How to Care for Your Hearing Aids and Make Them Last
A good pair of hearing aids can cost as much as a used car — and unlike a car, they spend all day in one of the most hostile environments a piece of electronics can face: a warm, humid ear canal, inches from skin oils, earwax, and hair products. The difference between hearing aids that last and hearing aids that spend their life in the repair shop usually comes down to a few minutes of daily care.
Here's what actually matters, based on what audiologists recommend and what we've learned from more than two decades serving the hard-of-hearing community.
What Are the Two Biggest Enemies of Hearing Aids?
Moisture and earwax. Nearly everything that goes wrong with a hearing aid traces back to one of these two.
Moisture — from sweat, humidity, rain, or condensation — corrodes contacts, degrades microphones and receivers, and shortens battery life. You don't have to drop your hearing aids in the sink to have a moisture problem; ordinary daily wear is enough, especially in humid climates or for anyone who exercises.
Earwax is the other slow killer. Wax migrates into receiver ports, sound outlets, and vents, muffling sound gradually until one day the aid seems "dead." Many hearing aids sent in for repair have nothing wrong with them except a blocked sound outlet.
What Should a Daily Care Routine Look Like?
The whole routine takes under five minutes, and evening is the best time — it gives your hearing aids the night to dry.
1. Wipe them down. Every evening, wipe each hearing aid with a soft, dry cloth or tissue. Skip water, alcohol, and household cleaners — they can damage coatings and let liquid into the housing. A dry wipe removes skin oils and surface wax before they work their way in.
2. Brush away wax. Use the small brush that came with your hearing aids to clear the sound outlet, microphone ports, and any vents. Hold the aid with the opening facing down so debris falls out instead of in. If your aids use wax guards, check them and replace as instructed.
3. Inspect as you clean. Take ten seconds to look for cracked tubing, stiff or discolored domes, and debris in openings. Catching a worn part early costs little; the repair it causes later does not.
4. Dry them overnight — actively. This is the step most people skip, and the one that matters most. Leaving hearing aids on the nightstand lets moisture sit inside them all night. A dedicated dryer like our DB-100 ReNew Dryer & Freshener gives them a gently warmed drying chamber with an adjustable 2, 4, or 8-hour cycle you can match to your room's humidity — plus an optional one-hour UV freshening cycle and a built-in battery tester, so you know before you head out whether today's batteries have life left in them. If you live somewhere humid, sweat during the day, or have ever had a moisture-related repair, nightly drying is the single best habit you can build.
5. Store them safely. Overnight, hearing aids belong in their dryer or case — not loose on a nightstand where they can be knocked off, stepped on, or discovered by a curious dog. (Dogs are drawn to earwax; a chewed hearing aid is a common and expensive repair story.) Store them well out of reach of pets and children, and if you're storing battery-powered aids for more than a day or two, open the battery doors.
What About Deeper Cleaning?
Even with good daily habits, wax and debris build up over time in places a brush can't reach. That's where a purpose-built tool earns its keep: our HC-200 Hearing Aid Vacuum uses gentle hand-pump suction with two interchangeable tips — one for openings, one for surfaces — to pull wax and debris out of hearing aids rather than pushing it deeper the way improvised tools can. That distinction matters more than it sounds: poking at a receiver port with a pin or toothpick is one of the most common ways people damage their own hearing aids. (One note from the manufacturer: the HC-200 is for cleaning hearing aids only — never use it in your ears.)
For anything beyond routine cleaning — a receiver that's stopped working, persistent feedback, sound that stays muffled after cleaning — see your hearing care professional rather than opening the aid yourself.
What Should You Never Do?
A short list that prevents most catastrophes: don't wear hearing aids in the shower, pool, or sauna. Don't apply hairspray or cologne while wearing them — mist gets into microphones. Don't leave them in a hot car or on a sunny windowsill. Don't use alcohol, solvents, or water to clean them. And don't put them through the wash — check pockets. It happens more than you'd think.
How Often Should Hearing Aids Be Professionally Serviced?
Most audiologists recommend a professional clean-and-check every few months, and many offer them free to their patients. Between visits, your daily routine does the heavy lifting. Think of it like dental care: brushing every day, hygienist a few times a year.
The Bottom Line
Hearing aids are an investment in staying connected, and protecting that investment is mostly a matter of routine: wipe, brush, inspect, dry, store. Add a nightly dryer like the DB-100 and a proper cleaning tool like the HC-200, and you've addressed the two biggest causes of hearing aid failure for less than the cost of a single out-of-warranty repair.
Explore our hearing aid care products, or call us at 866-376-9271 if you're not sure what your hearing aids need.