- Wondering which hearing aid brands
have the best rechargeable aids?
Well in this video, I'm covering my top
rechargeable hearing
aids heading into 2018
coming up.
(upbeat music)
Hi guys, Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology,
and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions
in Anthem, Arizona.
And on this channel
I cover a bunch of hearing
related information
to help make you a
better informed consumer.
So if you're into that, consider hitting
that subscribe button.
Rechargeable hearing aids have been around
for a while now but they've really
taken a step forward since the end
of 2016.
And throughout 2017, we've seen all of the
major six manufacturers actually come out
with rechargeable hearing aid options.
In light of this, I wanted to create
a video to discuss my
top four rechargeable
hearing aid options
as we head into 2018.
Before I start getting
into the different types
of rechargeable hearing aids,
we should really have a good understanding
of what the three different
types of rechargeable
hearing aid batteries are.
The first one is nickel metal hydride.
This rechargeable battery option
has actually been around for a while now
and was commonly used
in Siemens rechargeable
hearing aids.
One of the nice things
about this type of battery
is that you could interchange it
with a disposable battery.
So if you happen to
run out of battery life
at some point in the day
and you needed some more battery
to get you through the rest of the day,
you really could break
out a disposable battery.
Next came the silver zinc batteries
and these batteries
were really made popular
by Z power.
The company Z power really started to push
these type of rechargeable batteries
and actually retrofit them onto existing
hearing aid brands.
They have a little bit better battery life
than a nickel metal hydride battery
but you still run into
the same issue potentially
if you don't get a full
day's charge out of it.
And just like nickel metal hydride,
you can exchange these
with disposable batteries
inside of the hearing aid
if it doesn't give you
that full day's charge.
The newest rechargeable
hearing aid battery option
on the market is the lithium ion
and you're probably familiar
with the lithium ion batteries
because this is the type
of battery that has been
charging your cell phones for years.
The great thing about them is that they
actually give you longer battery life
and a reduced charging time.
On top of that, these
batteries last actually
longer in years compared
to the silver zinc battery
or the nickel metal hydride battery.
If we look at a comparison chart,
you can see that the lithium ion batteries
outperform nickel metal
hydride and silver zinc
in basically every category.
The key differences are the time it takes
for a battery to recharge,
how many times you can
recharge the batteries,
expected lifetime of
the batteries in years
and the self discharge
rate which indicates
the drain of a battery
when it's not in use.
So now that you have a good idea of the
different rechargeable battery types,
let's take a look at my favorite
rechargeable hearing aids.
Number four is the Starkey Muse.
The Starkey Muse hearing
aid uses the Z power
conversion kit in order to take the
regular Starkey Muse and convert it into
a rechargeable one.
With the rechargeable Muse hearing device,
you can actually get up to about 22 hours
worth of battery life assuming you're not
going to stream any music or TV
or anything like that into the aid
and assuming that you have the weakest
power receiver for someone who
doesn't have as severe of a hearing loss.
The reason this hearing aid came in at
number four and not higher on the list
is for a couple different reasons.
First is that it's not the
made for iPhone version
of Starkey hearing aid.
That is the Halo device.
The other thing is that
it can't be converted
in office by your hearing
care professional.
It actually has to either be ordered with
the rechargeable option
or that hearing aid
needs to be sent back to Starkey
for them to retrofit it with the
correct battery door and
rechargeable battery.
One of the other negatives outside of that
is that because the rechargeable battery
only lasts about a year.
You need to get a new battery annually
and that can really eat up the savings
you thought that you were going to get
by having rechargeable battery.
Now there is some exciting news that just
came out of Starkey and that's that
here in February of 2018,
they're actually coming out with their
lithium version of the Starkey Muse.
What Starkey is saying is that this new
lithium hearing aid is
actually going to get you
30 hours of battery life which includes
the ability to stream.
It'll be 30% smaller than
their other hearing device
and it's going to be able to be compatible
with their cross technology
which is great for individuals who
have single sided deafness.
My third favorite rechargeable hearing aid
is the ReSound Linx 3D.
Now there are a lot of
ReSound Linx 3D models
but it's only for the receiver in the ear
961, 761 and 561 models.
Similar to the Starkey hearing aid,
it's actually a conversion
with the Z power
rechargeable kit.
The really cool thing is
is that the Linx line of hearing devices
are compatible with direct
to iPhone technology.
However, this does come with its negatives
being in that if you are streaming
for two plus hours a day,
you're probably going to be getting
below 14 hours worth
of battery life a day.
