When you hear a little voice say, “LOW BATTERY” right into your ear, it can be very annoying. Actually, there are many factors that are involved in how long your hearing aid batteries last. Your battery quality can affect many things: the time they last until needing changed, the hearing aid’s performance, the sound quality of both speech and streamed audio.
To help you get the most out of your batteries, here is some valuable information that will influence your hearing aid batteries’ life.
- Your hearing loss: Your level of hearing loss affects the strength of amplification the hearing aid has to provide. So the greater your hearing loss, the more the batteries have to work, thereby draining your batteries faster.
- How often you use your hearing aids: Not unlike your cell phone battery life, the more it’s used, the faster it drains the batteries. The more you use the hearing aids, the quicker the batteries drain. The time used over hours and days are a huge part in how long you can go before the batteries need to be changed or charged (if using a rechargeable device).
- How you use your hearing aids: At the very least, a hearing aid provides you with the ability to better hear lost frequencies. However, when you add on features like wireless streaming of calls, movies and music, you also add to the drainage of battery life. The battery drain rate can increase by 300% when wireless streaming. Also, if using FM or looping technology, that can increase the drain rate by 100%.
- If your hearing aid includes tinnitus technology: Many individuals continually suffer from tinnitus. Some hearing aids have a built-in tinnitus technology feature that helps ease the symptoms of tinnitus. Typically this is done by masking the symptoms with sound. The overall workload of the hearing aid is increased by this tinnitus technology, increasing the drain on your batteries.
- Weather: The arrival of new seasons bring a change in temperature, moisture, humidity and snow. These factors can present a change in the performance of your hearing aid batteries. Humidity and temperature are the two main factors that can impact the life of hearing aid batteries.
- Batteries can dry out faster when exposed to low humidity.
- Swelling, leakage and reduced battery life can be the result of high humidity related moisture.
- For those who work outside or exposed to low temperatures, battery life can shorten as voltage dips and depletes. [NOTE: Starkey hearing aids have the ability to function in temperatures down to -40 degrees Fahrenheit!]
- When the temperature approaches 90-100 degrees, it can affect battery performance. If the humidity is over 50%, this can also negatively affect the batteries.
- Batteries can dry out faster when exposed to low humidity.
- Your elevation above sea level: The higher elevation the more it can reduce the life of your hearing aid batteries. This is due to reduced oxygen in the environment. Therefore, hearing aid users that live at extreme altitudes will experience the loss of battery life sooner than those who are closer to sea level. Additionally, if you have a flight and your hearing aid batteries are already low, it’s highly possible that the batteries will drain faster.
- Remember to take your battery or batteries out at night: Make it a point to remove the batteries when not in use, especially overnight.
If you have more questions about batteries, please visit our helpful batteries FAQ page.