Frequently asked questions

eyeHear is a real-time captioning app for iPhone and iPad. It listens through your device’s microphone and turns nearby speech into large, easy-to-read text, helping people who are deaf or hard of hearing follow in-person conversations.

eyeHear is free on the App Store. There are no subscriptions, in-app purchases, or ads.

eyeHear runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS or iPadOS 18.6 or later. There is currently no Android or web version.

eyeHear uses Apple’s built-in speech recognition, which can run entirely on-device for many languages. If your device has an on-device model for your language, captions keep working even without a network connection. Otherwise, iOS uses Apple’s server-based recognition instead, which needs an internet connection. Availability depends on your iPhone or iPad and language settings.

eyeHear captions in the languages your device supports for Apple’s speech recognition, following your device’s language settings. For the best results, make sure your device language matches the language being spoken.

Accuracy depends on Apple’s speech recognition and the conditions around you. Clear speech, minimal background noise, and keeping the device close to the speaker all improve results. Occasional mistakes can happen, especially with strong accents, fast speech, or noisy rooms.

Live Captions is Apple’s own built-in feature, and it covers things eyeHear doesn’t, including phone and video calls. If it works for you, use it. eyeHear is built for one thing: the conversation happening in front of you, in large, easy-to-read text you can read across a table or hand to the person you’re speaking with. Press and hold the screen, and it only listens when you mean it to.

Yes. Each captioning session is saved to your on-device history, where you can re-read it, or share it using the iOS share sheet. Your history stays on your device unless you choose to share it.

Yes. You can clear individual sessions or your entire history at any time from within the app.

eyeHear captions speech that your device’s microphone can hear, such as in-person conversations. It isn’t designed to capture audio directly from phone or video calls.

eyeHear needs microphone access to hear speech and speech recognition access to convert that speech into text. It requests no other permissions, and it does not access your location, contacts, or photos.

Yes. Your captions are stored only on your device and are never uploaded to eyeHear. Microphone audio is used only to produce captions and isn’t stored or sent to eyeHear’s servers. See our privacy policy for full details.

No. eyeHear does not save recordings of your conversations. Audio is processed into captions and then discarded; the resulting captions live only on your device.

When you contact us, we collect the email address and message you provide so we can respond, stored on our Cloudflare-based infrastructure. We explain exactly how this is handled in our privacy policy.

No. Enable Dictation (in iOS Settings → General → Keyboard) is a separate setting from Siri, and turning it on does not turn Siri on. eyeHear asks iOS to run speech recognition right on your device whenever your language has an on-device model installed, so your speech stays on your device. If your language doesn’t have an on-device model, iOS uses Apple’s server-based recognition instead, which needs an internet connection. You can leave Siri off either way. See Apple’s Dictate text on iPhone guide and its Siri, Dictation & Privacy page for more.