I love captions and look for them everywhere I go — even when they are not there. Last week at my daughter’s high school play, my eyes would involuntarily slide to the side looking for the caption screen anytime I missed some of the dialogue. The play was not captioned, but my reflex to look for the text anyway made me laugh.
So when I read about the new Google Live Transcribe app (available only on Android so far) I was eager to try it. I have tested other speech to text apps over the years, but none had really done the trick — the accuracy was typically poor and the timing was stilted. Still, these apps are sometimes better than nothing and usually good for a laugh or two when the captions really miss the mark.
As a participant in Google’s Accessibility Trusted Tester program, I received a Google Pixel Slate to use for upcoming product assessments. It is my first Android device and allowed me to take Live Transcribe out for a test run. For the record, I was not a Trusted Tester when Live Transcribe was being developed or I would not be able to write about it. Trusted Tester activities are covered under a strict confidentiality agreement — rightly so. If you are interested in becoming a Trusted Tester, you can learn more and apply here. It is currently only available for people in the United Sates.
Live Transcribe Did Well In My Test
I tried the Live Transcribe app at a recent board meeting and I was amazed at the results. During the full day of discussions, the app was able to accurately pick up dialogue from across the crowded table. The captions appeared in real-time so it was easy to follow the conversation. It only fell down when the speaker had an accent. Surprisingly, the captions from Live Transcribe were sometimes more accurate and timely than those from the CART provider.
Live Transcribe is still in beta testing so there are a number of items that could be improved. First, the text appears in one long stream of words. It does not label different speakers or add any line breaks to indicate when a new person talks. This makes it difficult to quickly scan through the text to find the word or phrase you missed. Hopefully this feature will be added to future versions. Secondly, it is only available for Android devices, but this may change once things are perfected. See this post for an inexpensive solution to the Android only problem.
Despite its flaws, Live Transcribe is the most accurate and timely speech-to-text app I have ever used. I am eager to see how it continues to develop. The application would be life changing for people with hearing loss, providing captioning services at will, but also for those who need translation services. According to Google’s website, “Live Transcribe is available in over 70 languages and dialects. It also enables two-way conversation via a type-back keyboard for users who can’t or don’t want to speak, and connects with external microphones to improve transcription accuracy.”
To gauge the reliability of the transcription for yourself, take a closer look at the image in this blog. As an experiment, I read this post into the transcriber and this is what I got. There are some errors, and the punctuation is wrong, but the overall accuracy is quite good. It is likely to only get better.
Readers, would you try Google Live Transcribe?
This is exciting and seems promising. So the phone with the app listens to the speech and transcribes, yes? Also, if it’s a Google app, does that mean it’s internet based and able to be used overseas?
It requires an internet connection to work but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work overseas. For now, the app is only available for Android devices. Thanks for your comment.
So if there is no wifi, the app doesn’t work?
That is my understanding. Thanks for your question.
Thanks Shari. Nice writeup. You should also take a look at Streamer. It’s a personal website that they create for you that you can use to caption, translate and take notes during conversations and meetings and such. Because it’s a website you can use it on basically everything. In my case my desktop at work, my iPhone and my laptop at home. To give it a try, go to http://www.streamer.center and click on the “More Information” link. I also found this video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hURd_ifYPXY
Thanks for sharing this information.
I registered for Streamer
When I tried to use it, I could not use the microphone, because a messsge popped up, telling me to download Steamer app from iTunes Store.
I could not find that app in the store!
What to do?
I just registered and tried setting up a “room”, which was impossible to figure out.
Then, I realized, after finding instructions, that there’s a 30 day, free trial period…then …a “small monthly fee”…no price given.
Forget it…too much trouble and bait and switch.
Very disappointing!
Please don’t lead us down such rabbit holes!
I just wasted an hour of precious time, getting nowhere with the website and the app (which I eventually found).
Please don’t send us down rabbit holes, only to be frustrated.!
Wonderful news! But any idea when this will arrive for iPhones?
Also, is it better than Ava?
I wish I knew when it would arrive for iPhones! I hope soon. For me, the speech to text capability was more accurate than Ava, but give both a try and see what you think. Thanks for your question.
