So, I was reading a review of Google's new Pixel 4 smartphone and perked up on mention of the Pixel's "Live Captions" feature. Unfortunately, "Live Captions" does not work on phone calls. It does work on things like podcasts and uncaptioned videos. Unfortunately, the inability to caption phone calls makes it a deal killer for me. (Also dealkillers: the
Pixels lousy battery, underwhelming processor and limited storage). So, no Pixel 4 for me. However, Google also has another product: Live Transcribe. Unlike Live Captions, LT requires an internet connection and the transcription is performed by Google's servers rather than locally by the device. I had been using LT since it was released last spring for
things like doctor appointments, vet visits, interactions with clerks etc. So, I got to wondering: could LT provide captions for phone conversations? Using an Amazon Fire 10 tablet for the transcribing and my phone to place calls I tried it out. No luck. It was picking up my voice but not the party on the other end of the phone. Then I tried placing a
call with Amazon Show. That worked! But in a hit and miss fashion. Sometimes it worked and other times it didn't. The same hit and miss pattern repeated when I tried it with a DECT 6.0 handset on speakerphone. However, in all this googling around, I came across the fact that Skype has added live captions to both their video and audio calls.
And it works! When placing a call it takes a few seconds for the captions to get going and one will encounter a "Turning on captions" message.
Then captions start appearing and they are good enough to hold a conversation.
So, I decide to spend $3/month for a Skype number and also to forward all received phone calls to my Skype number. That works as well. So, I am one happy camper. There are a couple of flies in the ointment: Captioning is not available in any of the Amazon clients so I can't Skype on my Fire tablet or on the Show. It does work on the computer and on my
phone. The more serious problem lies in captions becoming unavailable if you try to navigate a voicemail system. Attempting to do so results in a message to the effect that you have to restart the call. Even so, I've been able to place personal calls without a relay operator for the first time in years as well as making calls to my vets office and a
Chinese takeout place. So, that's a definite win.
Oh wow, it's so great that you found a way to do that, and even better that it works on your phone. Technology rocks!
Wow! you've done a lot of research, it's great you've found a solution like that!
Congratulations on being able to do something we all take for granted. It’s great that the technology exists to assist you with phone calls now, but it sucks that it took this long, and isn’t as easy as it ought to be. But kudos on figuring that all out!
That's all good to know. Have you tried CaptionCall? I have it on a landline and my iPad. It does automated captioning while a live "captioning agent" makes occasional corrections to the automatic captioning. It's not perfect, but it covers the voice-without-hearing situation.
That sounds tremendously useful—congrats! I have no experience with Skype captioning, but I know people who use Skype translation and report that it can be surprisingly good.