A good app

Howdy, Hutch. Welcome to the group.

Not sure what device or technology you would use this on as you didn't specify a platform, but there are many available, and often free. Will you be using this with assistive listening/HA devices?

MS Outlook (email), Office and Edge all have this built-in.
Windows - http://www.cross-plus-a.com/balabolka.htm
Chrome, Edge and Firefox browsers - https://readaloud.app/
Android - https://support.google.com/accessibility/android/answer/7349565?hl=en
MAC OS (built in) - https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-spoken-content-settings-accessibility-spch638/mac
iPhone (built in) - https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-use-the-iphone-text-to-speech-feature
Generic web reader - https://ttsmaker.com/

Hope this helps,

JustTodd

This seems like a nice list of answers, but I need more information. I struggle with using technology to help me hear. For starts which of the above sites are used face to face in a room or group of people and which are used for a phone call? I read Mayo Clinic Connect and frequently don't understand the responses/solutions. I realize this is for quick, informed answers, but maybe responses could include references to more fundamental sites to get a reader up to speed.

I find Innocaption very useful for voice to text on my iPhone 13 either making or receiving a call. I saw an ad, and maybe an article, in HLAA magazine a year or so about it. You need to set up a call forwarding, but I was able to do it with no help and have used it successfully for many months.

It is free and federally funded. My impression is that because the government has traditionally funded captioning for land lines, but now needs to support cell phones. To me that says "free money" to whoever can offer the best solution, so there's a race for funding. Is this correct?

@sag

Hello, Susan.

The original thread was asking about text to speech. Your question seems to be asking about speech to text. My only experience is using an app called Live Transcribe on my android, although it is also available for iphone - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/live-transcribe/id1471473738. A web search for "speech to text app for iphone" will yield more results for additional apps.

It works well for me but one needs to be in a rather quiet environment for this app to work. I do not have any experience with Innocaption.

JustTodd

Thank you, JustTodd. That's helpful. Susan

Just to clarify - Innocaption (and Olelo and Captel) are for captioning cell phone calls, similar to Captioned Landline phones you can get for your house. Whereas Live Transcribe (and Otter, Ava, Live Captions) are for captioning (one-on-one ideally) conversations. I agree with the comment that these conversation captioning apps work best one-to-one without a lot of background noise, such as in a doctor appt.