I am faced with a mini dilemma. I have always had what are called “Power Aids”. Throughout my lifetime I have noticed companies adding neat things to their “not-so-powerful” hearing aids like color and the ability to tell the audiologists how many hours you are wearing your hearing aids per day. I never had these little fun items attached to my hearing aids. Whenever a new more powerful aid was placed on the market, I got it. Of course, companies use the entire hearing aid for one purpose, hearing louder and better, no fancy stuff, no neat little gadgets. Blast the marketing techniques! I’ve always had the dreaded beige. I have looked longingly at other people’s hearing aids most of my life with some jealousy. It’s like everyone getting a Ferrari Spider while I get a Ford Taurus. It’s not fair! I tell ye! It’s not fair!
So now I actually have the opportunity to make somewhat of a decision on what I want the outer component of the cochlear implant to look like. If I go with a Cochlear CI, I have a choice of six colors:
These are what the batteries look like, but it is my understanding that the whole thing will look like that color, magnet and all. Or I can get:
The mini! It’ll be like having a Mini Cooper! MINI COOP! MINI COOP! Unfortunately the battery doesn’t last as long (80% of what the regular processor will last). However, I have learned that you can change the color (I think the blue part) any day you want.
Something else to keep in mind. I wear a hearing aid in my left ear which I will keep. The earmold at present is blue (it was my “something blue” for my wedding). That I can change, I’m probably due for a new one anyways – but please don’t make me change the color, I adore my blue earmold. My hearing aid, however, is beige (but of course!) and my hair is light brown. Another thing to think about is that I am working and out of college, so professionalism is always a good thing when networking. (I would be very curious to know how people see these colorful hearing aids/CIs in the workforce)
So it’s poll time!!! Which should I get?
On a side note, Advance Bionics makes them with a lot more colors and designs (which is neat to me!) and if I change my brand preference, I will post them up here.
Quixotic Deaf 
pink or blue ftw
I vote for the blue!! You’ll look SO STYLISH!! 🙂
How long does the battery last? I think I read somewhere 8 hours is the max! I don’t think I’d like changing my batteries constantly!
Cindy
Yeah I think the batteries have really short lives, but you use rechargeables and the implants come with quite a few with the charger. Also, I think the Cochlear America implants come with both the rechargeable setups and can use regular batteries, which is probably a nice convenience if you end up needing more juice than you thought!
I have the blue Cochlear one! Full size, because it’s more powerful, plus the battery lasts longer. Mine lasts about 3 days, and I’m wearing it 7 am to 10 pm. Plus smaller one uses only 2 batteries, so it won’t last as long. The bigger one has the option of switching out the battery case (it slips inside the thing that you see, the outside is like a shoe, if that makes sense). Personally, I prefer disposable batteries, although I do have two of the rechargable kind in an unopened package if it’s an emergency. It comes with the recharger. If I remember right the rechargable kind lasts for 8 hours, so you have to bring along the other one with you, and pop it in when the other one wears down.
Rechargables you will have to replace eventually, though. Like my laptop batt, the fullest it gets now is at 87% 😦
Personally, I like colorful ones! Consider them your earrings…plenty of working women wear stylish earrings 🙂 I picked blue because I’m usually wearing blue jeans.
So you can change the way it looks on the outside?
I have heard of some people having problems with their battery cages, they break really easily. Do you have this problem?
The disposable batteries last for three days? And the rechargeable ones last for eight hours?
I agree about the earring thing. I don’t want to get another ugly looking thing to attach to my head. I’ve seen CIs in person before but I have never tried them on, and I didn’t know about all the different brands at the time.
I hope to be able to touch them and see what they look like. I don’t like the idea of picking one without knowing what it’s going to feel like (how heavy, etc.).
The old Nucleus, you could change the colors, but with the new Freedom you can’t…:( Oh, well, I still prefer the Freedom because it is humidity resistant, the Nucleus went on the fritz every other week during summer last year.
Hmm…hasn’t happened to me yet. I suppose it depends on where you put it…me, I never keep it separated from the rest of the processor for long. I keep it in my hand until I put the new batteries in it and put the cage back in the processor.
That’s what my audiologist told me, if I remember correctly. It’s actually more convenient for me to carry around extra batteries to replace every few days. I always forget to recharge my phone, so I just knew I would probably forget to recharge the batteries.
I know what you mean. That’s why I pick colors instead of beige. And you’re lucky you’re a woman, because your long hair will cover it up, if you don’t want it to show. But when you do wear a pony tail or something, colors look better in my opinion! They’re like Sketchers vs. orthopedic shoes 🙂
I hope you can, too! My audiologist had dummies that I could hold. It’s not too heavy…it’s maybe like a hearing aid and a half heavy? Most of the weight comes from the batteries, the processor itself is VERY lightweight.
I hope this helps! 🙂 Tell us what color you pick!
Personally I think that the Advanced Bionic implant is better and more future proof than the other brands. The reason why is because it supports a much higher stimulation rate and also supports simultaneous stimulation which the other brands do not have.
Because of Advance Bionic’s simultaneous stimulation technology, it allows them to simulate 121 channels. I think the better hardware capabilities of their implant will enable more improvement to be gotten from new software/speech strategies that are developed.
You might find this useful: http://www.geocities.com/cicentral/index2.html
James,
To me, this looks like some sort of marketing strategy of someone who’s apparently very pro-Advance Bionics. I would be very careful with the stuff that’s out there on the Internet.
Lisa,
I have gone out of town with my Freedom full size brown processor ( brown hair) and did not bring an extra rechargeable with me. Was able to get about two days power with the rechargeable…
Absolutely love love love the rechargeables.. have never used the disposables one time yet since November… so convenient to just pop in to charger at night
Disposable cage and switching batteries and all that takes time out all the time!
Especially if you are carrying them with you.
I just drop the C.I in the Dry and Store box every night also… and put hearing aid as well.
Sounds like you would probably like both the blue and the brown for play and work…
Cochlear gives you a second one for back-up… may be able to get one of each??
Cochlear has been around the longest, I found out almost immediately what they meant about water resistant features, it’s not water-proof, but close!!! gotta have that!!
Was able to also adjust right away to the feel of it alot faster than I THOUGHT I would about the weight… worth all the programs and the surround sounds and for ipods and music and the computer and all that!
Also read Cochlear had 2% failure rate compared to the others… which were much higher!! so I chose that one, they were promoting Mel El heavily in the Raliegh N.C area, which is where they had local headquaters. laurie