as it happens).

So, Starkey or not, has anything like this happened to you? Any troubleshooting tips? How do you cope? I really hope this is just some profound bad luck and some kind of fluke, and not a common occurrence, or some flaw with Starkey. I hope and presume this is covered by warranty, but still. What in your experience does it take to get a replacement or repair, and how long does it take (in the United States, if relevant). Since I’m a hearing aid noob, I’m wondering how often failures occur, and how you deal with it.

And just to continue my tale of woe, I am on the one hand very lucky that I got the hearing aids through my union, which means I paid a fraction of the price at a private clinic. The downside is not a lot of customer service, and it can take weeks to get an appointment with the audiologist (she’s one person dealing with the hearing aid needs of 150,000 members). To top it all off, I’m traveling in early October, so I’m facing the real, or even likely, possibility of having to travel for two weeks with just one ear.

The saving grace is that the hearing on the “good” ear, which also has a hearing loss, still works, so I can still hear properly on that side. And I’ve been dealing with single sided deafness for years, so that’s still an improvement over a month and a half ago. So, to an extent this is a first world problem, but dang, it’s frustrating. Getting the hearing aids in the first place was something of a rigmarole, and I was so excited finally to be able to hear properly again.

#2

I have a suspicion that the receiver was damaged. Try to replace the sides of the receiver, to see if there is a malfunction of the receiver or the hearing aid.

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#3

OK. NO to that! Hearing is integral to performance, so you need to elevate this and put out an SOS RIGHT NOW - or if no one will take messages on a weekend, first thing Monday morning. At the minimum, you’ll need a loaner replacement. In short order, you’ll need the Starkey either fixed or replaced.

I’d go so far as to mention in my message/e-mail that I’ll be BUYING this device on my own and will need immediate reimbursement. It’s not your fault if you get a defective aid. As markoo355 posted, I also suspected the receiver/speaker end of this unit, but without someone looking at the total pair together, you won’t know.

Meantime, I think it would be incredibly dense and completely unprofessional to send you out on a trip with ONE EAR. Ask the president of your company (or even your boss) would YOU travel on behalf of the company unable to clearly hear or function on the road?

I sure hope you get resolution PDQ for your own peace of mind. Starkey is not a favorite among many for the reason you are now experiencing. My previous audi no longer fits them (AI or not!) but refers interested customers to an audi who does in his area.

GOOD LUCK to you and please keep us posted! Be creative. If you HAVE to travel, find an alternative to give you hearing in both ears.

#4

I don’t understand. By receiver, do you mean the hearing aid on the good ear? That seems to be working properly. How do you “replace the sides of the receiver”?

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#5

I’ll contact them on Monday and do my best to get them to act as quickly as possible, but that probably doesn’t mean fast. Like a said, I got top-of-the-line prescription hearing aids for dirt cheap, as such things go, but it was a long process. The appointment for the first consultation took months. Then weeks for the actual fitting. I started with a “basic” tier model, and decide to upgrade to “premium” tier, which meant returning the hearing aids, so I had none at all, and wait yet another month for another fitting. I’ve been back for an adjustment, and that appointment took close to two weeks. So I’m not that hopeful that things will be done before the beginning of October. I’m quite certain they don’t have loaners. I didn’t even get to try different models. If I wanted to, I would have had to get the first pair, return them, wait again to be fitted with the next pair, rinse repeat. The audiologist recommended Starkey, so I got Starkey. I asked her why, and the answer was, for reasons I don’t quite understand, another brand would have cost me $1,000+ more. It had something to do with CROS hearing aids and the deal they could get from Starkey versus the other brands.

I’m trying to stay sanguine about the whole thing. Six weeks ago I had no hearing aids at all, so just one is still an improvement. The other ear has been near deaf since forever anyway. At the end of the day it’s a first world problem. I’m lucky that I can get hearing aids at all (so many can’t), never mind highly subsidized ones. But it sure is frustrating, though.

#6

What type of Starkey hearing aid do you have, BTE? RIC? ITE? Have you replaced the cerumen filter in your hearing aid? Try to see if your smartphone can find your hearing aid’s Bluetooth so you can tell if the hearing aid can be turned on.

#7

You are remarkably upbeat and optimistic - which is a good thing! Any chance you could post an audiogram (just ask clinic to email you a pdf so you could input the numbers for LEFT and RIGHT ears).

It seems as if the price of these Starkeys was the final determinator - and your audi is pitching them HARD based on cost savings. However, hearing is highly nuanced, and that’s why folks actually prefer and HEAR better with a brand that THEY choose - and not one just pitched to them.

I hope someone can make the “impossible” happen for you. We have to be our own advocates, and I’d be persistent as a pitbull to get aids given my level of loss.

#8

I have Starkey Genesis AI 24 RIC BiCROS, so their top-of-the-line. The app only shows the right ear; it normal shows both. The CROS transmitter (on the deaf left ear) doesn’t connect to the phone directly, it only connects to the receiver (a normal hearing aid) on the right ear.

