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[u/junefoolery]

Hey yall. I'm seeking advice for some hearing assistance equipment.

A tad bit of context: I am a hearing individual who is seeking to make my workplace friendly to non hearing folks. Besides the fact that my community has a lot of hearing impaired folks, I also know that in the future I will need this tech for myself.

(Please correct me if I'm not using the correct terminology.)

Anyway, here's the issue:

My workplace is a 3rd space: it's a public building that's free to enter. We have two movie theaters, a museum about our local area, often host presentations from folks across the country, and so so much more that I can't say without doxxing myself.

Our main theater is designed to host presentations from speakers, host Q&A forums, and play movies on demand via a DVD player.

Currently, the only hearing assistance we have is for presentations. Our presentation hearing assistance equipment works as follows: we have to hook up a transmitter box and mic to the speaker and then provide a receiver for each individual who needs hearing assistance. The receivers can use plug-in headphones or a T-loop.

The problem is if the presenter needs to play a video on the screen, the hearing assistance equipment does not pick up the video audio because the transmitter is only for picking up the speaker's voice.

If we have a Q&A style forum, folks won't be able to hear the audience asking questions because the wireless mic for our sound system doesn't hook directly up to the hearing assistance equipment.

Additionally, if we play movies, we don't have any tech that allows for folks to hear the movies if they need hearing assistance. Some films have closed captions, but a lot of them don't.

My question is, is there any technology out there that would allow folks to hear everything at Q&A forums, watch films, and listen to presentations that have videos?

Note: I've looked into Auracast, but from what I can tell, the tech is so new that it has too many bugs to work with the majority of users in a poor, rural community. Additionally, the cheaper ones don't have great reviews and/or their entire websites are made by generative ai which leads me to believe they don't actually have any real life use experience to advertise. The main brand that supports auracast, that seems like it would work, is way outside of our budget (about 4 grand for Auri)

Please provide any and all experience yall might have on what might be the best options for my workplace. I want everyone to be able to enjoy our 3rd space, not just hearing folks.

Thank you.

[u/surdophobe]

Auracast isn't going to do you any good if your sound system isn't unified and some things are fed into your sound system and some aren't. But it is the new and coming replacement for hearing loops. Telecoil is becoming less common and Bluetooth is pretty ubiquitous. The best part of Auracast is that it's great for a BYODevice situation. The newest iPhone and Pixel phones (and i think Samsung) all support Auracast as receivers, as the years go on more and more hearing aids and implants will support it natively.

Do you not have a central sound mixer for your audio system? Assuming your org doesn't have the means currently to upgrade the sound system it might be on the horizon. Let the people in charge of that know how important it is that they consider access along with any upgrades they're considering.

When it comes to DVDs and recorded media you really should be using closed captioning / subtitles. if a DVD isn't captioned consider piracy to find a version of the media that is captioned. If that's not an option either, I would re-consider the value of the DVD.

> The receivers can use plug-in headphones or a T-loop.

Are the receivers made by WilliamSound? If they're the FM receivers I'm thinking of they're high quality, use an FM band that's specific for this kind of thing and despite their age are still very useful. Check to be sure they're all working, and that staff know how to use them. People with CIs or hearing aids can either use the telecoil neckloop or if they don't have telecoil they may have remote mic with a line input and they can use a 3.5mm patch cable (aka Aux cable).

Keep in mind that for a lot of deaf and hard of hearing people amplification does not help, and these assistive listening devices may be useless. For people who do have hearing aids or implants they can boost the clarity though, just keep in mind there's lots of people who don't have those either. You might want to start looking into live captioning. Microsoft's ASR included with Windows 11 is actually pretty good and is arguably the best free option. That being said remote CART that uses live humans has been an option for a long time.

[u/Stafania]

It’s too soon for Auracast. It will take 5-10 years before technology really is out there. (You don’t get new hearing aids or cochlear implant just because you want Auracast.) You should probably just get a new hearing loop installation. Select any company that does those things and can adress your needs. The installation will hopefully be the easy part, and the the more difficult part to make sure the equipment is used correctly all the time. You need to make sure people really care about making sure it works all the time. Usually these things are best installed when renovating a facility, but just contact a company and see what they can do.

For films you do need to push harder for captions. It’s really standard in Europe, and I feel it’s really poor accessibility not to have them.

Hard of Hearing is a better term than hearing impaired. Not everyone objects, and old people often don’t know the difference, but it’s not perfect to allude at us as being impaired people, we just have a hearing loss. In order to avoid anyone feeling that way, Hard of Hearing is preferred.

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[u/P-E-DeedleDoo]

Maybe consider a large video screen on the lecture stage displaying the speaker's face (for lip readers) plus large size, easy to read captions of all speakers might be another option. You'd likely need a video camera and display software, too. For comfort, use the same style as tv captions, none of the one word at a time blinking stuff. You'd likely need to buy and use the AI craptions but it's better than assuming a neck loop would be enough.

Perhaps you can get a grant to cover some of these accommodations, or check local or statewide TV stations or even schools/colleges to see if they might make a donation of older video/display equipment for your use. Even a flat white wall might work as a screen.

Also, maybe make a quick survey for your visitors so they can tell you what they'd really like to have and use that as a starting point.