At Hearing Aid Batteries Express, we are frequently asked about rechargeable hearing aid batteries.

Yes, there is a rechargeable battery available for hearing aid batteries manufactured by Power One - known as ACCU. Unfortunately they are currently not available in Australia due to practical and cost considerations.

Practical Considerations

Battery Chargers

The rechargeable battery for sizes 10, 13, 312 and 675 are charged using a "cardcharger" or "pencharger" which runs on rechargeable batteries.

You will need to recharge the batteries for the "pencharger" or "cardcharger" after recharging the rechargeable hearing aid batteries several times (depending on the charger type)!

Rechargeable Hearing Aid Batteries

Most people are not aware the rechargeable batteries would need to be recharged about 10 times to get the same capacity as a zinc-air equivalent.

The table below shows the capacity in milliamp hours (mAh) of zinc-air batteries compared to the nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) rechargeable hearing aid battery.

For example, the Power One ACCU 10 battery has a capacity of only 12mAh compared to 100mAh from the zinc-air equivalent. This means you would need to recharge the rechargeable hearing aid battery at least 9 times to get the equivalent capacity from zinc-air batteries. This makes the constant recharging inconvenient and hard work.

Cost Considerations

The rechargeable hearing aid batteries and chargers do not come cheap.

The cost of two size 10, 13 or 312 rechargeable hearing aid batteries is around AUD60.

Then there is the cost of the charger which is around AUD130.

Plus ... the cost of rechargeable batteries for the "pencharger" or "cardcharger" (which vary depending on the charger and battery size) as well as the charger for these batteries!

Finally, there is also the small hidden cost of electricity to recharge the rechargeable batteries which are used to recharge the hearing aid batteries!

For someone who changes the zinc-air battery in two hearing aids every 2 weeks, this equates to about 9 packets (6 batteries per packet) of zinc-air hearing aid batteries per year. This represents a fraction of the total cost of rechargeable equipment - which will take at least 4 to 5 years to recover the cost (plus the constant recharging effort).

Summary

The constant charging of rechargeable batteries in the chargers to recharge the rechargeable hearing aid batteries creates a lot of hard work!

To make matteres worse, the performance from rechargeable hearing aid batteries is siginificantly less compared to zinc-air batteries. This means a lot of recharging to achieve the same performance.

The high cost of the rechargeable batteries and chargers means the work effort outweighs the cost savings.

From an environmental perspective, zinc-air batteries are very safe when disposed correctly compared to rechargeable batteries which contain chemicals known to be harmful to the environment.

For the moment, zinc-air hearing aid batteries are considered to be practical and cost effective, while offering superior performance for relatively little effort.

Rechargeable Cochlear Implant Batteries

Yes, there is a rechargeable battery system available for the Freedom™ cochlear implant processor. The performance of the rechargeable battery compared to three high powered zinc air batteries (size 675) is similar to that described above - shorter battery life and lots of recharging.

For further information on rechargeable batteries for the Freedom™ processor, please contact Cochlear Customer Service.