I am beginning to tentatively contemplate my next set of hearing aids. Last time around, phone / device connectivity was in its early days and most HAs needed a separate streamer of some kind. I’d bet about 90% of streamers live in drawers amongst dusty iPods and mystery cables.
Now, after a cursory scan around, I see that more brands are switching to direct bluetooth connections and ditching the streamer. The trouble with that is power - the usual single use cells that typically last about a week just won’t cut it (or would need replaced too often to be practical). So the trend amongst the spendy HAs is to move to rechargeables that need to be popped on a charger overnight.
From my reading so far, the battery life per charge seems marginal for someone that is typically up and with HAs in for 17 hrs a day. Most of the manufacturers make claims that if you run out a short charge (under an hour) will give you a significant boost, but that’s no good to me - I can’t be taking my HAs out for even a short period during the day.
Another concern is that most of these set-ups seem to involve contactless chargers that seem relatively bulky - what if you like to have your HAs in a dryer overnight (a practice that I’m convinced improves longevity)? One solution would be to have a charger that is 1) small and 2) itself powered by a battery so that the whole lot could go in a dryer, but usually the advice is not to put batteries in dryers with the HAs. Another solution might be to have separable HAs that could go in a dryer while the batteries charge. (Edited to add - I remember now that there is at least one producer using removable rechargeables, but most seem to have internal batteries, sometimes dealer replaceable).
Any experiences?