Hi Shari,
Thank you for the review. I’m glad you had a great experience with LiveTranscribe – and a bit disappointed you didn’t mention more about existing apps that challenge it.
Releasing Live Transcribe without iPhone availability is a bit disappointing when building for accessibility. One should consider all platforms, not just the Android one – this war between tech giants is proprietary one…
If you’re looking for a solution that works well now, here’s why I think Ava still does way better than Live Transcribe for accessibility
– Ava is available on Android, iOS and Web. Get started here: http://www.ava.me/dl
– In group conversations, the way Ava works is different from LiveTranscribe. For maximum accessibility, Ava enables you to connect to each speaker individually, and color codes you in real time who says what.
Also, you can have a friend or coworker edit it some of the words the ASR doesn’t capture well, if there were important.
– Transcripts are saved locally so you can review them later.
I bet you’d be surprised by how much better the Ava technology has become over the years.
Why wouldn’t you give it a try and report here for curious readers?
Let us know,
Thibault Duchemin
Founder, Ava Accessibility
Thanks for weighing in to the discussion. We have used Ava at many meetings / book club discussions over the years with much frustration. Live Transcribe worked much better for us, but others may have a different experience. Thanks for continuing your work to improve accessibility for people with hearing loss.
I’ve used AVA, occasionally.
I’ve heard mixed reviews about.
There is a cost for it, correct?
Could you please explain more about how it can be used, especially in group situations?
Thanks
The video on this page gives a good explanation. Each person in the conversation must have an Ava account and be logged in and then the words they say will appear with their name. https://www.ava.me. Hope this helps.
It is only available for Android devices.
Bummer…I use iPhone and iPads.
Is there any news re: when this tech will be available for iPhone/Apple products?
I’m chomping at the bit.
Thanks Shari.
I’m tempted to buy that Android device that you have.
I wish I knew! Hopefully soon! Thanks for your comment.
There’s an iPad app called I hear u that works fairly well. It’s better than my lip reading! LOL! And, like other captioning apps, gives me great laughs occasionally!
Yes.
I have iHearU2.
It works well, but my guess is that Live Transcribe will be better.
Just wish I could use it in my Apple products!
There are other voice to text apps (that are Apple friendly)…like…ACTIVE Voice….just fyi.
Live Transcribe sounds like it would be quite helpful in meetings with my kids’ teachers. Can each conversation be saved? That would help my fuzzy memory. On top of being single sided deaf and losing hearing rapidly in my ‘good’ ear, I was just diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Taking notes hurts a lot now. Just what I need, losing pencil grip! I’m glad I live in an era of new technology. Captioning phones and captioning apps are great for those of us who have severe hearing loss.
The conversations are not saved, but you could always take a screen shot if you needed to. This app is a great help for people with hearing loss. Thanks for your comment.
I read about Live Transcribe a couple of months ago. I was so excited! I got the app and used it several times, both for conversation and a church service. It worked well for conversation and fairly well for the church sermon. Then one day it disappeared from my phone. I went to re-install it, but it said it was currently installed. I reinstalled it, but it did not appear. Do you know if Google discontinued it?
It is not discontinued. I suggest trying to reach google support. It sounds like a glitch. Thanks for your comment.
It’s not discontinued. On a Pixel 3, go to Settings > Accessibility > Live Transcribe. On any other device it will appear in the app drawer as usual once it is installed from the Play Store. Update your app if you find this not to be the case, the visibility of the app drawer icon changed a bit in the first month.
Thanks for sharing these instructions.
Just stumbled on this discussion and by coincidence saw and used Ava for the first time last weekend. Want to know about other such options as well!
One issue: Ava requires a monthly subscription! Cell phone makers should offer speech recognition as a accessibility feature at no cost to the user!
Live Transcribe is free, but only available on Android. There are many apps out there, but so far this is the best one I have tried. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I agree…AVA requires a monthly prescription…although, I have been able to use it with individuals, for no cost. I haven’t used it for awhile…there are so many other transcription apps…like, iHearU2..
I tried the Google live transcribe app on my friend’s Android phone..it’s AMAZING…so quick to respond to one’s voice.
I won’t give up my iPhone…maybe will get an Android tablet…
This is great info! I love my android for these reasons but I find the needed internet signal a bear with the dictionaries!
