CapTel 800i
Don
called the CapTel 800i for an introductory price of $99. This looks
like a very nice product.
It connects to your phone line and to your computer and when you talk on
the telephone, it captions the text on a screen so that you can read
what the person on the other end of the phone is saying. However, it
has only one ear piece.
I wrote to them with the following:
quote>>>>>
I just received an email from you to purchase the Sprint CapTel 800i for
an introductory price of $99.
I would love to have one, BUT you know that these are for hearing
impaired people, right?
So why no provision for regular head phone jack for head phones. I am
hearing impaired and depend on my head phones when I'm talking on the
telephone. I hear MUCH better with TWO ears rather than just ONE.
It really irks me to no end that developers of products for hearing
impaired think that we just have ONE ear.
I am sorry to sound so harsh, but I feel so strongly about this. I
would love to have this new product but will have to pass. If you
develop one to use with both ears, please let me know.
<<<<<<<<<<unquote
Does anybody agree !!!!
Don
xp
http://www.sprintrelay.com/doc/800iHowToGuide.pdf
you will see that it does have 2 connections for headphones:
3.5 mm Neckloop/Headset
2.5 mm Headset with microphone
"Don" <Don....@support.verizon.net> wrote in message
news:j-SdnU8YScXKiUPX...@giganews.com...
Ken
> If you check this link:http://www.sprintrelay.com/doc/800iHowToGuide.pdf
>
> you will see that it does have 2 connections for headphones:
> 3.5 mm Neckloop/Headset
>
> 2.5 mm Headset with microphone
>
The phone itself seems to have many good features for the deaf - up to
50 db amp and provision for handset, headphones, neckloop or even
headset. But its main feature, captioning, seems unlikely. According
to the blurb, there is a free service which will engage the services
of someone who is capable of live captioning and whose services are
yours free for the duration of your conversation.
People capable of live captioning are scarce - the variable quality of
live captions on TV illustrates this. I find it hard to believe that
any phone service provides this service free to anyone who wants to
use it. I suppose it might just be possible if they used call centres
in, say, India to provide the captions but in that event I would
expect some hilarious errors.
The supplier of the phone stressed that they do not provide the
captioning. Rather it is implied that this free service is available.
And while I am being sceptical, I would like to see the 50 db
amplification checked. I know of only one phone (the Ameriphone
Dialogue XL-50 - I have one) with this much power.
Hopefully someone will buy one of these phones and report to the
group. I have often provided information on the Dialogue XL-50. And,
more than once, I have invested amounts similar to the cost of this
unit in hardware which proved useless. If this phone does half of what
it claims to do, even without the captions, it may be a good buy.
(else goodbye $99!)
Don
Steve W. Jackson
<0f94659f-a845-436f...@w37g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,
Ken <in...@kerrisonsorchard.com.au> wrote:
[ snip ]
>
> The phone itself seems to have many good features for the deaf - up to
> 50 db amp and provision for handset, headphones, neckloop or even
> headset. But its main feature, captioning, seems unlikely. According
> to the blurb, there is a free service which will engage the services
> of someone who is capable of live captioning and whose services are
> yours free for the duration of your conversation.
> People capable of live captioning are scarce - the variable quality of
> live captions on TV illustrates this. I find it hard to believe that
> any phone service provides this service free to anyone who wants to
> use it. I suppose it might just be possible if they used call centres
> in, say, India to provide the captions but in that event I would
> expect some hilarious errors.
> The supplier of the phone stressed that they do not provide the
> captioning. Rather it is implied that this free service is available.
> And while I am being sceptical, I would like to see the 50 db
> amplification checked. I know of only one phone (the Ameriphone
> Dialogue XL-50 - I have one) with this much power.
> Hopefully someone will buy one of these phones and report to the
> group. I have often provided information on the Dialogue XL-50. And,
> more than once, I have invested amounts similar to the cost of this
> unit in hardware which proved useless. If this phone does half of what
> it claims to do, even without the captions, it may be a good buy.
> (else goodbye $99!)
Ken,
I don't have one of these, but I've heard of them before. You might
want to visit <http://www.captel.com/how-it-works.php> to see how this
works. Here in the USA, the captioning service is available in most (if
not all) states for free because of special laws relating to the
Americans with Disabilities Act. As I understand it, the phone can be
used without captioning as per normal, but it would require that calls
placed to an owner go through a special toll-free number in order to get
the captioning service operational -- or so I've heard when I came
across an earlier discussion of these.
And since that page says it uses voice recognition technology, I would
be quite surprised if the captions are even as accurate as those I often
see on live TV broadcasts.
--
Steve W. Jackson
Montgomery, Alabama
xp
several years.
I haven't measured the DB amplification on this phone (don't know how), but
I can hear
the conversation even without my hearing aids on if I have to (not the
primary way I use the phone).
Since I go from home to office, I learned long ago to use multiple solutions
to a problem.
These phones work only on an analog phone systems, they will not work in an
office digital
phone system. I use an amplified neckloop in combination with all phones
that I use, so
amplification is not usually a problem for me in any environment.
The live captioning does leave somthing to be desired. It definately lags
the conversation and if you are heavily dependent
upon the text, you will have to tell the other party to please wait while
the text catches up with what he said. (confusing
for a new user).
