A sharper world for hearing-aid users
US-based Ear Technology Corp (ETC) has introduced a Timestrip® to its new Dry-Brik II, which helps prolong the life and improve the performance of hearing aids. ETC manufactures and distributes the Dry & Store® conditioning system for hearing instruments, as well as TransEar®, a bone conduction hearing aid for patients with single-sided deafness.

Confusion over when to replace
Dry & Store was developed as a remedy for hearing aid problems caused by moisture: distortion, intermittency and volume fluctuations are often the result of moisture build-up, rather than a hearing aid defect. Moisture can also cause corrosion of battery contacts, hinges and other mechanical components, further hindering performance. Dry & Store aims to prevent the need for the most common repairs by eliminating the reason for the malfunction.

Dry-Brik is the moisture-absorbing desiccant ‘brick’ which is a critical part of the Dry & Store conditioning process. Dry-Brik captures the moisture released during the eight-hour conditioning cycle: without a desiccant, moisture would simply re-settle on and in the hearing aid at the end of the cycle. Until now, Dry & Store customers had to rely on a humidity-indicating card to show when the Dry-Brik was due for replacement; the card, however, was difficult to read, unreliable and the subject of many customer complaints. There was a clear need to improve the way that time of replacement was indicated to customers, particularly in light of the launch of Dry & Store’s next generation desiccant, Dry-Brik II. Enter Timestrip.

Unmistakeably easy
Dry-Brik II has a two-month life expectancy but, as with most consumable products, timely replacement is necessary to ensure that it continues to perform at a high level. Timestrip designed a label especially for the temperature range of the Dry & Store product line, rendering the old colour-changing cards obsolete. The Timestrip® shows unmistakeably when the life of each Dry-Brik is over and encourages replacement straight away.

Once activated by the user, the two-month Timestrip® contained in the brick shows clearly and visibly how long it has been in use and thus when it should be replaced. The previous method used for showing the life of the Dry-Brik, a humidity-indicating card, was unreliable and very difficult to read. The Timestrip® is simple to activate, easy to read and virtually impossible to misunderstand.

The Dry-Brik II was launched in 2007. In development for over two years, the new desiccant product has been improved by the inclusion of a more aggressive sorbent with much greater moisture-absorbing capacity and, crucially, the built-in Timestrip®.

Sales up and further increase expected 
Customer feedback since the Dry-Brik with integrated Timestrip® was launched has been universally positive: “They like the timing concept,” confirms Rodney Lee Dobson of ETC. “The Timestrip® is clearly a better way of prompting desiccant replacement: it is clear, easily visible and impossible to misunderstand.”

Unit sales of the Dry-Brik have increased since the Timestrip® was added and ETC is confident this is because more customers are adhering to the two-month replacement cycle. If all current users were to keep to the two-month recommended replacement time, annual unit sales of the Dry-Brik would double, to more than 1.2 million. Although the design of the desiccant unit has been updated as well as having the Timestrip® added, Dobson is clear about the main reason for the sales increase: “We believe the Timestrip® is the strongest contributing factor.”