Okay, so I finally caved and bought these Powermax 312 hearing aid batteries after my usual Amazon Basics were out of stock. Here’s the real tea:

First off, the battery life is actually impressive. I wear my hearing aids around 14 hours a day, and these lasted me a solid week. That’s way better than some other brands I’ve tried that die after like 3 days. Big win there.

BUT OH MY GOSH THE PACKAGING. Whoever designed this needs to be forced to open these with arthritis for a week straight. I get it - Reese’s Law, child safety, blah blah. But come on! I had to use scissors just to free ONE battery. Imagine needing a quick change while out? Nope. You’ll be that person in the coffee shop wrestling with packaging like it’s Fort Knox.

Pro tip: I cut all mine out at once and put them in an old pill bottle. Not ideal but at least now I can actually use them without needing a degree in package demolition.

Final verdict? Great batteries trapped in evil packaging. If you can deal with that (or have strong scissors handy), they’re worth it for the performance and price.