Relay Explained

Dearest Emily and Melissa-- this post is for you :)

Relay has been around for years and years and years.  While growing up, my mom used a TTY.  She would put her handset on this little typewriter machine (yep her landline phone) and the person she was talking to would speak.  Their voice would be sent to an operator.  The operator would listen and type what was being said.  The words would display on a little screen for my mom to read.  For my mom to reply she would type back.  The operator would voice it to the hearing person on the other end.  Captioned phone calls!

Fast forward a few years.  My mom began using the Captel phone.  People complained about the TTY (ahem.... I may or may not have been one of them).  It was forever slow.  And you couldn't hear my mom's voice.  You would just hear this operator say what my mom was typing.  On the captel phone, the operator listened in still.  But my mom would speak into the handset to the hearing person.  Their reply was typed in by the captioner.  Her calls were still captioned but she was able to use her voice.  This system was better.

Now fast forward even more years when hardly anyone has a landline.  Captels are still in existence.  CaptionCall phones are supposed to be the newest and bestest at this function.  However, with the advance of the internet, came the advance of internet relay.  You can use internet relay anywhere, for free, with no needed equipment except a phone and the internet.  And yes, it's a real person who listens in on your calls.  However, you have no interaction with this person other than seeing their operator # typed at the beginning of the call.  You are listening to the call and reading what the captioner types out on your computer screen.  Since the operator has to listen, understand and type out, this obviously takes time and it makes sense there is a delay.  It's best to use this system when you can mostly hear on the phone but just need a back up for the few things you miss.  So this would be a great system for all those baby boomers who are starting to lose their hearing.

However, for me, I would probably do better with a different system.  But there is not yet one that has presented itself.

If you could hear, wouldn't it be a fun job to listen in on everyone's phone calls??  Especially therapy related phone calls?

Voice to text programs still have a ton of kinks to work out.  If you want to test it, go on youtube and select the "cc" button.  Select auto transcribe, click ok to acknowledge you understand it's not accurate and then read the captions to a video as you listen to it.  It's cRaZy!