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Batteryless Flashlights and Cochlear Implants

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A warning recently circulated around some of the Cochlear Implant (CI) lists that read:

Attention Cochlear Implant users—you should never use the flashlight that never needs batteries, just shake it. Also, it never needs bulbs, is waterproof and floats in water. Single/double super coils create the charge with every shake. The problem is that there is a magnet in it that can erase the maps from a cochlear implant or corrupt computer hard drives. Please pass the word, better to be safe than sorry.

So often the “warnings” that you receive via email are just not true. Someone “thinks” something could happen and warns everyone else—all without a shred of evidence that there is any real problem. This is what has happened in this case. (In addition, there are the many malicious emails whose only purpose is to deliberately scare you silly, but this isn’t one of them.)

So what is the truth about these batteryless flashlights? Are they really capable of wiping out the programs in CIs and corrupting hard drives? I decided to find out.

You see, I have one of these very flashlights sitting on my desk where it has been for a number of months without causing any harm to my computer. I decided to try and see if it could deliberately wipe out data on a floppy disk. I put some files on a floppy disc, then held the disk as close to the magnet in the flashlight as possible for a minute and then tested it in my computer. Still good. Then I held it against the flashlight and shook the flashlight for a couple of minutes and tried it again. Still good.

Note: since the magnet is in the center of the flashlight handle, the closest it can come to any disc or CI is just over half an inch. Also, note that the CI has a magnet of its own to hold it on your head, and this magnet has not been implicated in wiping out CI programs.

Based on my brief tests, I can see no problem with using this flashlight for casual use, even if you have a CI. Now if you taped the processor to the flashlight as close as you can get to the magnet and left it there for a couple of months, who knows what might happen–but is anyone ever going to do that in real life?

As for the hard drives on your computer, you couldn’t get the flashlight as close to them as I did to the floppy and no harm came to the floppy. Thus, I think this flashlight is perfectly safe in normal use.

Notice that according to this article, this flashlight never has actually wiped out CI programs. The author was just warning it could happen. And that might be true—that it could happen, although from my testing, the chances are very remote—you’d have to deliberately try to make it happen, and even then, there are no guarantees you could ever make it happen.

This “warning” is similar to the warning a doctor gave to a hard of hearing customer of mine (and patient of his) who had a heart pacemaker. He told this person that he couldn’t use a PockeTalker to help him hear better as it could interfere with his pacemaker and kill him, but didn’t say anything about carrying a small radio, iPod or DVD player that use basically the same electronics and thus would be just as “dangerous.”

I’ll bet the doctor didn’t even know what a PockeTalker was. Besides, there are no known occurrences of this ever happening. This pseudo-professional warning was just harming the patient who needed an assistive listening device (ALD) in order to hear better. Therefore, just because some of the stuff floating around the Internet seems to come from an authoritative source doesn’t make it true. Take these warnings with a grain of salt until you see them proven to be true.

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Loop Systems

Loop your home or meeting room. Discover how you can hear wonderfully clear sound again when listening to the TV/radio, etc, or when listening to a speaker at a meeting.

Loop systems are one of the best-kept secrets in town. To learn more about Loop Systems and what they can do for you, click here.

Take Control of Your Tinnitus—Here’s How

If your ears ring, buzz, chirp, hiss, click or roar, you know just how annoying tinnitus can be. You do not have to put up with this racket for the rest of your life. This book teaches you many things you can do to help bring your tinnitus under your control so it no longer bothers you.

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Sounds Now Too Loud for You?

Hypersensitive to Sound front coverIf some (or all) normal sounds seem so loud they “blow the top of your head off”, or make you wince or jump, or cause you headaches or ear pain, or affect your balance, or result in fear or annoyance of sounds so you feel you have to avoid these sounds, this book is for you!

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Hearing Phantom Sounds?

When hard of hearing people begin hearing phantom voices or music, they immediately worry they are going crazy. It never crosses their minds that they are sane and are just experiencing Musical Ear syndrome.

To learn more about the strange phantom sounds of Musical Ear syndrome and what you can do about them, click here to read a comprehensive article about Musical Ear Syndrome.

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Center for Hearing Loss Help

Neil G. Bauman, Ph.D.

1013 Ridgeway Drive, Lynden,
WA 98264-1057 USA

Email: neil@hearinglosshelp.com

Phone: 360-778-1266 (M-F 9:00 AM-5:00 PM PST)

© 2025 Center for Hearing Loss Help – Help for your hearing loss, tinnitus and other ear conditions

"The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life [which also includes perfect hearing] through Jesus Christ our Lord." [Romans 6:23]

"But know this, in the last days perilous times will come" [2 Timothy 3:1]. "For there will be famines, pestilences, and [severe] earthquakes in various places" [Matthew 24:7], "distress of nations, the sea and the waves roaring"—tsunamis, hurricanes—Luke 21:25, but this is good news if you have put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, for "when these things begin to happen, lift up your heads [and rejoice] because your redemption draws near" [Luke 21:28].