Are the Oticon More aids that much better than the OPN aids?

"The oticon section has instructions for replacing Oticon rechargeable batteries, and also instructions for storing Hearing Aids with rechargeable batteries."

(I'm assuming that you haven't read the Oticon storage instructions:) they don't address charge levels, self-discharge, or the myriad finer points that MrV @Volusiano touches on in his instructional posts.)
 
pvc said:
Yeah, I thought it did. What's missing?
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When I read that material on the Oticon official site just tonight, it didn't mention that you shouldn't store them fully charged, neither should you store them when they're nearly depleted. The Oticon site didn't mention the fact that there is a self discharge rate that you have to watch out for, so that you don't end up with dead hearing aids because they have self depleted themselves down to zero. It's stuff like that that the Oticon site is missing. It's all the finer points that you need to know if you're going to be putting (as I am) your rechargeable hearing aids away for a few weeks at a time.

I really like my Real 2s and I intend to keep them in my ears as my primary hearing devices. I know it doesn't sound very intuitive because I have More 1s in my drawer, but I really do prefer the Real 2 sound. It has a different timbre to it. I just pick up more detail.
 
pvc said:
No, I'm not talking about the Oticon site. I was talking about a DIY School PDF document named (Buying Rechargeable Hearing Aids) that has a section named (Demant/Oticon).

Anyway, I started a new topic -> Oticon Rechargeable Battery (Replacement and/or Storage). Have a look.
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Oh, yes, @pvc - that's what I meant - your link has the real meat that guys like me need in order to use rechargeable hearing devices as backups! Thanks for this!

(The only fly in the ointment is that, in the unlikely event that my Real2s fail, and I need backups FAST, they will only be partially charged when they are pressed into service, like my SmartCharger.)
 
I think for the rechargeable hearing aids themselves, the key is to make sure that they're at 50% state of charge then turn the hearing aids off. Lithium-ion batteries are in the happiest state at 50% for long term storage. Initially, maybe in a week time, I'd turn them on again and check to make sure that even in the OFF state, the hearing aids don't exert a leakage drain on the batteries. If they do have leakage and the batteries after a week no longer is at 50% but let's say is now at 40%, then wait another week to see if they go down further, let's say to 30%. If so, then you know that you may want to recharge it back up to 50% again. Or if you don't want to bother too often with this kind of monitoring, then recharge to 70% then after a month when it goes down to 30%, you can top it up to 70% again. Of course all the numbers above are just an example to give you an idea. If they get drained slower than 10% a week, let's say only 5% a week, then you can do the 30% to 70% recharge/discharge cycle every 2 months instead. If the hearing aids don't cause any leakage and in a month's time you're still at 50%, then no worries, maybe just do a sanity check every few months to confirm that the batteries still stay at 50%. One other thing you can do to ensure that there can be no leakage caused by the hearing aids, then remove the battery out of the hearing aid altogether (with the help of a pointy tool).

There's also a possibility that the batteries may self discharge themselves over time even when not connected. You can check for this by putting the battery back into the hearing aid after a month in storage unconnected and see if it's still at 50% of if it has self-discharged down to a certain level. If they do self discharge, then calculate the rate of self discharge to know when to top up the battery back to 50% and not allow it to get too low. Although the happiest spot is 50%, between 30 to 70% is OK, too, even if not optimal like at 50%.

For the Smart Charger that has its own internal lithium-ion battery, apparently the Smart Charger does drain its internal battery even when sit unused. That's why the manual (see excerpt below) tells you to make sure to fully charge the Smart Charger before storing it for longer than 14 days, for up to a year, before you'd have to fully recharge it again. So apparently there's drainage going on even when the Smart Charger is in storage, and apparently significantly to a low enough state of charge after 1 year that it can ruin the battery if not topped up at least once a year.

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pvc said:
No, I'm not talking about the Oticon site. I was talking about a DIY School PDF document named (Buying Rechargeable Hearing Aids) that has a section named (Demant/Oticon).

