Download these hearing loss apps to help improve communication and enjoyment on your mobile phone.
If you received a new smartphone this holiday, you might be busy exploring all its wondrous capabilities and features. Whether your phone is new or not, there are many hearing loss apps you can download to augment your communication and enjoyment. We compiled a list of seven widely-used smartphone apps for people with hearing loss that are both helpful and easy to use.
- Hamilton Mobile™ CapTel®
- Speak4Me
- FaceTime
- Google Hangouts
- Sound Meter
- Relax Melodies
- Jacoti Listen App
Below, learn more about each of these hearing loss apps to help you get the most out of your smartphone.
1. Hamilton Mobile™ CapTel®
The Hamilton Mobile CapTel app for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets allows you to read captions of what’s said to you during phone conversations*. Hamilton Mobile CapTel delivers the reliability and confidence customers have come to love about the CapTel service. The feature-rich app provides fast and accurate captions on incoming and outgoing calls, syncs with your device contacts and enables you to access your call log and review captions later.
2. Speak4Me
On the other side of the conversational coin, Speak4Me lets you turn written notes and texts into shareable sound clips. This text-to-speech capability is a favorite app for deaf people for in-person communication. It supports dozens of languages, and some even have several accents from which to choose. Speak4Me does just what the name promises: it lends you a voice whenever you need it.
3. FaceTime
If you like to read lips or use other visual cues when communicating, video-calling apps like FaceTime can make calls from your smartphone easier. This hearing loss app lets you see a video of your caller from your smartphone screen as they’re talking in real time. If you have an Apple device, like an iPhone, iPod Touch, or even a Mac, you’ll find that FaceTime comes conveniently pre-installed on your device (the app only runs on Apple devices). If you have an Android device, check out the next smartphone app for people with hearing loss.
4. Google Hangouts
If you or your caller don’t have an Apple device to use FaceTime, Google Hangouts is a video chat alternative with many of the same features, and it comes pre-installed on all Android devices. The app also works on Windows and Mac desktop computers and laptops, and you can video chat with up to 10 people at a time.
5. Sound Meter
Here’s an app that everyone should have on their phone—hearing loss or not! Sound Meter measures the sound levels around you so you can be wary of damaging noise. It uses the microphone from your Android device to measure how loud your environment is, in decibels, and provides you with a reference sound for comparison. This is a great hearing loss app for people who spend a lot of time in noisy work environments or those who enjoy attending concerts. It will help you know when you should move a little farther away from the noise to help prevent or worsen hearing loss.
Check out more ways to help prevent hearing loss in a noisy world here.
6. Relax Melodies
If you experience tinnitus and find it difficult to fall asleep, Relax Melodies could be an excellent hearing loss app for you. It lets you listen to relaxing sounds throughout the night or for a set time, thanks to its built-in timer. The app is highly customizable, as it allows you to experiment with over 100 different kinds of melodies, binaural beats, white noise, and other types of relaxing sounds. You can create your own sonic landscape before you count sheep!
7. Jacoti Listen App
Jacoti Listen is a smartphone app for people with hearing loss that essentially converts your Apple device into a hearing support system. It allows you to use your Apple earphones to clarify the voices around you and helps you manage difficult listening situations without wearing out your ears with too much amplification. The app uses audiogram data to optimize your experience, so people with different degrees of hearing loss can all benefit from using it.
These are just a few smartphone apps for people with hearing loss that can enhance your experience with your mobile device and your communication with others. For more articles on ways to make living with hearing loss easier, check out our blog today.
Do you like to stream videos from your mobile device? Check out our infographic on how to turn on captions on your smartphone.
*When using Hamilton CapTel on a smartphone or tablet and not on Wi-Fi, a data plan is required. Hamilton CapTel may be used to make 911 calls but may not function the same as traditional 911 services. For more information about the benefits and limitations of Hamilton CapTel and Emergency 911 calling, visit HamiltonCapTel.com/911.
