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Ask Slashdot: An Android or iOS App For Boosting the Volume of Speech-Impaired Person?
dryriver writes: A relative of mine has been left with extremely low speech volume -- about 25% of a normal speaker -- and lack of high pitch capability after a major throat surgery. He cannot speak on the phone at all now -- you cannot hear him properly on the other end of the line, even though you can understand his speech OK when you are standing in the room next to him. Is there an assistive Android app that can:
1. Significantly boost the output volume (e.g. X 4) of the Android phone microphone he speaks into.
2. Add voice box, equalizer, autotune or audio filtering/bass boosting type audio effects in realtime to the microphone input to fix the speaker's pitch.
3. Can filter out background noise to some extent (so it doesn't get boosted as well).
4. Allows these effects to be used easily during phonecalls?
All the Android microphone/equalizer/megaphone type apps I've tried so far have huge problems -- some are novelty voice-changer apps for teens, some demand ridiculously broad permissions to everything on the phone including realtime location data of the user, some demand that an external mic is attached to the phone, some are too simple technically to do anything useful and some are advertising-fests that are plain unusable. Is there a good Android -- or iOS -- app for the speech impaired that would give this person a chance to make audio phonecalls on a smartphone again? Thanks for any advice!
1. Significantly boost the output volume (e.g. X 4) of the Android phone microphone he speaks into.
2. Add voice box, equalizer, autotune or audio filtering/bass boosting type audio effects in realtime to the microphone input to fix the speaker's pitch.
3. Can filter out background noise to some extent (so it doesn't get boosted as well).
4. Allows these effects to be used easily during phonecalls?
All the Android microphone/equalizer/megaphone type apps I've tried so far have huge problems -- some are novelty voice-changer apps for teens, some demand ridiculously broad permissions to everything on the phone including realtime location data of the user, some demand that an external mic is attached to the phone, some are too simple technically to do anything useful and some are advertising-fests that are plain unusable. Is there a good Android -- or iOS -- app for the speech impaired that would give this person a chance to make audio phonecalls on a smartphone again? Thanks for any advice!
I guess you tried these at the receiving end for low talkers?
https://www.amazon.com/Serene-...
I found this for the starting end.
https://store.rjcooper.com/pro...
PS. Beware the puffy shirts.
Not endorsing this one, but there are microphones that pick up your sound based on vibration. Maybe try one of those?
the microphone on those is closer to the mouth or with the apple airpods they are supposed to detect your voice via bone movement or something like that
I've found this but I've never used it and I'm not sure if it can boost the mic volume during calls.
I honestly don't know any, but I have a suggestion: look around to see if any of those you tried but have drawbacks that don't seem to be commercial (e.g. the ones that use broad permissions), and see if they are open-source, or if an open-source version exists. If it does, you have 2 options - 1. use the app as is, since you know what they have access to and how they use it, so in theory it should be "safe" or 2. checkout the source and remove any offending functionality, but this does require a level of Android development expertise
All the way to 11!
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Don't forget about old school solutions such as a megaphone or bullhorn. Not perfect, but simple and effective.
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
I would very much recommend an add on mic, the mics on a phone are the cheapest the manufacture can find.
An example would be Shure's Motiv line, though I'm not 100% sure they can be used for calls.
The internal microphones on modern smartphones aren't ideal for this situation. They are positioned in a way that makes filtering background difficult, and any attempt at raising the volume would likely have horribly detrimental effects due to the environment too.
Not all bluetooth headsets are created equal but there are many that have excellent background noise filtering. I don't have experience with very many but through my work I use a Platronics Voyager 5200 https://www.plantronics.com/us... and that is already leaps and bounds in audible quality improvement over normal phone users. Some headsets have audio normalisation in them as well.
This kind of solution will be a tradeoff, the best results would be with a headset that has an unwieldy long boom that actually reaches the person's mouth.
I recommend "HearYouNow." Based on all the research I did when I was looking for something myself, as well as my personal experience, these apps works better on iOS. (And this is coming from an everything Android person.) I use HearYouNow on an old iPod touch and it works better than any of the ones I tried on much newer Android devices.
Yeah its called a hearing aid and does everything you want. Even has bluetooth now.
I can't tell if you are being a smart ass or just didn't read the requirements. The problem is output volume, not input volume.
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Significantly boost the output volume (e.g. X 4) of the Android phone microphone he speaks into.
Have you considered trying a throat microphone? Good ones can pick up very low sounds.
