Where to Store Your Hearing Aids
Ideally, your
hearing aids should be stored in a dry, cool place. Here’s an extra helpful tip: take the
battery out of your hearing aid at night to extend the battery life!
Nightstand
The nightstand by your bed is the most accessible and convenient area you can place your hearing aids, especially if you use them all day every day. Your hearing aids will be within arm's reach when you wake up in the morning, and you can easily pop them out and place them on the nightstand when you retire for the night.
Hearing Aid Dryer, Freshener & UV Dry Boxes
A pricier but worthwhile investment for storing your hearing aids is a
hearing aid dryer and freshener. It gets rid of any moisture that has built up throughout the day, making it feel fresh and new when you put them back in. Many on the market are lightweight and portable, so you can easily bring your dryer with you on vacation, business trips, or any time you’re traveling.
A
UV dry box is one of the best places you can store your hearing aids. UV dry boxes use UV light to sanitize and extract moisture from your hearing aids, which reduces the opportunity for unnecessary wetness-induced damage and bacteria build-up.
Jewelry Box
For the ladies, your jewelry box is the perfect place to casually store your hearing aid every night. The box keeps out moisture in the atmosphere and provides a convenient single stop for when you put on your ring, earrings, or other jewelry in the morning and take them off at night.
Hearing Aid Dehumidifier
Depending on where you live, the
summer humidity can wreak havoc on your hearing aids. If you sweat a lot or moisture simply finds its way into your hearing aid or tubing, simply store your hearing aids in a
hearing aid dehumidifier. We’ve provided a link to easily ordering your own dehumidifier, but you can
ask your audiologist for his or her own recommended products as well.
Uncooked Rice
This one sounds a little weird, but we promise it works! Uncooked rice draws out moisture not only from hearing aids, but also electronics in general. A bag or box of uncooked rice is the perfect dry, cool environment to store your
hearing aids. If you don’t have a dehumidifier or dryer around and you drop your hearing aid in water, leave it in some uncooked rice for a few hours, and it should be okay. It works for cell phones and laptops too, so keeping a bag of uncooked rice around may turn out to be more useful than you’ve ever thought!
Salt
Like the uncooked rice, salt draws the moisture out of your hearing aids and is the ideal dry, cool environment to store your hearing aids. If you decide to store your hearing aids in salt, we recommend avoiding table salt and going for the larger grains, so they don’t get lodged in your hearing aids and create more problems than they fix.
Sock Drawer
The last place on this list is your sock drawer! It’s perfect for keeping your hearing aids out of direct sunlight, and your socks keep the environment relatively dry. Your sock drawer is also a pretty convenient one-stop place for your hearing aid since you’ll be stopping by as you get dressed anyway.
Where Not to Store Your Hearing Aids
Refrigerator or Freezer
People often store their electronics and batteries in the refrigerator because the cold environment preserves the battery life. It’s important that you don’t do this! The moisture from the refrigerator or the freezer could damage your hearing aid, and ice crystals could form if you keep your hearing aids in the freezer. The cost outweighs the benefit, and the cold won’t significantly extend the battery life.
Bathroom
The bathroom seems like an intuitive place to store your hearing aids every night, but it’s dangerous as well. The moisture in the bathroom, especially from when you shower, could damage your hearing aids and batteries. Your best bet is to keep it somewhere in the bedroom away from the humidity.
Avoid Direct Sunlight
The heat from direct sunlight can damage your hearing aids as well, since it may contain heat-sensitive parts. If you store your hearing aids during the day, make sure the area you place them in is dry, cool, and out of the path of any direct sunlight.
This concludes our tips for hearing aid storage, but please comment below if you have any helpful storage tips that work for you!
by Diana Ruan, Updated in 2021 by Kimberly Smith