#9

the Cross does not have a working receiver/speaker. The CROS is wireless connected due to NFMI to the HA on the good ear , and a CROS device having only microphones + radio and sending the audio wireless to the good ear. All CROS device have a dummy wire with a non working dummy receiver and a dome ,for that , to fixated on the Cross device on the ear.
So on a Cros device is none working receiver wire and none working receiver/speaker.
For me it seems that the Cross device is faulty.
@wilfried pease contact your audiologist for an appointment

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#10

Part of me is quite frustrated and disappointed, I’m not generally an optimistic person, but I’m trying to make the best of things. I’m no worse off now than I was two months ago. This will get sorted eventually, and this too shall pass. Or so I try to tell myself.

This is a service the union provides its members. They subsidize the hearing aids, no one is making any money. The savings is to my pocket, to the tune of over $1,000, so she was looking out for my interests. As I said, this isn’t your typical clinic that has a dozen makes and models for you to try. You get one pair, and if you want to try another you return them, wait a month, and get fitted with the next pair. So no, the service isn’t the same as if you paid the full cost out of pocket. But I saved $5,000+, so to my mind a reasonable trade-off. And I get a real AuD, who I think is decent and competent, and can fit CROS, complete with real ear measurements. Since I need CROS, Costco and OTC are not options. I was reasonably happy with the Starkeys, at least until the failure happened, though I don’t have anything to compare them to. I have thought about going to a private clinic and paying out of pocket for some adjustments, and maybe ongoing maintenance, since I don’t get a lot of follow-up from the union.

PS I added my audiogram. I have piss poor word recognition in my left ear, “no useful hearing” they say.

#11

@wilfried @1Bluejay
My findings of Starkey were great!
My hearing on both ears is pretty good and I can’t speak for other persons and their hearings.
But Starkey is a very renown and big American company with great HA solutions.

About two years ago I bought the newest top model custom Starkey Evolve AI 2400 and was very happy with the fitting and results.
Streaming music, speech and ear-comfort of them were superb. (Custom fitting in my ear-canal was much better than that of my Phonak Virto P90’s b.t.w.)

What I also liked very much also was the comfortable Edge functionality which made very fast adapting possible in changing from very loud to comfortable situations. (Opening the doors to a loud concert hall and having direct respons in settings f.i.). Same for loud traffic and silent places.
Software was also good on the app. No complaints except for the BT connection in these first coming up In the ear models.

So I hope for wilfried that he will get the Aids working soon again as before and I wouldn’t worry about a one time functional issue at the moment. Starkey is also one of the Cross providers so don’t worry to much.

#12

OK! This is good! Hey, I’d take your audiogram over mine any day, lol! Just goes to show we can surmount these challenges and actually find aids that work for us.

I’m still waiting a MONTH to get my Phonak 312 batery Lumity Lifes back. VERY annoying! I have to swap out my 2 pairs of rechargeables every day if I want to stay up to 11pm and watch a movie. However, I’m overall very pleased with the Lumity Life aids - they have delivered a noticeable improvement in my speech comprehension after wearing them for a couple years now. I’d LOVE to bump up to the new Sphere, but that’s out of my ballpark for now.

You are totally right to feel frustrated and disappointed - especially as it seems a fluke that your Starkeys just up and failed so suddenly. Do you suppose they were a demo pair? In any case perhaps you could go to a Starkey clinic (or call local audis to see if they are conversant with your situation).

While clinics typically do NOT service aids they didn’t sell, I think your situation could convince them to help you out. Maybe they could “sell” you a pair, you put down a deposit, use it for the trial period, then return it. If you’re honest about how you need to get working Starkey CROS before an important trip, I can’t imagine a hearing clinic turning you away cold. Perhaps there is a loaner set?

Keep us posted.

#13

I would take hope from your optimistic assessment here! It’s just the timing of the failure that I can relate to and commisserate with. Augh! I’ve walked in those shoes, you betcha!

#14

OP, im curious… why BiCROS? I have worse one sided loss and no audi, Costco or private has ever suggested anything other than standard aids, either RIC, ITE or BTE. What am i missin here? Tnx

#16

I have severe hearing loss in one ear, with piss poor word recognition. “No useful hearing,” says everyone from the first audiologist at the hospital who did the first test, to the ENT, to the second audiologist who fitted the hearing aids,es who all recommended CROS. Amplifying that ear would do no good, as I still wouldn’t understand anything, and might make things worse, as all I’d hear is distortion. They might also say that that ear is “unaidable.” The other ear has more typical moderate to severe age related hearing loss in the high frequencies, so that ear gets a regular hearing aid (plus the sound that’s piped in from the CROS on the other ear).

#17

Today the CROS still doesn’t work, so I wore just the one hearing aid. I managed okay. Much of the time I couldn’t tell that the CROS wasn’t there. I did go to a gathering however, and then I did have to worry about pointing my good at the speaker. I might have done better in noise without the CROS, though. Hmm, something to consider when I get the CROS to work again.

As an aside, Starkey really does have exceptional battery life. With CROS, I usually end a 16 or 17 hour day with 30% or so battery life left, which isn’t bad. But wearing just the one hearing aid with no CROS, I’m now at 77% after 16 hours. Without CROS, I could go days without charging.

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