Apparatuses and methods are disclosed for automatically connecting to a relay service and establish a captioning communication session during a call between a hearing-impaired user and a far-end user. The apparatus includes communication elements configured to receive captions from a relay service, and a processor configured to automatically connect to the relay service and establish a captioning communication session during a call responsive to a determination that a connection to the relay service failed during a time in which the hearing-impaired user desired captions to be enabled. A method includes determining captions are desired by the hearing-impaired user at a first time to be enabled for display to the communication device during a call, detecting a failed connection to the relay service at a second time, and automatically connecting with the relay service and establishing a new captioning communication session at a third time during the call.

A method for maintaining contact information in a hearing impaired assisted user's communication device includes the steps of (a) providing a web site for altering assisted user contact information, (b) linking a proxy device to the web site, (c) receiving an identifier associated with the assisted user's device via the proxy device, (d) identifying an assisted user's device via the received identifier, (e) enabling the proxy device to be used to modify contact information for the assisted user associated with the received identifier, (f) starting a timer to time out a sync timeout period, (g) during the sync timeout period, receiving an indication via the assisted user's device confirming a desire to update the assisted user's contact information, (h) updating the assisted user's contact information, and (i) at the end of the timeout period, ceasing an indication that updated data is ready to be used from the assisted user's device.

A computer-implemented method to select a user profile is disclosed. The method may include obtaining, from a first device, a communication attempt at a user device. The method may further include obtaining first device data associated with the communication attempt and with the first device. The method may also include comparing the first device data with multiple data elements of each of multiple user profiles associated with the user device. The method may further include selecting a user profile of the multiple user profiles that includes the data element that matches the first device data in response to the first device data matching a data element of the multiple data elements. The method may also include loading an audio profile for the selected user profile on the user device.

A method for maintaining a captioning service for an assisted user (AU) comprising the steps of, at a relay, connect to a second AU device via the computer network address, receive an HU calling number from the second AU device, upon recognizing the HU calling number as an emergency number, assign a temporary relay calling number to the AU, store the temporary relay calling number with the computer network address associated with the second AU device, use the emergency number to establish a first communication link with an emergency service provider and present the temporary relay calling number to the emergency service provider, upon termination of the first communication link, upon receiving a call using the temporary relay calling number, use the temporary calling number to identify the network address of the second AU device and the calling number of the first AU device and use the calling number of the first AU device and the network address to re-establish communication with the first AU device and the second AU device, respectively.

Apparatuses and methods are disclosed for automatically connecting to a relay service and establish a captioning communication session during a call between a hearing-impaired user and a far-end user. The apparatus includes communication elements configured to receive captions from a relay service, and a processor configured to automatically connect to the relay service and establish a captioning communication session during a call responsive to a determination that a connection to the relay service failed during a time in which the hearing-impaired user desired captions to be enabled. A method includes determining captions are desired by the hearing-impaired user at a first time to be enabled for display to the communication device during a call, detecting a failed connection to the relay service at a second time, and automatically connecting with the relay service and establishing a new captioning communication session at a third time during the call.

A method and system for providing captioned telephone service, the method comprising the steps of, initiating a first captioned telephone service call, during the first captioned telephone service call, creating a first set of captions using a call assistant, simultaneous with creating the first set of captions using a call assistant, creating a second set of captions using an automated speech recognition engine, comparing the first set of captions and the second set of captions using a scoring algorithm based on errors between the first and second sets of captions to generate a score for the second set of captions, in response to the score being within a predetermined threshold range, continuing the call using only the automated speech recognition engine to generate text and in response to the score being outside of the predetermined threshold range, continuing the call using a call assistant to generate captions.

Systems and methods for visually indicating an occurrence of an incoming call for the hearing impaired are disclosed. A video communication device may be configured to receive an incoming communication to at least two unique identifiers assigned by a video relay service provider. The video communication device can display a unique visual indicator pattern, which may be user-created and user-assigned to the one of the at least two unique identifiers dialed by a caller. The visual indicator pattern may be indicative of the existence an incoming call, the origin of the call, the destination device for the call, the destination ID for the call, or combinations thereof. The video communication device, when receiving an incoming call, may send a wireless notification signal to other communication devices, thereby notifying other devices that a video communication device is receiving an incoming call.

A computer-implemented method to store messages is disclosed. The method may include obtaining a minimum message length for stored messages. The minimum message length may be greater than zero. The method may further include determining an amount of available storage space allocated for storage of user messages on a computer-readable medium. The method may also include, in response to a communication session not being established between a user of a first communication device and a second communication device and in response to the amount of available storage space being greater than zero but being insufficient to store the minimum message length, not storing a user message and providing an indication that there is no available storage space.

A method to transcribe communications includes the steps of obtaining a plurality of hypothesis transcriptions of a voice signal generated by a speech recognition system, determining consistent words that are included in at least first and second of the plurality of hypothesis transcriptions, in response to determining the consistent words, providing the consistent words to a device for presentation of the consistent words to an assisted user, and presenting the consistent words via a display screen on the device, wherein a rate of the presentation of the words on the display screen is variable.

A relay for captioning a hearing user's (HU's) voice signal during a phone call between an HU and a hearing assisted user (AU), the HU using an HU device and the AU using an AU device where the HU voice signal is transmitted from the HU device to the AU device, the relay comprising a display screen, a processor linked to the display and programmed to perform the steps of receiving the HU voice signal from the AU device, transmitting the HU voice signal to a remote automatic speech recognition (ASR) server running ASR software that converts the HU voice signal to ASR generated text, the remote ASR server located at a remote location from the relay, receiving the ASR generated text from the ASR server, present the ASR generated text for viewing by a call assistant (CA) via the display and transmitting the ASR generated text to the AU device.