An aid for the hard of hearing.

There was a question on the Electrical Engineering StackExchange recently that I thought was worth a little time and effort.

It has taken me a couple of days to get around to it, but I found time to look at how you can use Google “Live Transcribe” to put “closed captions” on a phone call.

Skip the story and jump straight to a description of a functional transcription adapter.

It’s going to take a little explaining and organizing to make a simple and robust adapter, so I’ve put up a table of contents along with the first post.

Note:

  • This will be a sort of round about trip to find an optimal solution. I will include all of my experiments here.
  • Early experiments and circuits may be non-functional or non-optimal.
  • If you are following along as I make each post, remember that any given circuit may be partial or may not work well.

I’ll make it clear when I have arrived at what I think is a good, workable circuit and solution. The first part to solve is the electrical circuit. The second part is making it easy to reproduce by hand in small numbers. I don’t think this will be a large enough product that it would make sense to have them manufactured in a factory. Easy access to common parts and a simple mechanical construction will be needed.

  1. Transcribing phone calls with Google Live Transcribe - A first look - It ain’t rocket science, but it ain’t trivial, either.
  2. Transcribing phone calls with Google Live Transcribe - A prototype and a test - Electrically functional, but not quite ready for prime time.
  3. Transcribing phone calls with Google Live Transcribe - Measurements and optimization - Making sure that Live Transcribe can hear properly.
  4. Transcribing phone calls with Google Live Transcribe - An adapter made from common parts - Not the cheapest way but certainly a reproducible way.
  5. Transcribing phone calls with Google Live Transcribe - A properly functioning loop-back adapter - A CTIA four pole plug and a few spare parts.