The same broadcast, for people who cannot hear the room
Translation and access are usually two budgets, two suppliers and two setups. Here they are the same broadcast: captions can run in the language being spoken, and the audio is delivered in a mode hearing aids can actually use.
At a glance
- Bluetooth profile
- Media, not call
- Caption sizes
- Three steps
- What a reader installs
- Nothing
- Same-language captions
- Free while translating
Live captions in the language actually being spoken
Someone in the room who is hard of hearing does not need another language — they need the words. That is a separate switch, because the translation languages deliberately leave out the one being spoken, and it is free while any language has a listener: the text falls out of a translation that is already running. Captions in the spoken language are also delivered unpaced, without the short delay translated speech carries, so they land as close to the speaker as the transcription allows.
- Captions in the spoken language, not only in translation
- No delay added to same-language captions
- Free while any language has a listener
- Nothing for the reader to install
Good morning everyone, and thank you for joining today's global session. It's wonderful to see so many of you connecting from around the world.
What a listener can change
Set on the reader's own device, remembered there, and touching nothing about the broadcast.
Hearing aids get music quality
The listener page asks for a media audio session, not a call one. A call configuration is what puts a Bluetooth device on the telephone profile — mono, and roughly telephone bandwidth. For someone streaming a service into an aid or a cochlear implant, that is the difference that matters most.
Bigger text
Three caption sizes. A reader who never opens the menu sees exactly what they saw before it existed.
High contrast
For a bright room, a dim phone, or eyes that need it. It changes the page, not the text.
Text only
Drop the audio entirely and read. Useful in a quiet room, with a flat battery, or when the earbuds are at home.
Screen stays awake
A phone that sleeps mid-sentence is its own barrier. The reading view keeps it lit, and says so if the browser refuses.
The words afterwards
The transcript is kept for the languages that had a listener, with the untranscribed stretches marked rather than run together — so a gap reads as a gap, not as a shorter service.
Turning it on
- 1
Offer the spoken language to listeners
One setting in the new-session card. It adds the language being spoken to the listener's menu without spending a translation slot on it.
- 2
Say it out loud, once
Most people who would use captions will not ask. Announcing the code and what it offers, at the start, does more than any sign at the door.
- 3
Print it where people look
The same poster and the same code serve translation and captions — there is no second thing to explain, and nobody has to identify themselves to use it.
- 4
Ask the people who use it
Caption size, contrast and screen-awake are reader settings for a reason: what works differs person to person. The one useful piece of feedback is theirs.
Common questions
Does this meet a legal assistive listening requirement?
Not on its own, and we will not tell you otherwise. Where a venue is required to provide an assistive listening system, the rule is usually written around dedicated receivers or a hearing loop, and a service people join on their own phones does not automatically discharge it. Check your local requirement, keep what it asks for, and treat this as something that helps the same people in addition.
How accurate are the captions?
Good enough to follow a talk, not good enough to be a legal record. They come from automatic transcription, so names, unusual terms and crosstalk are where they slip — which is why a glossary of your own names and terms is worth filling in before an event.
Do captions cost extra?
Captions in a language somebody is already listening to cost nothing — the text is a by-product of that translation. Captions in the spoken language are free too, for as long as any translated language has a listener. Only a broadcast where the spoken language is the sole audience holds a session open for the text.
Can someone read and listen at the same time?
Yes. Audio and captions come from the same broadcast, and the reader chooses either or both. Text-only is there for the people who want the words without the sound.
Does a listener have to identify themselves?
No, and that is deliberate. There is no account, no sign-in and no list — knowing the session code is the whole of it. Nobody has to ask for help, register a need, or be counted as anything other than one more listener.
Make the next one easier to follow
Turn on captions in the language you speak and try it on 30 free credits.