While smartphone apps in themselves cannot replace hearing aids or provide a permanent solution to hearing loss, they are becoming more advanced every day and can be of great assistance to people who are hard of hearing. Here are few ingenious apps that make life safer, easier, and more convenient for those with hearing loss.
The Convo – VRS App
Made by Signers, a deaf-owned company, this video-relay service app was thoughtfully designed by people who know the communication needs of hard of hearing customers.
The Convo-VRS app helps you to make both VRS and point-to-point calls as well as using VCO: this allows a person who is hard of hearing or deaf to use their voice while receiving responses from a person who is hearing via the operator’s typed text.
You can also add contacts to your list, connect with 3G, 4G, or Wi-Fi, and access the Deaf Business Community for select cities.
Making direct video calls is simple and effortless with the Convo-VRS app.
The Deaf Wake Clock
This practical alarm clock app features LED, vibration, and visual-based alarms. It was created by a hard of hearing person who was frustrated with traditional alarm clocks, and lets you choose from a variety of different options including a flashing screen, a camera flash and more. You can also create descriptive alarms and reminders as well as choose from different clock faces. This great app is compatible with the Apple Watch as well as iPhones. If you have hearing loss and are often worried about missing your alarm, this is the app for you.
The Jacoti ListenApp (Hearing Aid)
This app functions as a hearing support system on your iPhone or iPod touch, and it can also process sounds from other applications. The app is simple to use: just put in your Apple headphones and experience the sounds in the world around you. If you wish, you can also separate the sound processing for each ear, a helpful feature for those who have unequal or unilateral hearing loss. If you find yourself without your hearing aids for some reason, this app is a convenient way to get help hearing the voices and noises around you, as well as sounds coming from any other installed apps.
Connect by BeWarned – app for the deaf and hard of hearing
This simple app can convert speech into text, or text into speech. It was designed to help hard of hearing or deaf people converse with the hearing, and works as an instant relay of spoken words. To talk to a hearing person, simply type what you want to say and the app will speak it. The hearing person’s response will then be converted into text for you. The app also features a template for commonly-spoken words and phrases. Communicating with the hearing will no longer pose a challenge with this handy app.
Subtitles Viewer!
At home, you may have a program on your TV that allows you to turn the subtitles on whenever you wish. But what about when you’re away from home and want to watch something? This app provides a huge range of subtitles for TV shows and movies, and the subtitles are available in a variety of languages including English, German, Spanish and French. There is a free trial version, as a well as paid version which provides unlimited subtitles.
BeWarned – app for the deaf and hard of hearing
This multi-purpose app is outfitted with a number of features that can help in day-to-day life. It helps you to detect the sounds of danger, converts speech, and even improves the way you hear music. The excellent “Sound Monitor” feature alerts you visually to sounds of potential danger such as sirens, alarms, and screams. The “Connect” function changes speech into text (and vice versa) and the fun “Dance” feature helps you to enjoy music with vibration and light displays. This is a great all-in-one tool for people with moderate-to-severe hearing loss.
Visual Hear – live Voice and Text Translator with Speech and Dictionary
Ideal for deaf and hard of hearing people who still want the freedom to travel, this communication app provides voice-to-text conversion as well as translation!
It works by listening to speaker’s voices and then converting their words into text for you to read. The Visual Hear app supports translations in 40 languages as well as voice activity detection, text editing, and large fonts for easy reading. It also allows users to share text with a variety of different applications. Communicating while travelling abroad can be stressful for the hard of hearing, but it needn’t be with this intelligent app.
If you are experiencing a hearing loss, the best technological solution to assist you is hearing aids! Contact us at Neighborhood Hearing Aid Centers today to schedule a hearing test.