Google Live Transcribe – a Helper for Deaf People

Deaf and hard of hearing people struggle every day with communicating with others and with hearing what is happening around them. Help comes in the form of an easy-to-use app from Google, “Google Live Transcribe”, available for Android phones. The app supports a large number of languages, including Polish. It requires a constant internet connection to work.

Google Live Transcribe features

The app is extremely easy to use. First, we download it to our phone from the Play Store. When opened, the app will ask for access to the microphone; once access is granted, transcription starts immediately. In the middle of the screen, the app will write out everything it hears through the device's microphone. At the bottom of the screen, it will list all the background sounds it recognises, such as “Birds chirping”, “wind”, “knocking”, “music” and so on.

Other features of Google Live Transcribe

In the top right-hand corner of the screen there is a blue circle showing background noise and the volume of the sound being heard. It makes it easier for a deaf person to tell whether they are close enough to the sound source for the app to recognise it. At the very bottom of the screen we can also use the option to type a reply if needed, and change the language (although the app copes with single sentences and words in a language other than the target one). Finally, there is the app settings tab, where we can set things such as text size, transcription history deleted after 24 hours, notifications about surrounding sounds, theme, vibration when a conversation resumes, etc. Interestingly, Google does not store any data such as audio or transcriptions on its servers, nor does it use them to improve the app and its features, which is a good thing as far as the app's privacy is concerned.

Sound Amplifier from Google

Another interesting Google tool that can help hard of hearing people is the Sound Amplifier app, also available on Android devices. The app processes the sound coming into the microphone so that we can understand or hear it better. To use the app properly, we need a pair of headphones. Then all we have to do is download the Sound Amplifier app from the Play Store and set all the sliders in the app to the values we want.