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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've found this but I've never used it and I'm not sure if it can boost the mic volume during 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.
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.
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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.)
Until real-time lip reading becomes reliable, I'd use video communication with him. This way, you can read his lips, read the expressions on his face, and he can even sign to you or point his camera to objects as a secondary mode of communication.
Also, I wouldn't discount any app that requires GPS location. Any good assistive app should be able to share your location at the press of the button, especially if the person on the other end can't hear you and is trying to find you.
And last but not least, I would sign him up for TTY services. If he's in the US, it's free I think. This way, he can type what he wants and the person on the other end, an actual human being, will voice what he's typing.