Hearing Loop, how to connect laptop to the loop as a receiver so it can transcribe conversations?

[margaret gillon]

My community has meeting rooms with hearing loops. Some of the groups with impaired hearing and vision use the loops. We are trying to figure out how to connect a laptop to the hearing loop so it can hear the loop conversations and they become audio input and can be transcribed in real time using software like google translate.  The transcription would be cast to a large TV in the room. The goal is that the people who can see -- but cannot hear -- can be part of the conversations as they are happening.

Hearing aids have telecoil technology that connects them to the hearing loop. I have searched for telecoil receivers that connect to a laptop but cannot find them.

How do we connect the laptop to the hearing loop as if the laptop audio in were hearing aids?

[Stephan van Hulst]

Sounds to me like you'd want to use something like these: https://www.ampetronic.com/product-categories/other-products-by-ampetronic-audio-induction-loop-systems/loop-receivers/

I can't vouch for this particular product or brand, it's just an example to indicate that such devices are available. Instead of connecting it to a headphone, you could connect it to the microphone port of your system's audio card, and then find some software to process the signal.

I was kinda surprised that it's so hard to find devices like these, because a telecoil really isn't much more than a coil of wire attached to an amplifier. If you or a friend or colleague knows their way around electronic parts, you could probably build such a device in an afternoon.

[Tim Holloway]

That reminds me of an old Radio Shack product: a stick-on coil for a telephone handset.

These days, often the easiest way to relay audio is via Bluetooth. In fact, one way of doing a low-budget hearing aid is to use a "listening app" on a phone to broadcast via the phone's Bluetooth to earbuds or something similar.

If the audio in question has a standard "earphone" jack or plug then there are Bluetooth relay devices intended for things like private listening on a TV set (jack it into the TV earphone jack, and that usually mutes the speaker so if someone next to you doesn't want to be bothered...)