ClearCaptions Offers Real-Time Phone Captioning

Purple Communications, which has been providing voice and video relay services and other assistance to deaf and hard-of-hearing consumers for over a decade, is broadening its portfolio with its new ClearCaptions IP closed captioned telephone service. Captioning of real-time telephone conversations over the Internet is currently available from two other vendors, Sprint Relay and Hamilton Relay, both of whom rely on the WebCaptel service developed by UltraTec. Purple Communications (formerly GoAmerica), which will offer the service under its FCC charter as an approved provider of Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS), is creating some competition and increasing awareness of telephone captioning with its entirely new ClearCaptions service.

ClearCaptions is currently in its beta-test or trial phase but is accepting new users who can register at the ClearCaptions web site. IP captioned telephone service lets you view real-time captions of your phone conversations on your Internet-connected computer (or your Internet-connected handheld phone or tablet). All you have to do is notify your relay service provider that you are making a call, and the service provider monitors both ends of the conversation and, aided by voice-recognition software, provides you with a real-time transcript of the call. That way, if you’re like me and tend to miss anywhere from 20 to 80 percent of a phone conversation depending on the quality of the connection and any background noise that might be present, you get to fill in the blanks with the transcript.

Best of all, these web-enabled services are free, with subsidies provided by the government as part of the effort supported by the original Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to provide everyone with reasonable access to public facilities, including telecommunications, regardless of their disabilities. Hamilton Relay and Sprint Relay both also offer additional captioning services that require additional investment, including captioned telephones that display the captions directly on the phone’s LCD display so that you don’t need a computer.

The first neat thing you find with the ClearCaptions service is that you can register and log on through your Facebook account, which means you don’t have to remember a new user name or password. There is also a nice iPhone and iPad app that lets  you get the captions right on your phone. I know Hamilton CapTel and Sprint CapTel both enable their captions on the iPhone, Blackberries and other smart phones. But I love the fact ClearCaptions has an iPad app because that’s the handheld device I use for email and other apps. (The iPhone isn’t hearing-aid compatible, and other smart phones including the Blackberry that meet basic hearing-aid compatibility requirements still don’t have the audio quality I need, so I use the simplest old LG clamshell Verizon offers because it offers the best voice quality, and I use the iPad for all my other hand-held computing and communications needs).

Beyond that I have yet to do a test of the Purple Communications service versus the WebCapTel service to see which provides better captions. As anyone accustomed to watching sports, the nightly news or any other live television programming can attest, quality of real-time captioning can vary tremendously, from near-perfect transcriptions to near unintelligible gobbledygook. So when I’m able to try out both side by side, I will write up a report.

Hamilton CapTel 800i Captioned Telephone

Want to save $600 and get two of the hottest assistive listening devices (ALDs) available? Hamilton Relay’s Hamilton CapTel business unit is making a limited-time offer for its CapTel 800i captioned telephone, bundled with a TV Ears system, for only $99 combined. Hamilton CapTel has been special-offering its $595-list-price 800i captioned telephone system for $99 for a while, and now it is throwing in the highly popular wireless television amplifier from TV Ears for free.

All you have to do is go to the HamiltonCaptel web site’s special-offer landing page, grab the coupon/promo code, click through to distributor Weitbrecht Communications’ (WCI) fulfillment page, put the 800i in your shopping cart, then make sure to enter the coupon code in the “Redeem a discount coupon” space on the shopping cart page — the TV Ears product, which usually retails for $99.95, will appear as a second item in your basket with a discounted price of $0. It takes a few steps, and I don’t know how long the special offer will be available, but if you or anyone you know would benefit from either or both products, it’s a great deal.

TV Ears Wireless Amplifier

Hamilton CapTel and TV Ears got together at the Consumer Electronics Show, where TV Ears returned the compliment by announcing it will bundle the 800i phone with the TV Ears system and a variety of personal sound amplifer products (PSAPs) and entry-level hearing aids. (More on that announcement later). The two companies make a welcome fit for hard-of-hearing consumers looking for cost-effective help with their hearing. TV Ears serves the huge market of people with mild hearing loss, positioning their easy-to-use TV-amplification headset as a “gateway” for those who might later migrate to more powerful assistive listening devices and/or hearing aids.

