The New Hotness

Mary plugged a new ClimateLine heated hose into her Resmed Airsense 11 CPAP machine, spent the night feeling a bit chilly, and got an error message in the morning that boiled down to “Bad Hose”.

Unsurprisingly, the new hose looks just like the previous ones and the old picture remains relevant:

The new hose has the same 12 kΩ resistance between the two outer contacts: the thermistor is fine.

The two inner contacts are an open circuit, not the expected 10 Ω: the heater element or (more likely) a connector joint failed. We don’t know if it was DOA or failed during the first use, but it does not respond to the usual wiggling and poking.

Her experience with Lincare’s Customer Disservice has been so terrible she refuses to start a warranty claim. She’ll continue using the old hose until it’s time for the next replacement and we’ll hope for the best.

As I understand the arrangement, she must get all the consumables (masks, hoses, filters, tanks) from Lincare for five years from the date of the original prescription. After that, she can order supplies from elsewhere, although that seller must have a new prescription.

Basically, Lincare gets five years of guaranteed business and, like the phone company of old, they don’t care about you because they don’t have to.

So: they win.