# Hearing Helper - Live Captions — user reviews > 73 indexed App Store user reviews of Hearing Helper by Mighty Fine Apps LLC, rated 4.50/5 from 680 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/hearing-helper-live-captions/id1391454121/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/hearing-helper-live-captions/id1391454121.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 524 · 4★ 68 · 3★ 40 · 2★ 10 · 1★ 38 ## What do users think of Hearing Helper? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🚀 Efficient speech recognition - 👍 Simple and easy to use - 🙌 Transformative for communication - 🔍 Accurate transcription - 📱 Works well on mobile devices **Cons** - 🤚 Requires holding button to record - 🔢 Occasional transcription errors - 🔇 Struggles with quiet speech - 🚫 Doesn't work on older devices **Commonly reported bugs** - Inconsistent performance - Drops first words of transcription - Crashes or freezes on some devices **Most requested features** - Toggle button to start/stop recording - Support for multiple languages - Larger font options - Ability to rotate screen for easier reading ## Newest reviews (12 of 73) ### 2/5 — Disappointed *2025-05-25* Purchased this app after reading all the positive reviews. Unfortunately for me, this app has been useless! It won't pick won't pick up any speech unless you hold the phone close to your mouth, even the TV which is only a metre away or if your at a show where the speaker is on an elevated stage. It picks up nothing! The screen says I'm listening... but that's all it does! Very disappointing. ### 3/5 — Don’t want to have to hold button *2024-08-17* It’s tiring to have to keep my finger on the red button and makes it harder to concentrate naturally on the conversation. Please make it possible to just click once to record and again to stop ### 2/5 — Why oh why? *2024-03-28* Have bought this twice now. And realised why I never used the first time. Having to press and hold button to record text is in convenient and ridiculous. Why make your customers jump through this hoop? Many people have complained about this as a major factor in what could be a brilliant solution making it almost pointless. If you in your developers mind beleive there is a good reason for this, at least listen to your customers and give them the option to have an “always listening on” option. It is such a simple thing, so obvious and yet you insist on forcing people to what you think is best for them despite a clear desire for something more usable. Refund please, unless you make the very simple change i settings. ### 3/5 — Intermittent operation *2022-09-29, version 1.7* Does not work every time I read the speak button. Need to repress red button. ### 3/5 — ok but… *2022-01-10, version 1.7* it’s a really nice app but it needs typing assistance more often than not. if it wasn’t for that, i would upgrade but not until thus one us better at handling voice to text ### 5/5 — A great blessing! *2021-11-11* This is my 2nd review! My mom is 92 and started to lose her hearing in 2011. Hearing aids no longer help. I used other apps, but they had ads that were interfering with communication. I began looking again and came across this app. It is simple, clean, and so easy to use! I have told so many people to download it so they can communicate with my mom who is now in an assisted living facility. Thank you so much for creating this app! It has been a great blessing! ### 5/5 — Life Changing *2021-08-28* We are easily able to communicate with our hearing impaired Dad. ### 5/5 — Perfect for my profoundly deaf Mum *2021-08-10* The app is brilliant for care givers to communicate with my 92 year old Mum who has no hearing at all. It occasionally comes up with some quite ‘interesting’ interpretations of words but that gives us all a laugh! ### 3/5 — Great potential *2021-07-25* Would be great if this was better adapted to those who are hard of hearing. ### 3/5 — Works great except *2021-07-22* I love the big letters and the app is spot on .The only thing I do not like about this app as is you have to hold the button the whole time bar someone’s talking. That’s really inconvenient. ### 2/5 — Doesn’t work in my old iPhone 6 + (iOS v12.5.4)... *2021-07-18, version 1.7* ... It doesn’t even check for its Internet connection. When there is Internet, it doesn’t seem to hear all like from speakers. ### 4/5 — Useful *2021-07-07, version 1.6* It’s useful but limited to English ! We need the same for French, Spanish &c. 