Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

Need simultaneous Bluetooth streaming of speech to HA and audio to text conversion on smartphone

This topic is closed.

21 replies1.7k viewsLast reply

Jump
Link to this topic

I have a severe to profound loss and have worn hearing aids almost all my life (I’m 65). I am good at speaking foreign languages (rhythm, tone, accent) but have trouble understanding non-English words.

I need new hearing aids and am looking for a complete solution that will stream a spoken foreign voice via bluetooth to my aids (as a Roger On / Phonak aids can do ) BUT ALSO show the foreign speech in written form (audio to text conversion) on an app running on my phone. I find if I can read just a few words of what’s being said that information – along with my audio understanding of the words – gives me enough information to respond.

I can do everything described above on Zoom calls (sound streamed to hearing aids, captions created on iPhone Zoom app transcribing audio to speech) and have good foreign language comprehension. Is there any way to recreate this solution in a non Zoom call, person-to-person environment. I’m willing to switch to an Android (at least for foreign travel) if necessary.

Any and all advice is much appreciated. Thanks!

9 people in this conversation6 min readJump to latest
Edited

There are certainly speech-to-text options that can work alongside , but I’m not aware of any that are tightly integrated and offer translation as well. Is there an aspect of your use case that absolutely requires this integration? I’m guessing the use of a remote mic to get the audio is probably the sticking point, as this would not otherwise be available for processing by a mobile app.

Thanks for the reply, Greg.

I don’t need translation. If I’m talking to someone in Spanish, I’d like to use something like a Roger On to stream his speech to my hearing aid, but I’d also like to be able to see what that person is saying by looking at the (audio to text transcribed) Spanish text on my smartphone. I’m perfectly fine reading the Spanish.

I’m just struggling with how I can use both a Roger On device and at the same time have Spanish audio converted to Spanish text which I can read on my smartphone. Could the Roger On device also feed audio to a program such as Otter for rendering into text while at the same time streaming actual audio to my hearing aid?

My apologies for not being more clear.

Thanks, Drew

My Pixel 7 streams sound to my during a call and transcribes text simultaneously.

This is all a function of the phone, the HAs just receive the sound via .

@HitFactor said:

My Pixel 7 streams sound to my HAs during a call and transcribes text simultaneously.

@HitFactor
But I assume you have to activate this functionality in an app running on your cellphone. Could you please provide the name of the app? Thanks in advance for this promising/ valuable info

Edited

In reply to @mdboy

No. The Roger technology won’t do this. Using Roger the audio will be only streamed to your hearing aids but not simultaneously to any audio to text app. It looks like you need some kind of range extender mic that transmits audio to your phone. This does not have to be a hard of hearing accessory, but just a device that picks up sound. This should work inconjunction with a Roger as the two things are independent. Roger streams audio to the hearing aids whilst a separate device streams audio to your phone and the app interprets it.

In reply to @Emile030

If you have - or are willing to switch - an Android phone, the Google Recorder app is available for free in the Google Play store. It is also installed by default on Pixel phones, perhaps on others. It will transcribe the speech (and I think you can select the language) and it will keep the transcription for up to a few days in case you need to copy into another app.
I have not used it for other than English, and you may need to download the (text-to-speech) plugin for additional languages.

Recorder2

Capture and rediscover life's audible moment...

Edited

In reply to @glucas

@glucas said:

It looks like you need some kind of range extender mic that transmits audio to your phone.

As an example, wireless smartphone lavalier mics are available relatively inexpensively now:

https://a.aliexpress.com/_msKZlb09

I haven’t used this specific model, this is just to show how cheap they can be. Much nicer ones are available, such as one from DJI which has significantly longer range and a variety of additional features:

https://a.co/d/cEAYGIV5

OP is looking for a remote mic that provides multilingual speech-to-text via smartphone while simultaneously sending audio to . Translation is not required (although a solution that does this would really tick a lot of boxes wouldn’t it?).

Edited

@greg.smith Your English is better then mine, thanks. (Dutch speaking, sorry)

Is’nt the newest Starkey Evolv 2400 not one of the which does the job, or was it only translating. Again then without an extra Rogerlike thing. Sorry I forgot because I trialed them long ago…. Anyone of the Starkey users?

Edit: https://www.starkey.com/blog/articles/2018/10/Livio-AI-translation-tool1

Once Bluetooth goes mainstream, you will be able to stream from one source to both your (new LE Audio capable) hearing aids and your (new BT LE Audio capable) phone for a speech-to-text app. For now, I do what others suggested, use two wireless remote mics at the source.

In reply to @Emile030

Google Live Transcribe perhaps. Google here is a noun, as in the company, not a verb, as in to search. Live Transcribe is an app made by Google. I have also done the Zoom thing same as you.

In reply to @glucas

Thanks very much for this answer and to everyone for their answers.

So, it appears to do what I want, I will need both the Roger On pointed at the speaker and something like this directional mike VideoMic Me-L | Smartphone Microphone | RØDE8 which is attached directly to the iphone and also roughly pointed at the speaker.

If I am talking to someone in Spanish, the Roger On will transfer the audio via directly to the hearing aids. The Videomic-me-I will be attached to the lightning port on my iphone and will bring in the audio to my iphone. On the iPhone itself I will run something like Otter (which can already handle foreign languages or the new with iOS 16 Live Captions in Beta (which can only handle English for the moment). The app running will do its best to transcribe (not translate) the audio so I can hopefully catch a few words on the app to help with comprehension. Two microphones each doing its own thing.

Does all that sound correct?

Thanks everyone so much for your answers.

@mdboy said:

attached directly to the iphone

The scenario you’ve laid out makes sense, except that the mic need not be directly connected to the smartphone if you acquire a wireless version (which could be more convenient but also more hassle depending on the circumstances).

You can try “NALscibe” Apps for iPhone. Speech to text for a few type of foreign language. It is free. Speech to text is quite accurate.

In reply to @greg.smith

Right, I saw there were some lapel tap remote mics that transmit back to a receiver on the iphone. They seem to be popular for video bloggers or other content creators. Those might work if I were talking to a teacher, for example, but perhaps not so useful for talking to to a guy in the street. Maybe I can find one that works as both directional mic as well as remote mic.

Related discussions