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!

Comments

Proper bluetooth headset

[thegarbz]

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.

Throat mic?

[drinkypoo]

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.

Squeak up, I can't hear you!

[dcooper_db9]

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.

Construction contractors' phone

[magarity]

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.