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This isn't an answer to the question but it may be helpful to know what to expect. About ten years ago vasculitis severed the nerve to my vocal chords. Fortunately only one chord was permanently lost. Initially the second chord was very weak so I could only speak in a whisper, as with your family member. Over time the remaining chord strengthened and after a few months I was able to speak at a normal volume. I still can't sing, my voice tires easily and it sometimes cracks.
It's critical to take care of the remaining chord; overuse can destroy it permanently. Tell him to see an ENT periodically and to consider speech therapy. Doctor's often don't refer patients for occupational therapy unless they ask. As they say, the squeaky wheel always gets the oil.
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How about a wired telephone on a land-line: a telephone model that actually has a volume control and variable microphone amp, and placed in a fixed location that you know does not have too much background noise in the first place.
This is a tried and true method. Many older non-mobile telephone models with volume/mic controls exist that have been designed with people with hearing problems and/or speech impediments in mind. It also used to be the norm that when you needed to telephone, you did it in a quieter place: that is why phone booths were booths -- not speakers on sticks in the middle of throngs of people.
Modern mobile phones are not designed to be hardy tools as much as to appear desirable. The race towards thinness has resulted in tiny microphones and speakers that are already pushed to their limits out of the box, with background noise filtering always on. If you absolutely must have a mobile phone, then by all means get a proper headset with a boom-mic close to the mouth.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Many numbers cannot send or receive text messages, such as landlines or home cellular service. Some of these carriers cannot relay text messages through text to speech; others can but charge a hefty premium per message.
Honestly, the best solution is a good headset mic (with pop filter foam)... and software with a good multi-band compressor... If no usable software exists, a in-line (hardware) one could be made. A teeny 3.6 with a good external ADC (an external board exists for purchase) could be capable of this, possibly.
If not, some other ARM dev board with more grunt could do it.
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Get him a subvocal, or 'throat' microphone, and don't worry about trying to figure out how to boost the noise you want (his voice) while throwing away the noise you don't want (background.)
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Try a phone designed for a construction contractor. Caterpillar markets a line of them. They are designed to deal with unusual sound requirements, both cranked up volume to being able to distinguish the user talking while next to some loud machine. On the surface it may not sound like your requirement but I suspect it's worth a try.
You know the old quote: the simplest solution is often the best one. My daughter seems to have found such a solution herself, as she is a "quite talker" as well -- but not out of any physical restrictions, mind you: she just talks exceptionally quietly for the sake of privacy. I believe you'd have to be sitting within less than a foot of her to really catch what she's saying, most of the time.
So her simple solution? She just uses the standard wired headphones which came with her iPhone... and she puts the inline microphone in her mouth.
I know it sounds a bit odd, but upon reading this Ask Slashdot question it occurred to me that it's actually effective on multiple fronts: the speakers are inside of her ears, so the audio feedback filter need not be applied to the sound coming into the microphone, the ambient sound from the room is somewhat muffled by her lips, and her vocal cords are just about as close to the microphone as they can get, reducing the amplification requirements. (Obviously you'll need to be careful that you don't spit all over the microphone, potentially damaging it.)
This one can! Thank the gods that you posted as AC!
I found this on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/...
I'm sure there are many more (Google Play, of course, assumes an Android device); I don't know what Apple may offer.
"How far does your volume go up in these apps?"
Unfortunately not to 11.
"I would have thought a good quality noise cancelling microphone and a pair of headphones into the jack on the phone"
What jack? In 2 years there won't be one.
VLC for Android has a 10 band EQ and the ability to playback audio not from the built in mic or headset jack but from a USB audio source
As a hardware solution, there are external amplifiers that will plug into the headphone jack.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The problem is that an app won't be able to solve these issues because they are inherently hardware dependent. You need a microphone/headset that is super-sensitive. Of course, the other side of that is you can't have a super-sensitive microphone that doesn't also pick up everything around you as well.
Maybe a directional mic of some kind?
While I haven't looked for an autotuning-during-calls tool myself, I would expect that you should be able to find such an item for Android. I think a similar tool on iOS would be unlikely cause Apple very rigidly controls what apps can do on their hardware, but I could be wrong.
If you can't find hardware to do at least some of your list of requirements, then your best option would probably to just not use the phone. Use text, or maybe a messaging app like WhatsApp or Signal that lets you communicate walkie-talkie style. That could serve as a starting point to a workflow that incorporates autotuning software.