@joyces

Hi,

I’m sorry that Live Transcribe didn’t work for you. It will only work with one speaker at a time. I have been using it since it’s inception.While it has saved me so many times, I found that it does not work well in noisy situations which is where we really need it. It seems to get confused by background noise and doesn’t know which voice to pick up even if the phone is held close to the speakers mouth. It’s fickle but there have been many times my waiter has just spoken near the phone and I was able to read what he was saying. I have used it in my gym class with wooden floors, high ceiling and background noise coming in from the open door with great success.

I have a pocket talker and neckloop. This is really a personal amplifier and the mic needs to be near the person who is speaking. So you are either going to point the mic at each individual one at a time or have several clip on mics for people to wear. It really fails if everyone who is wearing a mic is speaking all at the same time. I found that the clip on mics are sensitive to people’s rustling sounds when they move around and can interfere with understanding. It’s okay in the car when you are a passenger and someone else is wearing the clip on. I’ve tried the desk microphone that they sell that is on a stand that you place in the middle of a conference table. Supposedly you just turn the mic in the direction of the person who is speaking . My experience is that it could not pick up an individual voice because it was too far down the table from the speaker. This is really an individual one on one solution and you need to be near the speaker or the speaker has to hold the mic up their mouth. I use it at home occasionally to listen to musicals or a particular singer if there is a concert being streamed. It’s a big help in that situation. I have a long cord attached to the tv and it’s able to bring the voice closer to me.
I’ve used the neckloop by itself with Tcoil on when I listen to GPS on my phone. While I don’t understand the vocal directions, I can hear the voice as a clue to the next turn etc. God bless GPS.

I plan to use Live Transcribe again at my grandson’s graduation in May since it worked so well at my granddaughters graduation when one speaker at a time was at the podium. There are two Doctors offices and my salon where I need to sign into their WiFi but usually it’s an automatic connect. I discovered this by accident when I was wondering why it wasn’t picking up voices in an ideal situation. And I live in a an area where everyone has WiFi access. I’m wondering if the times you couldn’t connect when you tried it means that you needed to sign in to that particular network or the network was unstable.

I’ve tried 2 Tcoil programs....Full Tcoil and Tcoil +mic where you can also hear voices around you while in this program. The audiologist can adjust what percentage of the program to allot to the mic setting. At this stage I need full on Tcoil and don’t care about the voices around me.

When I was working I asked about using a CapTel phone at work but was told that there was something about two lines being needed and , as it was a small office, they were not willing to delve into the problem. That was okay with me as I didn’t need a phone anyway and, as you say, Emil saved the day.

Ideally we could trial these accessories or have a complete refund if purchased. I’ve always wondering about the chair loop. I have deaf friends who have had their living room looped. I have Phonak hearing aids and have trialed some of their accessories but found they didn’t live up to the hype.

Very frustrating in today’s world.

FL Mary