👍🏼 ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Awful. A waste of money *2025-07-11* We tried the app to help my parent with hearing difficulties. It ability to understand even when people are speaking slowly and clearly is almost nonexistent. A total waste of money ### 1/5 — Don’t bother.. hard to use, doesn’t work well *2025-06-04* I purchased this for my HoH dad, with hope it could pick up conversations. This app doesn’t work well at all, and is more of a hindrance than a help. I wish they had a free trial so you could see how it works, because I definitely wouldn’t have purchased it. Will be looking for something else… (Google translate works better and is free!) ### 1/5 — Good but….. *2023-12-11, version 1.7* I don’t like that you need to hold the mic button down during the whole conversation. I like a refund please. ### 1/5 — Awful! *2023-06-07* At least I only wasted £2.99 on this. It only picks up really loud speech which is pointless as it’s the quiet stuff I can’t hear. I downloaded Otter which picked up pretty much everything. ### 1/5 — Upgrade bate *2023-05-01* You have to hold down a button while transcribing. Make it useless. Where do I get my refund? **Developer response:** Hi there! This app is meant to be straightforward for people who might not intuitively understand that it can transcribe without pressing the mic. Our sister app, Live Transcribe for iOS, does transcribe without holding a button down though so I hope you can check it out! Please email support@mightyfine.app if you'd like a refund. ### 1/5 — 한국어 지원안됨 *2022-01-27* 환불해주세요 ### 1/5 — Did not work for me *2021-12-25, version 1.7* The app needs you continually hold down the transcribe button and is not very accurate. ### 1/5 — Very misleading, do not buy or download *2021-11-08, version 1.7* I am deaf in one ear and almost completely deaf in my other ear I thought this would caption live text of my phone calls but it does not. I want my $2.99 back. ### 1/5 — Poor design *2020-09-30, version 1.6* You literally have to press your finger on the mic button the entire time to make it work. Very poor design. Nobody wants to do that. Other apps are better. ### 1/5 — Not friendly deaf users *2020-08-03, version 1.6* It constantly skipped or changed words then stopped. I had to pressing repeatedly a button. I missed a lot of words with this app. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Ann of Bawdsey *2025-08-04* It has transformed our lives due my husbands sudden deafness and me wanting to have a conversation with him so very important ### 5/5 — Solved a big problem *2025-03-08* My husband refuses to get hearing aids. Our communication with each other was frustrating. Writing down everything I wanted to communicate to him was aggravating not to mention time consuming. Hearing Helper has made a big difference. I can easily talk into my speaker and it prints out my words on my phone which I then hand to my husband. Because I have the font larger, he easily can read it. It’s been a lifesaver. Wish I had found this app sooner. ### 5/5 — Life Changing *2024-11-27* This app has been life changing for my elderly grandmother that suffers from hearing loss. The simplicity and accuracy of the app allows her to easily communicate with others in any scenario - informal conversation, hospital, restaurants, etc. Thanks for creating this - I hope others can find it as useful. ### 5/5 — Deaf moms life line *2024-10-25* My mother is deaf and without this app she would not understand what’s going on. This has been a miracle for us. We can finally put away the pad and pen. Thank you. Just wish I could make the font even bigger on my iPad **Developer response:** Hi mmaratos 👋, I’m so glad the hearing helper is helping your family. I’d love for you to try out the newest version that’s now in Beta to see if it helps your mom even more! Just reach out to me through developer support. - Rob ### 5/5 — Speech recognition *2024-10-03* Very reliable when communicating with my deaf father ### 5/5 — Quick and easy assistance *2023-08-27* The app is pretty good at picking up speech and translating it into text. It occasionally makes a mistake, but you can type on the keyboard to correct. I have found it very useful for having quick conversations where we need clarity for someone who is hard of hearing. ### 5/5 — Simple to use! *2023-04-26* This app was perfect for my needs! It really helped me communicate with the hard of hearing. I loved that it was straight forward and no big learning curve to use it. ### 5/5 — Great app! *2023-03-01* This app has made things much easier for me. Going to Dr appts and other places that I really need to hear what’s being said does not worry me anymore. I get my phone out and set it down and it’s just easy to use because there’s not a lot of things to have to figure out for the other person The only thing I have to say must if the time is you have to hold the button pressed because they always just tap it That’s not even a complaint but it’s the k my thing I can think of that might possibly make it any better Thanks for a great and useful app! ### 5/5 — Healthcare worker *2022-09-09* Extremely helpful for communicating with hard of hearing while wearing a mask. Responsive, accurate, no complaints! ### 5/5 — Great for someone that needs to talk to someone who is deaf. *2022-05-16* My only objection is I would like to start and stop with red button so I don’t have to hold it. (It could be an option if needed) --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-29.*