September 19, 2009
What’s the Best Hearing Aid Battery?
Hearing aid batteries are a vital part of the hearing aid itself. None of the electronic parts will work without being powered by the battery. In fact, they’re so important that a lot of people who wear a hearing aid keep a hearing aid battery tester handy. That way they can tell when the battery is beginning to run out of power. Then they will know to have other batteries on hand to replace it.
The length of time that hearing aid batteries will last depends on the style of hearing aid being worn. The smaller hearing aids that fit into the ear canal have a shorter battery life. The reason is that these are smaller batteries and don’t have as much of the power producing components.
The older, more traditional kind of hearing aids utilized mercury batteries to keep them going. But there are newer zinc batteries that are much more effective and therefore more commonly used.
Zinc batteries utilize zinc air. This is a mixture of oxygen in the air along with the zinc present inside the battery. The resulting reaction gives power to the battery. They have about twice the life of the conventional mercury batteries.
You’ll find that zinc hearing aid batteries have a color coded tab. One of the reasons for this is so you can know the size of the battery. However, it also prevents air from entering the battery until you’re ready to start using it.
Once the tab is removed, the oxygen in the air is allowed into the battery. The battery will activate once the zinc and oxygen combine. So it’s important that you don’t pull off the tab before you need to start using the battery. You don’t want it to start losing life before it’s even in use.
Most hearing aids today use one of four different sizes of batteries that are readily available. Every size of hearing aid has a certain size of battery that fits it. A number 10 battery with a yellow color code is the smallest you can purchase. The blue labels indicate the largest size available, which is 675. Digital hearing aids that fit inside the ear canal typically use the smaller sizes. The behind the ear devices will use the larger sized batteries. You can buy hearing aid batteries just about anywhere where they sell hearing aids online.
The larger sizes are longer lasting since there is room to hold more zinc inside the battery. However, they are a lot more bulky. Many people would rather change the battery more often and have a less noticeable hearing aid.
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