The Saga of the Junked Hearing Equipment

As most readers of the historical versions of this Blog know, I’ve had hearing issues for most of my life. This post is not about a re-hash of that stuff (you can roll on back if you need to) – this one is about my current “hearing equipment” setup and the profound madness it has engendered in Paul’s psyche for about a year now – and my most recent and final trashing of one significant item.

The reason for said “trashing” is because the device in question has been figuratively screaming at me for a long time now – and what it’s been screaming is “There is no functional purpose for me [sic] – I only exist to drive you mad!”

 To condense a lot of mind-numbing drivel into a kinder form for my readers, I’ll simply say that almost exactly one year before this post date, I got a Cochlear Implant on my right side. Google it if you don’t know what that is. When my implant was “activated’ by my audiologist, whoever the hell paid for it (wasn’t me) graciously provided not just one, but two of the external processors required for the (passive) implant itself to function.

Think of a processor as a hearing aid that bypasses the ear completely, with a thing embedded under the skin and a thing outside the skin that hangs right next to the under-skin thing with a mutual magnet arrangement and a mirrored pair of coils that carry the processor signal to the innards of the inside thing – whereby noises will magically appear in my brain (some people might call this “sound”).

Now those two processors are not the same, though in principle they perform the same function. In the physical sense, they take two different forms (“packages” if you will). One of them hangs over the ear (the right one, of course) with a small cable that ends in the aforementioned magnetic coil. The processor transmits a digitized signal through that coil to the inner guts of the implant, where it dumps the signal right into the cochlea (Google that one also, if you need to), where all the real magic of hearing happens.

The other processor (outer, remember I got two) is the thing that almost turned Paul into the modern version of The Mad Hatter.

Cochlear Americas (or wherever else too) is the company that produced all this stuff – they were actually the first-to-market with a founder (now deceased) who was inspired to create something to allow his totally deaf child to hear – if not perfectly, at least functionally.

Currently, they sell (at least) two types of processors; the over the ear thing, and for reasons I can only imagine are cosmetic, a thing that has no wires at all and sits on the head next to the implant coil – held by a magnet – and delivers sound in exactly the same manner as the over the ear deal.

For simplification, we’ll call the over the ear gizmo the N8, and the head mounted thing the Kanso – rough designation by Cochlear Americas. These devices are obviously swappable, and you can use the N8 for general windsurfing or whatever and the Kanso for the party at the Hamptons where you don’t want anybody to know you’re using robot ears (cosmetic).

You might already know where I’m going with this. For those of you who know me really well, you know I’m not a “cosmetic” guy, in any sense of that word including de-uglification. Thus, that aspect of the Kanso has zero impact on its usefulness (or lack thereof) to me. So, at first blush, the Kanso starts at zero on the usefulness scale.

Hold tight folks, it gets worse from here.

Here are a couple of pictures to help you get oriented:

The N8 and its battery:

 

The fishook thing is the N8 processor. (Top Left)

The boxy thing is the battery. (Top Right)

The round thing is the coil that attaches to the implant with that magnet in the middle. (Bottom)

Here’s the Kanso in all its glory:

 

That’s it – it just sits on the head where the N8’s coil would.

According to my audiologist, the magnet in it is the strongest one Cochlear makes – they come in various strengths for various skulls.

The “nose bridge” on the face you see (paradolia) is an indicator light that assists the Kanso in driving you into an insane asylum. It flashes when the power’s on. More on that soon.

Doesn’t the Kanso look awesome? It’s the one we’d take to the Hamptons with us if we ever won the lottery (I know, we’d have to play the lottery first). A supernova also looks awesome.

A major key to our insanity puzzle is exactly how one turns the power on/off for these devices. The N8 uses the most beautifully low-tech design for applying power to the device – to turn it on, attach the battery; to turn it off, remove the battery. Done. That’s all. Easy peasy.

The Kanso, on the other hand, does not have an easily removed battery. It also doesn’t have any kind of switch on it for power. There just wasn’t room, I guess, for that. Undaunted, Cochlear’s engineers worked out the snazziest, slickest, 22nd Century approach to controlling the power on the Kanso.

An accellerometer.

Google it if you want.

An accellerometer detects um, acceleration. Things changing their speed is called acceleration. Things moving at a constant speed are not accelerating – an accelerometer won’t measure that.

The Kanso uses the “tap” method for controlling its power.

With the device on your head, “quickly and strongly tap twice on the Kanso to turn it on.”

When you want to turn it off “quickly and strongly tap three times to turn it off.”

Much like those slippers in the Wizard of Oz.

Tapping the Kanso "strongly' three times has about 50/50 odds of knocking it off my head. This becomes important later.

Now one nice thing about how the Kanso uses its accelerometer is that when it’s off, lying on a table or something, and you stick it on your head, the accelerometer goes “Yipee! time to turn the power on!”

But also…

If it’s lying on a table or something and your cat decides to knock it around a bit, the accelerometer goes “Yipee! time to turn the power on!”

If you put it in its little storage case, and stuff that case in a pocket or purse or backpack, the accelerometer goes “Yipee! time to turn the power on!”

“So what?” I heard you say. And I don’t blame you.

It really wouldn’t be so bad if not for…

The battery.

The battery on the N8 is designed to last all day and well into the night before needing a charge (I’ve seen it go 18+ hours). The battery on the N8 is almost as big as the entire Kanso is. So let’s talk about a thing called “energy density” as it relates to batteries.