Hamilton CapTel has been a leader in delivering captioned telephone solutions to consumers, and the 800i is a great product for anyone who has trouble understanding phone conversations. The 800i plugs into a standard Internet connection, which enables you to initiate a free WebCapTel call, and the unit’s LCD displays lets a real-time transcript of the words of the person on the other end of the call while you conduct a regular conversation with the handset over a normal phone line. While Hamilton CapTel usually serves customers with more severe hearing loss, while TV Ears is for people with mild hearing loss, you can envision the same person using both. The 800i product makes the WebCapTel service easy to use, so that people with moderate hearing loss who only have occasional problems with the phone are more likely to use it; and the TV Ears product has enough of a volume boost to be of help even for many regular hearing-aid users with moderate hearing loss.

I plan on trialing both products and will let you know how they work.

Amplicom PowerTel 500 Cordless Handset Combines Amplification For Hard-Of-Hearing Users With Advanced Business-Phone Features

I have been using the Amplicom PowerTel 500 cordless telephone for a month, and it’s the first cordless handset I’ve tried that works well enough with my hearing aids to combine the superior clarity of a land-line phone with the portable convenience of my wireless cellular phone. It also combines amplification and sound-shaping features for hearing-impaired users with all the top-end features anyone needs on an office or home-business phone, such as caller ID, multiple handsets that communicate internally, conference calling, and an extensive contact database with one-button dialing.

The new phone meets the Telecommunications Industry Association’s TIA-1083 hearing-aid compatibility standard and is among the few amplified phones to offer DECT 6.0 technology, the low-interference frequency that is standard in Europe but only recently being widely adopted in North America. The PowerTel 500 is a cordless handset with hands-free speakerphone, caller ID, and a large two-line illuminated display. It provides amplified volume of up to 50 dB and features a sound-shaping equalizer with five frequency settings.

Amplicom's PowerTel 500: Part Of A Family Of Phones For Hard-Of-Hearing Consumers

I’ve always preferred a land-line phone for lengthy personal conversations and business calls, because even a fractionally better signal over what you usually get with a cellular phone connection can make a big difference when you are hearing impaired. Even then, when I participate in conference calls, or when anyone is using a speakerphone at the other end, my comprehension often is limited to about 30 percent of what is said. But for lengthy one-on-one conversations, land-line connections with an amplified handset work very well for me. Dropped calls are almost non-existent with land lines, whereas cellular connections can go bad at a moment’s notice. And when you have a land-line handset designed for hard-of-hearing consumers that provides several levels of amplification, an equalizer with some sound-shaping frequency adjustment, and t-coil compatibility, there is really no comparison.

Recently, as cell-phone quality started catching up with land lines, I had found that many of the cellular phones with M4-T4 hearing-aid compatibility ratings often would work nearly as well for me as my land-line phone. My LG clamshell cellphone doesn’t have any bells or whistles — no email, web browsing, fancy display, or keyboard — but it’s got an excellent speaker, and when I use it with the t-coils and my hearing-aid volume maxed out, I can hear pretty well. Plus, it’s portable. These days I’ve become so accustomed to having a portable phone that being tethered my desk-bound land-line phone in the office has become a little annoying.

That’s why I’ve been eager to try the next generation of cordless amplified land-line phones, which free me from the wire but once again promise to give me much better audio quality than my cell phone. Until now, the cordless land-line units I had tried either weren’t hearing aid compatible at all, or they failed to offer the degree of amplification that I need. A mere 15-35 db of amplification doesn’t help me in all cases, and I really prefer that extra boost up to 50 db when I need it. But the Amplicom PowerTel phone meets all those needs and then some.

First and foremost, the sound quality in the PowerTel is excellent, even with maximum amplification (which I’ve found can sometimes cause distortion in other amplified handsets). The quality is so good that I’ve experienced a significant reduction in the number of frustrating calls where a bad handset or connection on the other end makes it difficult or impossible to understand the other party. In the few conference calls I’ve participated in, I discovered I depended far less on my business partners (who graciously act as my note-takers) to catch me up afterward on whatever I missed. Best of all, the hearing-aid compatibility without using the t-coils is excellent: it’s the first handset I’ve found that I can use all the time without turning on the t-coils.

That last point is an important one, because the only gotcha I found in the review was a noticeable hum with my t-coils — when I used the handset at full volume, with my hearing aid’s external microphone turned off, and with the t-coil on at full volume, there was some interference. Amplicom is justifiably proud of conforming to the TIA-1083 hearing-aid compatibility standard, which was developed with extensive input from hard-of-hearing consumers between 2004 and 2007 to eliminate the signal interference hearing-aid wearers had begun to complain about with new digital cordless handsets. So it concerned me that I experienced some interference when using the t-coils. I had a long discussion with Michael Abramowitz, President of Amplicom USA, who explained that the DECT 6.0 transmission technology, even when TIA-1083-compliant, can exhibit some interference with older t-coils. Because my t-coils are going on four years old, they are positively ancient in “technology years.” I’m assuming newer t-coils work better with DECT 6.0 handsets that conform to the TIA-1083 technical spec. It’s an academic question for me, however, because I’ve found the sound quality of the PowerTel 500 is so good I don’t need to depend on the t-coils at all.

