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 call captioning system for captioning a hearing user's (HU's) voice signal during an ongoing call with an assisted user (AU) includes: an AU communication device with a display screen and a caption service activation feature, and a first processor programmed to, during an ongoing call, receive the HU's voice signal. Prior to activating the caption service via the activation feature, the processor uses an automated speech recognition (ASR) engine to generate HU voice signal captions, detect errors in the HU voice signal captions, use the errors to train the ASR software to the HU's voice signal to increase accuracy of the HU captions generated by the ASR engine; and store the trained ASR engine for subsequent use. Upon activating the caption service during the ongoing call, the processor uses the trained ASR engine to generate HU voice signal captions and present them to the AU via the display screen.

An assisted user's (AU's) captioning device for assisting an AU during a call with a hearing user (HU) wherein the hearing user uses a HU's communication device, the captioning device comprising a display screen and a processor linked to the display screen, the processor programmed to perform the steps of upon receiving a call, automatically determining if the call is from one of a first set of HUs, upon determining that the call is from one of the first set of HUs, automatically initiating captioning and presenting captions of an HU voice signal during at least a portion of the call, and upon determining that the call is not from one of the first set of HUs, starting the call without captioning and providing an option to the AU to initiate captioning during the call.

A system is provided that includes a first network interface for a first network type and a second network interface for a second network type that is different from the first network type. The system also includes at least one processor configured to cause the system to perform operations. The operations may include obtaining, from the first network interface, audio from a communication session with a remote device established over the first network and obtaining an indication of a communication device available to participate in the communication session and direct audio obtained from the communication session to a remote transcription system. The operations may also include directing the audio to the second network interface for transmission to the communication device, obtaining transcript data from the remote transcription system based on the audio, and directing the transcript data to the second network interface for transmission to the communication device.

A method may include obtaining first audio data of a communication session between a first device and a second device and obtaining, during the communication session, a first text string that is a transcription of the first audio data. The method may further include directing the first text string to the first device for presentation of the first text string during the communication session and obtaining, during the communication session, a second text string that is a transcription of the first audio data. The method may further include comparing a first accuracy score of the first word to a second accuracy score of the second word and in response to a difference between the first accuracy score and the second accuracy score satisfying a threshold, directing the second word to the first device to replace the first word in the first location as displayed by the first device.

A communication system and method for displaying text captions corresponding to voice communications between an assisted user's mobile wireless device and a separate hearing user's device includes at least one communication component configured to enable the appliance to communicate with a relay, a display, and a processor operably coupled to the at least one communication component and the display. The processor is configured to enable the assisted user to establish an association between the appliance and the mobile device, receive text originating at the relay, the text corresponding to a transcript of the hearing user's voice signal originating at the hearing user's device, and cause text captions corresponding to the received text to be displayed on the display.

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 apparatus that filters audio data received from a speaking person that includes a specific filter for that speaker. The audio characteristics of the speaker's voice may be collected and the specific filter may be formed to reduce noise while also enhancing voice quality. For instance, if a speaker's voice does not contain specific frequencies, then a filter may cancel the noise at such frequencies to ease noise cancellation and reduce processing sound spectrum for cleaning that is not needed. Additionally, the strength frequencies of a speaker's voice may be identified from the collected audio characteristics and those spectrums can be filtered with finer granularity to provide a speaker specific filter that enhances the voice quality of the speaker's voice data that is transmitted or output by a communication device. The audio data may also be output based upon a user's predefined hearing spectrum.

A system is provided that includes a first network interface for a first network type and a second network interface for a second network type that is different from the first network type. The system also includes at least one processor configured to cause the system to perform operations. The operations may include obtaining, from the first network interface, audio from a communication session with a remote device established over the first network and obtaining an indication of a communication device available to participate in the communication session and direct audio obtained from the communication session to a remote transcription system. The operations may also include directing the audio to the second network interface for transmission to the communication device, obtaining transcript data from the remote transcription system based on the audio, and directing the transcript data to the second network interface for transmission to the communication device.

A method operates a hearing device, in which an adaptation to the hearing device by a hearing device wearer is determined. An ambient situation is detected, and a value is assigned to the ambient situation. The value is used as a degree of adaptation. A hearing device includes a microphone for detecting the ambient situation and a hearing device system includes a hearing device, as well as the use of a hearing device and a computer program product.