Energy density is a measure of how much energy can be crammed into a space of some particular volume. Think of it as the maximum size of your car’s gas tank (if you still have that). You can’t fill it past that point. Not unless you get a bigger tank – or somehow figure out how to get more gas in a smaller space.

The thing about batteries, is that in terms of energy density (think of electrons as gas) the batteries from only a decade or two ago were shit. The energy density was pathetic. More modern Lithium Ion designs greatly incresed the energy density – meaning you could put tiny batteries in small devices and it would all work great – well, until it exploded. See, the higher the energy density, the more explodey the battery gets (yes, I made up that term). The good news is that in more recent times we’ve come up with better ways to keep batteries from exploding.

What’s energy density got to do with the Kanso battery?

Well, in terms of the size of the Kanso package and the power requirements of the electronics insisde, the engineers were up against a wall in terms of battery power management. Even as great as things are today, the energy density of the battery – in such a small package – just doesn’t allow the Kanso to run for more than about 4 or 5 hours on a single charge. That’s not even close to what’s needed for a typical user.

So what did they do?

They did (kinda) what they did with the N8. They made a BIG battery for it, with a little wire. It’s called the Kanso Backup Charger and it’s the niftyest bananna since sliced milk. So when the Kanso keels over and dies (or screams in your ear that it’s hungry), you can just whip out your backup charger (AKA giant battery) and plug the little wire into your Kanso and on you go! It will charge even as you’re using it, so that’s a plus.

Now I’m going to ask you to raise your hand (when I say to).

How many people like sitting, oh, I don’t know, in a board meeting, and their Kanso screams for a battery, so they dig through their purse or whatever and drag out a thing with a wire and pull a thing off their head to plug the wire into it and clip the big battery thing to their collar and shove the thing they took off originally back on their head with the wire dangling down to their collar, smile, and say “could you repeat that, please?”

Raise your hand if that’s you (that likes that idea).

 I didn’t raise my hand.

Somehow, the party at the Hamptons just became a bit less attractive.

And oh dear sweet Jesus or Satan or whichever invisible lightning bolt hurling deity you prefer, IT GETS WORSE FROM HERE.

WAY WORSE

Remember the cute accellerometer we talked about? Never mind that. Now remember the magnet that’s super duper strongest according to Cochlear? For some folks, probably (strong). For folks with thick head skin like me, not so much. Not so much at all.

Sure, it’ll stick to my head in most situations. Also, it’ll fall off if I bend over too fast (see accelleration). Also, it’ll fall off sometimes when I’m putting it on because it apparently hasn’t seated fully or I’m an idiot – take your pick.

And finally, the final nail in the Kanso coffin. Like so many modern devices, like phones, and bowls and cameras and loose diamonds, the Kanso is beautifully polished to a dull slickness that is a sight and feel to behold. It’s also – say it with me kids – somewhat thin and and very round. Round like a wheel. A wheel without an axle. A free-wheeling wheel.

Did I mention how the Kanso falls off the head magnet when we accellerate too much?

One day, not long ago, I was wearing the Kanso, and fooling around in the closet where April (the cat)  does her business. I can’t remember exactly why. I’m not sure if I bumped my head or just accelerated my head (still attached to my body) too much. The Kanso took it’s typical flying leap off my head. Now I know my Kanso’s antics very well, so while it fell, I flipped my eyballs into super tracking mode, and watched the Kanso as it quickly rolled into Tumbolia.

Yep – Tumbolia – the place where the missing sock goes.

The good news about Tumbolia is that many things that go there will come back again later – no telling when, but sometimes they come back when you’re cleaning your domicile, perhaps to get the deposit back on your rental.

Like I always do with events that are not nearly important enough to panic over, I panicked. I dug and felt and dug and used my big flashlight and dug some more. Tumbolia sent a ransom demand like a good kidnapper.

When my panic subsided, I remembered that patience (maybe extreme patience) may be required to get a thing back from Tumbolia. So I went into acceptance mode, and after talking it out with my therapist (psych – if you haven’t realized yet from reading this Blog that Paul requires a therapist, you need to slow down), I had an epiphany.

My epiphany was really simple and clear.

I ALREADY HATED THE KANSO BEFORE I LOST IT.

I lost a thing I hated. And panicked over it.

I still had the N8.

It’s fine, Paul – move on.

Wanna guess what happened next?

Yep! I found the Kanso nestled in folds of the blanket in April’s cat carrier.

Yipee! I got back the thing I hated!

So back I go to using the Kanso like a COMPLETE IDIOT.

The next time the Kanso fell and rolled I found it pretty quickly without panicking too much.

That time, though, I made a decision.

We’re almost there (the point of this post – thanks for hanging in here like you’re as crazy as I am).

I have retired the Kanso permanetly. A part of me wanted to throw it into the sea.

I didn’t do that because another part of me reels at the thought of throwing a multi-thousand dollar device into the sea (even though I didn’t pay a nickel for it). It’s now nestled in its little carry case inside the Cochlear-provided backpack where all my rarely used hearing accessories go. And no, I don't give a rat's ass whether it's on or off (power). It’s only been there a few days, and it really hasn’t taunted me too many times by whispering “You really want to try me again, don’t you? Don’t deny it, I’m such a sexy bit of technology, aren’t I?” I’ve been succesfully ignoring it, and I think I’ll manage that going forward.

And that, brave Blog readers, is the Saga of the Junked Hearing Equipment.