I hope you guys can help me here. I have a sister in a nursing home who wants to try hearing aids, and she’s even more ignorant than me when it comes to batteries and charging. Before investing in high quality hearing aids which can be quite costly, I’ve obtained a pair of low cost ones for her to try out and see if she’ll actually use them. They came with a case which is itself a small power bank. When the case is fully charged, it can supposedly supply 4 full charges to the aids. The case and the hearing aids are both rechargeable.
The hearing aids and case came with a USB-C cord but no AC wall adapter. My sister doesn’t have a laptop so she really needs to use these with a wall adapter. I have a spare wall adapter for use with an iPhone and am wondering if that will be OK to use. What scares me is this language in the manual for the hearing aids:
“It’s forbidden to let the product connect to 110V-220V~50-60Hz AC outlet directly.”
I guess using a wall adapter isn’t connecting “directly”, but then how would you connect a USB cord directly to an AC wall outlet without one? So I don’t know what this means.
Also in the manual it says:
"Please use the required adapter to charge to prevent safety issue, its parameters is:
INPUT: 100V~240V, AC 50/60Hz, 0.2~0.25A
OUTPUT: 5V — 1A"
I’ve tried contacting the manufacturer of the hearing aids but so far no luck with that.
I know my sister would leave the charging case plugged in at all times. I just don’t want any risk of a fire or explosion or other catastrophe.
Finally, here are the specs on the label of the iPhone wall adapter I have:
INPUT: AC 100V-240V
50/60Hz 150 mA
OUTPUT: DC5V 1000mA
Thanks in advance for any help with this. I really appreciate it.
It’s pretty much like charging your phone. In this situation the wall charger will charge the case > the case will charge the hearing aides. Like your phone both will/(should) shut off when fully charged. I see no danger in using this or leaving it plugged in all the time.
Hearing aides are complicated and potentially extremely expensive. The new OTC laws have opened this up, decreased costs, but increased complexity for the consumer.
I suggest you do some research on the field options and DON’T NECESSARILY THINK FAILURE OF LOW COST DEVICES MEAN THE CONCEPT WON’T WORK. If you spent less than $100 I’d be dubious of the effectiveness.
To work optimally they need to be ‘tuned’ to the individual patient. That said, most people have losses in the high frequency first, and usually one ear is worse than the other.
(not sure if you can get the consumers article since I’m a member. If you can’t, strongly suggest a trip to the library for the original article which may be Nov. 2021)
Short cut - go to Costco. They get great reviews and seem to have the best prices.
At Costco the top of the line hearing aids I priced.
Exactly the same as a local Doc. were:
Wait for it… Three Thousand Eight Hundred bucks CHEAPER!
The hearing test seemed to be just as comprehensive. Just done by a tech - not a Doc.
This was quite a few years ago before the restrictions were lifted.
The audiologist lobby must have pissed about all the $$ they have funneled to D.C. over the years.
All the Best,
Jeff
Yeh, mum went to one of those “comprehensive” places and paid out the wazoo for her hearing aids. To be fair, the guy did even make house-calls, but the price of the HAs was… astronomical.
I joked she should just make the teevee louder (a joke because she already always had the volume cranked up to 11).
But then there’s this approach…
She wasn’t amused.
Yeah, that was from waaaaaaaaaaay back, when SNL was actually funny.
