Aid for Deaf and Hard of Hearing persons

The Earfy app has been developed as everyday aid for deaf and hard of hearing persons. The app has been optimized for use at home, at school and at work. Deaf and hard of hearing persons can use the Earfy app in very diverse situations. We have tested the app in meetings, home-conversations, restaurants, shops, at the doctor, and so on. The app can be used anytime anywhere; just turn it on to see the subtitles of your conversation partner. This helps you to avoid miscommunication and unpleasant situations.

Use

The app can be used as standalone-aid, but could also be combined with other aids. There are use-cases of combined use with hearing-aids, cochlear implants, lip-reading, interpreter-services, etc. These are just some examples; bottom-line, the user uses decides based on his or her personal preferences.

Quality

Quality and accuracy of the subtitles depend on several factors. The main influence comes from the speaker. If the speaker articulates clear and pronounces all words (more or less) carefully, this will have a positive influence on the quality op the captions. Clear speakers get over 95% accuracy! Next to the speaker, there are some other factors that play a role. Such as the quality of your hardware (tablet, smartphone), the distance between speaker and microphone, acoustics, noises and the quality of the internet connection. We can conclude that only the deaf or hard of hearing person has none to very little influence (when not interrupting his or her conversation-partner), it is mainly the speaker who influences the quality of the subtitles and whether or not he gets understood by the deaf or hard of hearing person. That is similar for a hearing person...