Anyway, I started a new topic -> Oticon Rechargeable Battery (Replacement and/or Storage). Have a look.
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Oh, I didn't realize that there was a page 4 for this thread which contains all these posts already so I redundantly went ahead and replied with my own post. I'm not used to seeking out for new pages in this forum yet, I guess, because the other forum is just a string of posts from beginning to end without being sectioned out in pages. Kudo to @pvc for thinking ahead and addressing all these things up front already.
 
Thank you, @Volusiano and @pvc for this important information. I powered my More1s last night with a remaining charge of 60%. I intend to power up the Mores for a few days at the beginning of August. Should I run down the batteries a bit more? That won't be leaving my backup aids with much juice!
 
You can do an Internet search for “how to store li-ion battery”, and you will find many sets of instructions.
  • Some say charge 40% to 50% of the battery charge.
  • Some say they should be kept in a state of 50%-60% charge.
imo> You can choose either. Just not fully charged, and not fully drained.

Half-a-day (or so) of backup-aid power is a small thing to worry about unless you are supervising a moon launch or something. ;)
 
pvc said:
Half-a-day (or so) of backup-aid power is a small thing to worry about
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This is not true if you live in the country and have to drive an hour to the hospital ER room, and then wait 8 hours before you're even seen by a doctor.
 
SpudGunner said:
This is not true if you live in the country and have to drive an hour to the hospital ER room, and then wait 8 hours before you're even seen by a doctor.
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Luckily I think you also have the Smart Charger as well, right? So if you take the Smart Charger along, just a 30 minute top off will restore 25% of your battery charge. Whether you have a Smart Charger or the regular charger, you'd have to bring a charger with anyway though. The only difference is that you don't need to also bring along a USB power source for the Smart Charger.
 
Volusiano said:
Luckily I think you also have the Smart Charger as well, right? So if you take the Smart Charger along, just a 30 minute top off will restore 25% of your battery charge. Whether you have a Smart Charger or the regular charger, you'd have to bring a charger with anyway though. The only difference is that you don't need to also bring along a USB power source for the Smart Charger.
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Oh, I didn't say there wasn't a workaround ... but I am begging to differ that having to start the service of a pair of backup hearing aids at the half-empty mark is not important. You can say "but they're half FULL" all you want, @Volusiano: the reality is that when your aids use disposable batteries, you're never more than 30 seconds away from a week's worth of uninterrupted operating time, and you don't have to remember to pack your charger.

It's not my intention to derail the conversation and turn it into a debate over the superiority of disposable over rechargeable batteries: I'm only highlighting the fact that rechargeable hearing aids aren't as straightforward to have as backups than your typical disposable battery version.
 
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SpudGunner said:
I'm only highlighting the fact that rechargeable hearing aids aren't as straightforward to have as backups than your typical disposable battery version.
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For sure it's better to have a disposable battery hearing aids setup as spare, and the rechargeable setup for everyday use, because as you can see, Lithium-ion based systems are meant to be used, so you don't have to worry about keeping them at a "happy" state in storage. Unfortunately your setup is the other way around because the Real 2 turns out to sound better than the More 1 for you. If it had been the other way for you (More 1 sounds the same if not better than Real 2), then it'd make more sense for you to relegate the Real 2 as the backup pair.

This may be something to consider, unless the Real 2 is significantly better than the More 1 to be worth the hassle of maintaining the More 1 in storage, if I were you, I'd relegate the Real 2 as the backup pair. Also, considering the fact that if your More 1s are still under warranty, I would consider utilizing them at least until their warranty expires before retiring them into backup status. This way, any issue your may run into as they age gets addressed and repaired for free under warranty, with the possibility that a brand new replacement pair (if not just repaired) may bring you not just brand new hearing aids, but hopefully also brand new batteries as well.
 