Yes. That is probably true. Still, it works quite well. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
I have VOICE TO TEXT PRO for iPhone. It works fairly well but I suspect it does not perform well in groups. If I’m just a little careful I can dict ate whole pages without a mistake.You can send a message, mail and other things. You can save it as a file or just delete it. I haven’t had it long enough to recommend it – just giving a heads up. Check it out
Thanks for sharing the information. If you have a chance, let us know how you like it once you have tested it longer.
Your article is very timely, Shari, because just last Sunday my hearing loss book group tried this out and we were all impressed. One of the members is completing her NCHAT training with HLAA and she brought it and showed it to us. She also brought a small projector so she could project our conversation on the wall. This seems very promising. I hope it will be available for Apple products eventually.
So glad it worked for you. We just tried it in our book club too and it was wonderful. Let’s hope it will be available for Apple soon. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
I have just started using Live transcribe- I have it on my phone and tablet. It worked wonders transcribing the sermon in church on Sunday. I have a meeting tomorrow at school so will try it there. This is the best app I have used for speech to text. As we are android users, I was a happy camper as most apps seem to be for iphone. I also used it for a small book group with excellent results.
So glad it works well for you. Thanks for sharing your perspective.
This is very exciting technology. I hesitate to use the phrase life-changing, but it really would change my life for the better. Also, thank you for the link to sign up to be a Google tester. I just finished the questionnaire and hope they pick me.
Jon
It is amazing technology! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I have been using the app for over a month now and it is a life changer for me. I am a late deafened adult and the accuracy of the app is amazing. I have been able to use it in social settings and it has done a good job transcribing the speech of those closest to me. It allows me to attend meetings at work again. I can have length conversations with family and friends without my brain giving up trying to read lips for that length of time. It works in the car even at interstate highway speeds in a noisy Corolla (I am not driving of course). I would have switched to an Android phone in order to use it (can’t do the microscopic screened remotely affordable iPhones).
So glad it works well for you! Thanks for sharing your experiences with it.
Shari,
I have a NOOK tablet…which, I believe, is Android tech…correct? I looked in the Google play store and did not see the exact title…”Live Transcribe” as an app option. I see other transcription apps, but not, “Live Transcribe”…Any idea why this is? Thanks
Unfortunately, you cannot access the Google Play store on a Nook. https://help.barnesandnoble.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/314/~/google-play-apps-on-nook-tablet
Umm…actually, I DID access the PLAY store, on the NOOK…just couldn’t access the Live Transcribe app!?!?!
Also..another benefit of Live Transcribe app…it can transcribe many different language…even in one conversation! It switches back and forth…I set it for English and Spanish and it spoke whatever language I was speaking, within milliseconds!
Amazing.
Cool! Not sure why it wouldn’t show up. Maybe contact NOOK support. Good luck!
If you want to save a conversation, you can screenshot it…fyi
Shari,
Thanks so much for this article on Live Transcribe. I did not know about speech to text apps. I have an iPhone. Which do you recommend?
My husband also has hearing loss and has an android. What would you recommend for him until he can use Live Transcribe?
I think he should be able to use LiveTranscribe right now. The beta version is in the Google Play store. For iPhone, you can use the dictation feature, although its accuracy is mixed. Here is link to details on how to do that. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208343 Good luck to you!
Thanks so much!
When for Apple?
I don’t know. Hopefully soon.
How far away from speaker and phone before LiveTranscribe could not detect sound to do its work?
Ava needs everyone download app and hold phone near mouth.
So how LiveTranscribe works with group meeting that everyone is not sit closely together?
For me it worked at a board meeting that had about 15 people around a table. It probably varies from room to room, but definitely worth trying out the technology. Good luck to you!
thank you Shari:
Do you just put your phone at the center of table,
or
hand it to the next person to hold near his/her mouth while speaking?
I kept it in front of me the whole time. People spoke into microphones, but they were not related to the device. They were mics for the room generally. Hope that helps.
HI, Shari:
I am sorry if I keep digging but I try to make it work because I do have a lot of small group meetings and find it difficulty.
Would you please give more information on the microphones? Are they multiple lapel microphones that everyone clip on their cloth, or just one sits on table? Where I can purchase them?