Sound quality of the PowerTel 500 is further enhanced by an easy-to-use equalizer that offers five preset frequency settings, with a mix ranging from additional amplification at lower frequencies for people with more low-frequency loss, to more amplification at higher frequencies for people with more typical high-frequency loss. You can choose the equalizer setting you want when you initiate a call, or you can preset your preferred setting using one of the two red memory buttons, which also personalize other aspects of your profile, including the volume and boost settings you prefer. I have used the equalizer that’s set for a “normal” hearing profile, because I use the phone with my hearing aids on, which are already programmed to equalize the volume levels for me. However, I’ve also played around with the higher and lower frequency settings to help eke out a little more comprehension on calls where the signal quality has varied. For people with mild hearing loss who don’t like to use the phone with their hearing aids, however, the equalizer settings can be an even bigger help in comprehension.

Another issue of concern to a power user is battery life, because amplification and other features can drain the battery in a portable handset pretty quickly. But here I’ve been more than satisfied, as the PowerTel 500′s battery has outlasted even my longest conversations. When the call timer shows me I was on the phone over an hour, I may see the battery has run quite low, but replacing it in the PowerTel 500′s small base station re-charges the unit rapidly enough that I’ve never worried about a dead handset.

There are some other nice features in the PowerTel 500 for normal-hearing and hard-of-hearing users alike. For hard-of-hearing users, there’s an up-to-90 db ringer (with nine ring-tone options) that can wake up the rest of the neighborhood if you set it loudly enough. But if you work in a quiet office or at home with others who might find the extra-loud ringer annoying, there’s a light at the top of the unit that flashes so brightly when the phone rings that I don’t have to set the ringer on at all. It’s so noticeable I’ve yet to miss a call when I’m in the office using it with the ringer turned off. The unit also has a nice back-lit display which makes it easy to identify callers, and it can be programmed to display in English, Spanish or French. It also has a 2.5 mm jack for a standard headset (I use Hatis headsets with my t-coils), and connections to other Amplicom assistive devices including the new PowerTel 601 Wrist Shaker/Remote Answer device.

For small office settings, the PowerTel 500 can communicate in an intercom fashion with up to four other handsets; callers can be put on hold and transferred to other handsets sharing the same line; and when combined with the PowerTel 680 desktop unit, it can perform even more intelligent business-phone functions.

Amplicom USA is a recent entry in the US assistive listening market but has rapidly established itself with sales through the leading resellers of products for hard-of-hearing consumers, including Harris Communications, Sound Clarity, and Westone. The Amplicom PowerTel 500 has a suggested retail price of $139.95, and for anyone who needs real help with comprehension of regular phone calls, it’s more than worth the price. That’s great news for hard-of-hearing consumers. The other good news is there are other products out there to compare, in a marketplace not accustomed to having many competing options. Clarity Products has had an amplified cordless phone out on the market for a long time and, from what I understand, has continued to improve its sound-shaping equalizer features. And ClearSounds has long been a leader in providing cordless amplified phones, including its A600 Cordless Phone based on DECT 6.0 technology.

Like other manufacturers’ products, Amplicom phones most often come with a 30-day money back guarantee, and for hard-of-hearing consumers who have very specific, personalized requirements, it’s more than worth it to try out several products. One manufacturer’s equalizer scheme might be perfect for you, but not for someone with a different hearing profile. Therefore, Amplicom USA’s Abramowitz advises, “When it comes to hearing properly, every individual has unique needs, so it’s important to make sure you find the product that works best for you.”

Amplicom's New PowerTel 500 Cordless Phone Features Multiple Frequency Settings

Amplicom, the German supplier of amplified telephones and other assistive listening devices (ALDs) for hard-of-hearing consumers, has entered the North American market with first shipments of its family of PowerTel corded and cordless amplified phones. Amplicom USA, based in New York, said the new phones meet the Telecommunications Industry Association’s TIA-1083 hearing-aid compatibility standard and are among the few amplified phones to offer DECT 6.0 technology, the interference-free frequency that is standard in Europe but only recently being widely adopted in North America.

