Re: Halfway decent rechargable would be nice
> Yep, though my mother in law has had hers for ten years, still going strong.
They do seem pretty reilable, what I found interesting was the big jump between circa 4~6 year old (NHS) digital and current (since circa 4Q 2023) NHS digital. Audiology at places like Addenbrookes Hospital seem to be more with it than other centres (eg. My hospital, which is in the catchment for Addenbrookes cochlear implant services).
From family evaluation, there was very little real improvement between a NHS hearing aid, of similar age to your mother in law’s, with the circa 2019 (immediately pre Covid-19) NHS digital hearing aid. Both were immediately given up once people tried the new digital hearing aids, which seem to have borrowed some ideas from cochlea implants and so can be better tuned to a persons ear and hearing condition ( and can be paired with a cochlea implant), plus the modern digital ones have better Bluetooth audio connection with mobile phones…
Suggest you get yourself referred for cochlea implant assessment, where they will look at the options, as a better hearing aid is a lot cheaper for the NHS than a cochlea implant. At the worst, they will service your current hearing aids and give you a stack of batteries… plus you will get a better idea of how much your hearing has deteriorated…
cochlea implants, whilst the latest generation (eg. Cochlear Nucleus 8 ) are a massive improvement, they do require effort to get the most out of, plus it’s can be a 3~4 year journey just to get the implant..