Nonetheless, the rechargeable Linx 3D
hearing aid option is a really good one.
My second favorite
rechargeable hearing aid
heading into 2018 is the
Oticon Opn hearing aid.
Yes, the extremely popular
Oticon Opn hearing aid
is now rechargeable with the conversion
with the Z power kit.
The great thing about this conversion
is that your audiologist or
your hearing care professional
can actually change the battery doors
to the rechargeable battery door
and put in the rechargeable
batteries for you
so it doesn't have to be sent
back to the manufacturer.
Of course the Oticon Opn hearing aid is
made for direct connection to an iPhone.
Of course, this also has a draining nature
on the rechargeable battery.
You can get up to 19.5
hours worth of battery life
if you don't do any streaming
and then it can pull you down into that
15, 14, 13 hours of battery life
if you spend a couple hours a day
streaming from the phone
or from the TV streamer.
That being said you really can't go wrong
with an Oticon Opn
hearing aid and it's just
a nice additional perk to be able to have
it be rechargeable.
And my number one favorite
rechargeable hearing aid
as we head into 2018 is actually a tie.
It's a tie between the Phonak Audeo B-R
and the Phonak Bolero B-PR rechargeable
hearing aids.
The reason I like them so much
is because they use the
lithium ion battery technology
which gets you longer battery life,
shorter charging times,
ability to stream for
longer on one charge,
ability to have the same
battery in the device
for up to four years
and it's just really nice
not to have to fumble
with any kind of batteries or battery door
or anything like that.
If there is something that
happens to the battery
within your warranty period,
they change out the battery for you
with no additional cost.
If you listen to me
talk about the benefits
of lithium ion batteries
versus the other types
of rechargeable batteries,
it's probably clear to
you why I'm such a big fan
of the lithium technology
but it doesn't really stop there.
Phonak has also given you the ability
to take your recharger
kit on the road with you
by having a power pack that you can plug
into the bottom of the recharger.
This will give you
seven additional charges
on top of not even
needing to have it plugged
into the wall so it really makes it
a good travel option.
They also have a mini recharger
that you can take and maybe keep at work
or something like that.
Now, there is the possibility
that even though you are
getting longer charges
on these devices or longer battery life
on these devices, if you need to recharge
throughout the day, it's super easy
because in 15 to 30 minutes you can add
six hours worth of battery life
onto the devices which
will more than likely
get you through the rest of the day.
In fact, if you look at this picture here
you can see that in
terms of charging time,
it only takes 30 minutes
to get that six hours
worth of battery life.
One hour to give you 12
hours worth of battery life
and in order to get the full 24 hours,
you only need to charge it for three.
Now it's not all good with
the Phonak rechargeable
hearing devices.
Every hearing aid, somehow,
has some little drawbacks
that make it not absolutely perfect.
And in the case of the Phonak
rechargeable hearing devices
if you do go for a long period of time
throughout that day and you're
streaming a bunch of stuff,
whether it's TV or music
and then you're going out
at night and you run out of battery
and you don't have access to a charger
for 15 to 30 minutes,
then you can't exchange your batteries
with disposable batteries.
So you'll actually kind of be up a creek
so to speak and not be able
to use your hearing aids
if they run out of battery.
There you go, those are
my favorite rechargeable
hearing aids as we go into 2018.
And I do just want to give out a quick
shout out or an honorable mention to
the Signia Cellion hearing aids.
They are a rechargeable hearing aid
that also uses lithium ion technology.
If you're not familiar with Signia,
it's because it was formerly known as
Siemens and I have worked
with Siemens in the past
but I have not had a chance to work with
their Cellion hearing aid so I really
couldn't include it in this list.
Okay so now that we're done going over
the rechargeable hearing aid options,
I feel like it's really
important that you understand
that the same thing goes with
rechargeable hearing aids
as it does with traditional hearing aids.
The absolute best rechargeable
hearing aid for you
is the one that is fit
appropriately to your hearing loss.
And when I say that, I
mean that they're actually
being fit and programmed correctly
and one of the biggest components of that
is having real ear measurements performed
on those hearing aids while
they're in their ears.
I'm going to link in a card up here
a video that I did about
real ear measurements
and I absolutely recommend that you
check out that video.
I will also link it in
the description below
because that is the number one factor
that will dictate how much success
you have with your
rechargeable hearing aid.
That's it for this video.
If you have any questions,
leave them in the comments section below.
If you like the video,
please give it a thumb's up,
it means a lot to me
and if you want to see
more videos just like this one, go ahead
and hit that subscribe button.
I'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)