For small, less than 10 people meeting, are those microphone volume too high for normal hearing people?
Thanks
Hi Linda. The microphone was just the one in the conference room. They did not clip onto anything. I’m sorry I don’t have more details. Maybe give it a try just in the center of the table and see how it goes. Best of luck to you.
What we could all benefit from would be a comparison chart of how speech-to-text apps work…which devices they work with, if they save transcriptions, subscription cost, if it requires an internet connection/can operate with wifi, if it can work for phone conversations, etc. I had just gotten a used IPhone 6 (just for the GPS feature) when Meniere’s caused a huge additional downturn in my hearing/comprehension. I’m trying to learn about smartphones and tablets and speech-to-text apps all at the same time…in an unusual situation where we have no cell reception at or near our home/office. So, not only do I need to learn how to use a smartphone, but I need to learn what it can or cannot do where there’s no ordinary reception, just wifi from my office modem.
Good suggestion. Thanks for your comment.
Hello Shari, I recently acquired Phonak Marvel hearing aids that receive signals from an array of microphones called Roger mics. One of the pieces of Roger equipment has a “headphone” jack that can output to non-Phonak equipment, such as a smartphone. I thought – not only can I hear clearly, but I can potentially get live captions on my iPhone as well ! This ultimately did not work, and for the most mundane reason. The captioning software I could find for the iPhone did not offer the option to recognize an external mic input. Disappointing ! I hope this will change soon, as I found in my testing that the captioning accuracy goes way up when the microphone is near the mouth of the speaker.
Interesting. That would make the captions much more accurate. I wonder if your idea would work with Live Transcribe on an Android phone? Thanks for sharing your experiment.
I think it would work with Live Transcribe if I had an Android phone. Live Transcribe offers the option to switch to an external mic. The trick then would be to line up the connectors between the MyLink (Roger’s receiver with the headphone jack) and the phone, so the phone’s signal comes in as a mic input. I also did not get to verify that the Roger mics can truly transmit a solid signal to my hearing aids and to the MyLink simultaneously, although I believe it should.
Very complex. Good luck with finding a solution.
Yes..it’s true.
Captioning accuracy improves significantly, when/if the mic is very close to the mouth of the person who is speaking.
Streamer will do that for you, plus quite a bit more. Go to http://www.streamer.center and click on the “More Information” link. Note that for your iPhone you’ll want to install the free app from the playstore, it’s called “Interact-Streamer”.
Thanks for sharing this information.
Thanks! I never heard of this. Is there a charge?
Thank you, Alyssa. I had not heard of Streamer before. It sounds exciting.
I didn’t get very far on the website, though, because it wanted my ID info just to look.
In Googling Streamer, I could not find much, such as a third-party review. Is it new ?
Also, I would be interested in knowing the cost. Some of its competitors are free.
I’m also guessing that, in the case of an iPhone, and being a web site, it does not have the capability of forcing the iPhone to use an external microphone, which is what I am seeking to do.
All these questions !
-Rich Gayes
Richard and Susan: For Streamer, the first month is free and after that the cost is $8.25 per month (with an annual subscription) and $9.97 per month if you just pay monthly– that’s for the website, you can have as many users as you want – so it’s not a “per user” fee like other apps – it’s your website and you can share it with as many people as you want and use it as often as you want. To set up your website you do need to give them an email address,that way they can send you your Admin login account info and usage instructions.
bubberonnie: As I posted earlier, for the iPad and iPhone they created a separate app called “Interact-Streamer”. I asked why they did this (since it’s a website I didn’t think they needed that) and they let me know that if you use a built-in microphone on an iOS device, Apple forces developers to give Apple access to all the data being collected. Streamer is designed to be private and secure, so they wrote the app to get around that requirement. If you have any questions on using your website you can contact them using info@auditorysciences.com or calling them at 507-645-8924 They’re good at answering questions.
Thanks, Alyssa. It’s nice to know they care about privacy in today’s world.
If you need the best speech to text app then you should use “Dictation Pro’. I use this app daily to create my documents with just my voice. A headset or a good quality microphone is required. The advanced features like vocabulary training and voice commands set this app apart.https://www.deskshare.com/dictation.aspx
Thanks for sharing what works for you. It looks like this product is not free.