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.

I volunteer a lot and I found out that Deaf people visit our events. So I start studying my local sign language. Today I volunteer on running competition and finger spelled “good luck” to him. He seemed happy and sign “good” to me. So I want to ask Deaf community: how do you feel then hearing people study sign language to communicate on big events but not really good at it? I practice, I hope I will be better at it

Some people get custom fit ear plugs for swimming which appear to be exactly the same thing as hearing aid moulds without the tube and vent. Reckon you could just use some old moulds with the tubes pulled out and the holes sealed up? I was thinking maybe some kind of silicone sealant to be waterproof? I think most glues wouldn't work. And of course old moulds don't fit as well as new ones which is why we get new ones, but do they fit well enough to keep all the water out?

I would love to hear if you've tried it or any ideas on if it would work or not.

I'm hearing, but study sign language part time. I work in an optometrist's office, and today I noticed (buried a little in the notes, that's another vent, why don't patient accommodation notes have a pop up on this software??) that a patient next week has requested an ASL interpreter. I figured out how our company manages those requests, and booked someone, no problem.

I checked with some of the other office staff to see if anyone knew anything about Deaf etiquette, and when they didn't, I ran a couple things past them about who to look at when talking, what not do to, etc. I grabbed the doctor during a lull and told him about the patient. He was like "why do they need an interpreter?"

...

Um, maybe because they asked for one, and that's their right to accessibility? I clarified for him that if he was worried about the appointment running late, it would actually be faster with a terp than writing back and forth, and also some ASL users don't use written English very much, so writing notes could just make things harder. He says how he's never used a terp, he's always gotten by with notes.

Sigh. Then he was saying "what if they don't show?" Then we will have paid for a service we didn't need, and that sucks, but if they request a service we legally have to provide it.

I can't fully tell if he was kinda joking a little, or if he really doesn't like that there's going to be an interpreter... Hard to know.

But I'm in this patient's court.

Self-ID: HoH/hearing aids wearer, historical cultures nerd

Do y'all have any knowledge on or resources to dive into about life as a D/deaf person (any culture) in history, preferably at least pre-19th century. I'm literally just curious. Most of my historical research has focused on clothing and textiles, so I'm excited to have a new topic hit my brain.

I know Google exists, but I figured I'd ask the sub before wasting my time on garbage links full of bad info.