Volusiano said:
This may be something to consider, unless the Real 2 is significantly better than the More 1 to be worth the hassle of maintaining the More 1 in storage, if I were you, I'd relegate the Real 2 as the backup pair. Also, considering the fact that if your More 1s are still under warranty, I would consider utilizing them at least until their warranty expires before retiring them into backup status.
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@Volusiano: You're a smart man, and full of sage advice. I'm going to wear my Real2s for a month, just out of curiosity, and do what you say, once I have a better idea of their capabilities. The More1s won't be happy or easy to maintain "in mothballs".

As you once advised me - with my Real2s as my backups, I'll "always be golden" if my More1s fail. I'll just pop fresh #312 batteries into my Real2s and be good for a week.
 
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Another drawback of those HAs with rechargeable batteries... they are just not cut out to be backups. When I eventually move to the next pair I am going to have the same problem with my current Mores.
 
@e1405 : This is another example that illustrates why we farm boys think that the cityfied engineers that design these things don't understand that - for types that live out in the country ( meaning country and not suburbs ) - an uninterrupted power supply is a dream, and night time charging sessions uninterrupted by sick cows and their calves a myth. (I grant you that a 3-hour charge cycle isn't a long time - however, one has to be guaranteed of it being uninterrupted for 365 days a year ...).

Especially after the first 14 months or so, after which my More1s are far from being able to hold a 24-hour charge, these devices just fail to live up to the hype of the "rechargeable dream" devices they were trumpeted as being ... They may be great for many users, but they don't cut the mustard for me! YMMV

[Addendum 1: hrrmph! ;)]
[Addendum 2: I don't want to be misconstrued - my More1 hearing devices give me great auditory performance ... I can hear with them! They'd be wonderful machines were it not for issues revolving around the performance of the energy cell, itself.]
 
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:pAfter 4 days of wearing my More1s, exclusively, I've popped in my Real2s, and I can definitely hear a difference between the two.

May I offer a preliminary, highly subjective opinion? Oticon Real2s are superior to my old More1 devices.

It's hard for me to describe the differences. Some of it may be due to the fact that the receivers in my More1s are a year or two older than the ones in my Real aids, but what I hear is "crisper" and better-defined than when I'm wearing my More1s.

We can't rule out the fact that I may be biased towards the Real2s because they aren't rechargeable. (I feel my former, now FIRED, audiologist strong-armed me into the rechargeable aids by withholding from me the fact that disposable battery Mores were already "in the works" when I accepted the Mores. It's not nice to play funny with the Spud!)

At any rate, I do like the sound of the Real2s better, even though I will not go through the rigmarole to make the More1s my backups. I'll just ride out my warranty and put the aids I'll get back from end-of-warranty refurbishment Into the back of the drawer, in battery saving mode or whatever it's called, and wear the Reals as my main HAs, thereafter.

[I just went down the road to the mailbox with my truck windows down. I purposely tried to find a difference in wind noise cancellation from the More1. There was no difference that I could detect.]

(None of the neighbors were shooting at me today, so I couldn't test the Sudden Noise feature! :p)

I'm posting because I said I would, and not because I am reporting anything scientific or earthshaking, other than that I disagree with the assertion that Oticon Real hearing aids are merely an incremental improvement over More. Both are worthy devices, however - that said - those who are contemplating buying Mores or Reals ought not to dismiss the Reals too quickly (as I once did) as merely a marketing tactic. I can definitely appreciate a difference between the two. If I were buying today, and the Reals were not a lot more pricey than the Mores - I'd purchase the former over the latter, based on my experience, to date.

FWIW
 
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Thanks for the update. Yep, it's battery protection mode. For instructions about setting Oticon’s battery protection mode, run Genie2; Click Help/(Help on Genie2); then search for "battery protection".

Here's some wink control forum-Click-instructions. Though your first Click may have already been completed earlier. Tip: Images may appear to be small when you are not logged on;

c3.jpg
 
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@pvc : Thanks for your reply. I may have got the emoticon problem licked :cool:.

I'm looking forward to wearing my new Reals full-time, next February, once the More1s have been sent out for end-of-warranty refurbulence.
 
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