For calls that you initiate, captioning is started automatically. For
incoming calls, if you have two phone lines,
captioning will also be started automatically via the second line. If you
have just one line, you can give the caller
an 800 number to call first (the number of the captioning service) and the
captioning service will then route the
call to your phone number. the new 800i model gets around this problem by
connecting to your high speed internet
connection. That way all calls have automatic captioning while just using
one phone line (it shares your high speed internet
connection for the captioning connection).
I have found the captioning to be worse than TV captioning. It is done on
the fly and although computerized to some
extent (the captioning person listens to the conversation and then with a
"trained voice" speaks into a voice recognition
system which then sends out the actual text. The captioning person can make
text corrections manually but relies mostly on the
voice recogintion system to do the translation).
I do not rely totally on the captioning - I just reference it when I am
having trouble recognizing words. The
problem I have seen is that the captioning service many times will have
problems with the same words that I do. This
indicates to me that it is not as much my hearing problem that is causing
the problem as it is the speaker not speaking
clearly or there being noise in the background on the callers end or on the
phone line itself.
For those in the USA, this service is provided free my most states. The
availibity in your state can be obtained
by clicking on the map at this website:
http://www.captel.com/availability.php
For those in the USA that have poor eyesight and would strain to see the
text on the small phone screen or those that want
the captioning service but don't need the amplified phone and don't mind
using a computer when you want to make a
call, there is a newer service that takes advantage of the internet and
VOIP. If you go to the Hamilton web captel site:
https://web.hamiltoncaptel.com/index.asp and sign up for a FREE account,
you can then type in your phone number and the number that you want to call
on your screen.
The service will call your number first to establish a phone connection with
you and then call the number that you want to talk
to. When your called party picks up you can hear them and you will see the
captioning on the screen. Then instead of a few lines
of small text, you have your whole computer screen (the text scrolls) to
monitor what is being said...and you can even save
the text of the phone call into a file after the call ends for a permanent
but onesided log of what your called party said!
Not only is this service free, but the (long distance) calls are free in the
U.S. I don;t want to drag out this long message with too
much detail, but there are provisions on this system for receiving calls by
simply staying logged into your account and giving
the other party the number of the translation service.
Again, you have to be comfortable with using the PC along with the phone to
make a phone call, but I find for outgoing calls this
meets my needs.
If you can deal with the issues on the phone, you can't beat the
introductory price of the 800i. The cost of the model 200 is over $500
unless you qualify for a subsidy. I just ordered the 800i to deal better
with my incoming calls. I will let you know how it works after
testing.
"Ken" <in...@kerrisonsorchard.com.au> wrote in message
news:0f94659f-a845-436f...@w37g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
Ken
> you can then type in your phone number and the number that you want to call
> on your screen.
> The service will call your number first to establish a phone connection with
> you and then call the number that you want to talk
> to. When your called party picks up you can hear them and you will see the
> captioning on the screen. Then instead of a few lines
> of small text, you have your whole computer screen (the text scrolls) to
> monitor what is being said...and you can even save
> the text of the phone call into a file after the call ends for a permanent
> but onesided log of what your called party said!
> Not only is this service free, but the (long distance) calls are free in the
> U.S. I don;t want to drag out this long message with too
> much detail, but there are provisions on this system for receiving calls by
> simply staying logged into your account and giving
> the other party the number of the translation service.
>
> Again, you have to be comfortable with using the PC along with the phone to
> make a phone call, but I find for outgoing calls this
> meets my needs.
>
> If you can deal with the issues on the phone, you can't beat the
> introductory price of the 800i. The cost of the model 200 is over $500
> unless you qualify for a subsidy. I just ordered the 800i to deal better
> with my incoming calls. I will let you know how it works after
> testing.
>
>
> news:0f94659f-a845-436f...@w37g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
>
> >>The phone itself seems to have many good features for the deaf - up to
> >>50 db amp and provision for handset, headphones, neckloop or even
> >>headset. But its main feature, captioning, seems unlikely. According
> >>to the blurb, there is a free service which will engage the services
> >>of someone who is capable of live captioning and whose services are
> >>yours free for the duration of your conversation.
> >>People capable of live captioning are scarce - the variable quality of
> >>live captions on TV illustrates this. I find it hard to believe that
> >>any phone service provides this service free to anyone who wants to
> >>use it. I suppose it might just be possible if they used call centres
> >>in, say, India to provide the captions but in that event I would
> >>expect some hilarious errors.
> >>The supplier of the phone stressed that they do not provide the
> >>captioning. Rather it is implied that this free service is available.
> >>And while I am being sceptical, I would like to see the 50 db
> >>amplification checked. I know of only one phone (the Ameriphone
> >>Dialogue XL-50 - I have one) with this much power.
> >>Hopefully someone will buy one of these phones and report to the
> >>group. I have often provided information on the Dialogue XL-50. And,
> >>more than once, I have invested amounts similar to the cost of this
> >>unit in hardware which proved useless. If this phone does half of what
> >>it claims to do, even without the captions, it may be a good buy.
> >>(else goodbye $99!)
Thanks XP - The US of A certainly does the right thing for its
deafies. I was amused at the sample caption given on the link you
posted - even the best live TV captioning would have got a few words
wrong.
There was a joke post to this group years ago by someone who said what
he wanted was a hearing aid which would generate captions above the
head of the speaker - like a comic strip. Now there is something for
Phonak to deploy a few megabucks on!