Your Audiology Tutorial: Powering Your Hearing Aids

One of most common complaints with amplification is the nuisance of having to change batteries so often.  Batteries for traditional hearing aids are zinc air, activated when you remove a sticker from the positive side.

The following are based on a wear time of twelve hours daily.  The color fonts denote the respective colors of the stickers.

Size 10s- Replaced every three days. Used in Invisible-in-the-Canal (IIC), Completely-in-the-Canal (CIC), and some Receiver-in-the-Canal (RIC) devices
Size 312 - ....every five to seven days. RICs and In-the-Canal (ITC) aids.
Size 13 - ....every ten days to two weeks. In-the-Ear (ITE) and some RICs and Behind-the-Ear (BTE) aids.
Size 675 - ....two weeks +.  Only for large BTEs.  Rare these days.

Battery life is a separate issue from the fine motor skills needed to insert and remove them from battery doors that are often fragile to begin with.  As many hearing aid patients are elderly, often suffering a tremor, you can see why rechargeable aids would be preferred.

Such hearing aids are not new.  Siemens has had for several years a version with nickel metal hydride batteries (available to purchase online). Aids are placed under a flip top lid in the charger.  GN Resound had what looked like an alien head into which you would insert the bottom part of the device every night.  One smaller company had a wooden box charger into which you placed a custom aid (usually ITC or ITE).  Lately, many of the larger manufacturers have released rechargeable RIC products, and they are quite popular.

Phonak has the Audeo Belong-R, which has its lithium ion battery embedded within the device.  Starkey will soon be introducing their version.   It is reported to last for four years.  Starkey, Widex, and other manufacturers currently utilize the Z-power system, which uses silver-zinc compounds (reputed to deliver "greater energy density") in its gold colored, recyclable batteries that last up to one year.  The patient places the magnetized bottom of the hearing device in a slot atop a small rectangular charger.  You can still use regular zinc batteries in a Z-power hearing aid.   If your embedded battery device fails you have to have it sent back to the manufacturer.  Also, some older hearing aids can be converted to Z-power; ask your audiologist.