OT -Which hearing aid batteries are better, Eveready or Ray-o-Vac?

Trying to decide what brand of hearing aid batteries to buy, wife has heard Eveready are not too good, RayoVac may be better. I'm curious if any actual data out there. Consumer Reports has nothing that I could find.

Reply to
hrhofmann
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Hi, Not for hearing aid but my experience is RayoVac is always not as good as Duracell or Energizer. I know our local hospitals all use Duracell.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

I buy my hearing-aid batteries at Costco -- $10 or less for 40. All sizes the same price, I think. They are Costco branded, but I think they might be Ray-o-Vac. My #13 batteries last about 12-14 days.

Perce

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy

to buy, wife has heard Eveready are not too good, RayoVac may be better. I'm curious if any actual data out there. Consumer Reports has nothing that I could find.

For me, I get about eight days out of either of those brands. And about two weeks out of

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Duracell, the shape of the battery doesn't make contact in my hearing aids, they don't work dependably.

Please do not buy far in advance. The batteries go dead in a year or so (I've not really tested this).

I'd love to have four years batteries in hand in case I lose my job, but they go dead.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

" snipped-for-privacy@sbcglobal.net" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

I have not noticed any real difference from brand to brand, with all of them lasting roughly the same length of time for the same hearing aid at the same settings..

I've been wearing hearing aids for 47 years. Battery sizes used have been

675, 13, and (briefly) 312. Currently I'm wearing a pair of Siemens Nitro, which use 675.

What is far more important for battery life than brand is how much power the hearing aid draws versus the size of the battery used. But that's a design issue and is affected by the settings of the hearing aid.

Your hearing aid provider should give you a trial period of a couple of weeks. Battery life will be revealed during that trial period.

The worst instance for me was a pair of Widex I-forget-whats I recently tried that took 312s. My hearing-loss meant that the Widexes needed to be boosted to nearly their maximum output. Battery life was FIVE DAYS. The

312s were simply too small for the power needed.

My surrent Siemens get about three weeks out of their 675s -- regardless of brand. That's the longest of any hearing aid I've ever had.

Reply to
Tegger

Tegger wrote in news:XnsA38D4E818CBC8tegger@208.90.168.18:

It happens that I had to see my hearing-aid specialitst today. I asked her about battery life between brands. She said she has not noticed any significant difference from brand to brand. However, she has had reports from some clients that Energizers tend to have a somewhat shorter life than other brands, but these are purely anecdotal reports.

My personal preference is for Duracell, since they have a very long pull- tab on the oxygen-seal that greatly reduces the risk of dropping the battery while removing the oxygen-seal. This is important when handling tiny sizes like 13 and 312. Sometimes it is possible to use that pull-tab to place the battery in its compartment prior to removal of the seal. That also makes handling easier, especially if your hands are arthritic.

Reply to
Tegger

Here in Canada, the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) has a TV show called "Market Place" where they investigate issues important to consumers.

One of their shows was about alkaline batteries. They wanted to know which alkaline batteries were the best, and after a fair bit of comparison, they found that there was no correlation at all between battery price and battery quality. Their recommendation was to buy the least expensive alkaline batteries because there was no indication whatever that paying more for the batteries would result in batteries that lasted longer, held their charge better or any of the important parameters people use to compare alkaline batteries.

Reply to
nestork

Someone in the US tried that with digital cameras. Found that Costco generic were the best value. They did find that in digital cameras, lithium AA did last three or four times longer. Worth the money, if you were at a family thing taking a LOT of pictures.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

nestork wrote in news:nestork.e387728 @diybanter.com:

Which is basically what I said, based on my 47 years of wearing hearing aids.

Read my posts. There are factors other than battery-life that are important with hearing-aid batteries.

Reply to
Tegger

I've found that Duracell don't make good electrical contact. And that Eco Gold last much longer.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Stormin Mormon wrote in news:SgHIv.367410$ snipped-for-privacy@fx14.iad:

Really. I've been using zinc-air Duracells in 675 and 13 for very, very many years and there has never been one single problem with them. Not one. Ever. Except when they accidentally make it into the laundry; and that kills any hearing-aid battery.

Back in the '60s and '70s you occasionally encountered dud batteries in the pack. The pack was therefore provided with little holes in the plastic blister and a conductive surface on the backing paper. That way you could use a multimeter to quickly check the voltage of each cell in the pack without removing them from the pack. But those days are LONG gone, along with the mercury that was then used. Modern batteries are 100% reliable now regardless of brand.

I'll have to take your word on that, since I'd never heard of that brand.

I see from Eco-Gold's website that they buy these batteries from Varta, a well-known European battery maker. It's strange that they can advertise them as having "longer lasting high voltage", to be less prone to corrosion, to have assuredly consistent voltage across the battery, and yet still be 60% of the cost of "the most common" batteries.

Assuming Eco-Gold's claims of the "most common" batteries costing about $1.12 each for a pack of 8, and assuming they last two weeks, I'm spending roughly five dollars a month to run my two hearing aids. Trying to cut that cost is pointless. And batteries are available in any drug store.

Reply to
Tegger

store new batteries in the fridge, reduces the self discharge and increases the shelf life... also you will know where to find them :-)

Mark

Reply to
makolber

Frost free fridge, will dessicate the glue on the activator strips.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

on one particular day -- I don't recall now whether it was a particular

I once got a fistful of valuable discount coupons (about $80 worth) by making a scene about a "detail man" (it was actually a woman) rolling into the doctor's office ahead of me with her rolling suitcase after I had been waiting quite some time. She explained that she was only dropping off some samples but that Federal law required her to get the MD to sign for them at the time of delivery.

The doctor (who I knew quite well) didn't mention my dustup other than to say he depends on the pharamacy rep to leave samples that he can give to patients that otherwise couldn't afford their drugs. Whether that's all true or not I don't know, but it sounded like a reasonable explanation. I took the payola gladly, I confess! The MD also gave me two neat pens (with an Alzheimer's drug name on them) that had laser pointers built-in, so I got a double payoff for squawking. Now I have to find a half-sized Cross refill or buy a full sized one and cut it down - could be messy!

permit TV advertising of prescription-only medications.

And IIRC, they bundle those advertising costs into R&D when they complain about how much it costs to bring new drugs to market. It would cost a lot less without all those glossy magazine ads and TV commercials.

My MD has mixed feelings about the ads. He believes that sometimes advertising alerts people to conditions they might not realize they have but more often pushes meds to people that don't really need them (he cites Low-T ads as being the worst of that class of ads).

Reply to
Robert Green

Well, I guess the answer to my ooriginal posting is that there is no strong opinion on Eveready vs Rayovaac.

Reply to
hrhofmann

Not sure what year, but we had a medical product which required C, or AA batteries, or was that AAA? sorry can't remember which. We found the longest lasting was Ray-O-vac, but they had a 'leakage'problem that bit us every now and then. The second was Everaedy, lasting [from memory] around

80 to 85% as long as ray-ovac. And Duracell was a major joke! cost as much as everready, but lasted about half as long.

I'm sure by now these companies have solved their ills, sorted out their battery chemistry and packaging, and are all equal now. ;)

Reply to
RobertMacy

" snipped-for-privacy@sbcglobal.net" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Did you read /any/ of my posts?

There is no detectable difference in hearing-aid battery life from brand to brand, so buy whichever is

1) on sale, 2) easist to find, 3) has the most convenient oxygen-seal pull-tab.

Personally, I prefer Duracell on account of their long pull-tab making their nbatteries the most convenient and easiest to handle.

Reply to
Tegger

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