The initial entry in the product line, the PowerTel 500, is a cordless handset with hands-free speakerphone, caller ID, and a large two-line illuminated display. It provides amplified volume of up to 50 dB and offers five frequency settings. Featuring Amplicom’s yourSOUND technology, the PowerTel unit has settings on the PowerTel unit that can be adjusted and set for multiple hearing profiles, enabling each member of the household can switch to his or her own preferred volume and frequency.

Suggested retail for the PowerTel 500 is $139.95. Amplicom also said it will soon start shipping the PowerTel 501, an expandable handset that works with all cordless base PowerTel phones, for $89.95, as well as a series of combination telephone and answering machines. It enters a competitive but by no means crowded market for amplified phones, including other vendors such as Clarity Products and ClearSounds.

Hamilton Web Captel iPhone Application Provides Real-Time Captions Of Your Phone Conversations

Hamilton Web CapTel has introduced Mobile CapTel, an iPhone app enabling you to get live, real-time captions of telephone conversations you are having on your iPhone. Web CapTel is an amazing, free service available to anyone in the U.S.  It lets you get real-time captions over the web for any phone conversation you may have. You sign up for a free Web Captel account and, when you make a phone call, let the Hamilton relay service know you want a captioned call. Their captioning expert, aided by voice-recognition software, listens in and supplies the live captions of your conversation on your computer screen.

The new Hamilton Mobile Captel service, currently available on any 3G/3GS iPhone, shows the captions on the iPhone screen. Users download the Mobile Captel iPhone application from Apple’s iPhone App Store and use it to log onto their Web Captel accounts. Because the service works with iPhone-compatible headsets (either wired or Bluetooth), you can speak and hear while looking at the screen in your hand.

While initially only available for the iPhone 3G/3GS, Hamilton Mobile CapTel has plans to provide the service on additional mobile devices. It is designed for mobile telephones capable of supporting both voice and data simultaneously through a 3G or Wi-Fi connection. So if you are have an Android phone or some other smart phone, you may be in luck sometime soon.

The Mobile CapTel App has another big benefit for hard-of-hearing users: the iPhone isn’t compatible with hearing aids, but the captioning might be useful enough to enable hard-of-hearing customer to buy the iPhone anyway. If you want to listen through your T-coil (a must for some users, including me), you need to find another phone. While Bluetooth headsets can work for people with hearing aids, I have found that holding a T4-rated cellphone (T1 is the lowest rating for T-Coils, T4 the highest) up to my ear enables me to hear far better. But the captioning on the iPhone might be enough to sway hard-of-hearing customers who have always wanted an iPhone.

Clarity Cordless Amplified Phone

Amplification of a bad signal is worse than no amplification at all, and until recently many amplified phones made comprehension more difficult, not easier, for people with hearing loss. Recent advances in digital sound shaping technology borrowed from the digital signal processing in hearing aids have improved the situation markedly in wireline phones. But jamming all that processing power and software into a cordless handset has been a challenge. Clarity Products decided to tackle the problem head on, and people with hearing loss can be glad the company did. The Clarity Professional C4230 5.8GHz Cordless Amplified Phone not only provides up to 50 decibels of amplification, but also provides a very clear signal through its wireless handset.

Better yet, unlike many other makers of amplified phones, who seem to be satisfied in offering the basic plain-vanilla handset with an amplified signal and little else, Clarity Products loaded the C4230 with all the bells and whistles heavy users expect at both the office and at home. It features dual speaker phones, with caller ID, call waiting, and a 40-name-and-number memory; it has a digital answering machine with variable-speed playback and remote access; the handset’s generously spaced buttons are backlit, making dialing easy; and its white, high-contrast LED screen is bright and easy to read. The handset’s contoured shape makes it comfortable and easy to hold, and its concave earpiece creates an acoustic chamber that provides clear sound while blocking ambient noise. The base station is handsome with an intuitive user interface and supports up to three handsets.

The special features for hard-of-hearing users put the C4230 in the top of its class. It is hearing-aid-compatible, with digital 5.8GHz transmission providing interference-free sound. It provides up to 50 decibels of amplification controlled by the user; Clarity’s proprietary Digital Clarity Power (DCP) sound-shaping technology is integrated; and there are four DCP tone settings provide a customized listening experience. The result is calls that are not only louder, but clearer and easier to understand than most other cordless phones. There are also bright visual ringers in the handset and a base flash to signal incoming calls for people who can’t hear a normal ring.

Last but not least, it has a sleek, high-tech design that doesn’t shout out “don’t use me unless you’re old, infirm or have a disability” as many amplified phones seem to do.