# Vigilant Ear: Deaf Sound Alert — Direction, Distance & Noise > Visual and haptic sound alerts and speech transcription for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing. (iPhone/iPad app by Robert Palmer.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/vigilant-ear-deaf-sound-alert/id6761978703 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Robert Palmer](https://appshunter.io/developer/1892272648) - Category: Utilities - Price: Free with in-app purchases - Rating: 5.00/5 from 4 App Store ratings · 2 written reviews indexed - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 26.0 · 284 MB - Languages: American English, Arabic, French (France), German (Germany), Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese and 6 more - Released: 2026-05-18 - Data updated: 2026-10-24 - Monetization: free with in-app purchases - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/vigilant-ear-deaf-sound-alert/id6761978703/reviews.md ## What is Vigilant Ear? THE DIRECTION A SOUND CAME FROM — AND HOW FAR AWAY That is what other sound-alert tools leave out. Vigilant Ear turns the iPhone you already own into a sound radar for the Deaf, hard-of-hearing, and CODA community: sirens, alarms, knocks, a crying baby, severe weather, and the voices around you — each one placed on a live map with its direction, rough distance, and a haptic buzz, the moment it happens. It also tells you WHO is speaking. Live captions separate the people around you by voice, and link nearby iPhones into one shared picture of the room. All on-device. Designed for Deaf and hard-of-hearing users who rely on visual captions and alerts. It's a visual, haptic tool - not built for blind users. The interface is high-contrast dark by design, and every alert is distinguished by shape and icon — never by color alone — so it works for color-blind users, too. Using on-device AI, it identifies hundreds of everyday and emergency sounds in real time and estimates their direction and rough distance — nothing is sent to the cloud or off your device. Vigilant Ear is an experimental research and accessibility aid — not a certified or life-saving device. Always use your own situational awareness. ALWAYS FREE: • Live captions of nearby speech (Speaker Mode), separated by voice • Live text to speech of captions to any Bluetooth audio device (Beats, AirPods, hearing aids) • Real-time alerts — alarms, sirens, knocks, doorbells, a crying baby, a person approaching • Official Weather warnings and alerts — US (NWS), Europe (MeteoGate), Japan (JMA), China (CMA), Korea (KMA), India (NDMA), Canada (ECCC), Australia (BOM), and Brazil (INMET) — gated by geographic position of your device. Fed by our relay so you never connect directly to a foreign government's servers. • Live radar map with directional guidance, multi-target tracking, and haptics • Alerts appear on your Apple Watch too, even when your iPhone is asleep as long as the app is running (even minimized) • Name Called — when someone says your name, your iPhone and Apple Watch tap and the watch points toward the voice. Needs Speaker Mode on. • Siri, Shortcuts & Action Button — ask "What's around me?" (or type it to Siri) for a spoken-and-on-screen summary of nearby sounds, and start or stop listening hands-free • 300+ on-device sound classifications — your audio or telemetry data never leaves your device • Earthquake alerts if a deep rumble (infrasounds nobody can hear) is recorded with later confirmation from the USGS. POWER PACK+ — optional, one-time charge • Translation — captions converted into your language, on-device • Constellation — link nearby iPhones into a shared, more precise picture of sounds (acoustic mesh/biangulation/triangulation) • Music ID — name the songs playing around you • Remote Link — reach someone who isn't with you, using video and text. No audio at any point, so nothing depends on hearing at either end — and it gives you a way to sign with someone. You send a code; they join free, without Power Pack+. • Bring Your Own Model (BYOM) — Load your own sound model of classifications using data you can also collect in-app. Power Pack+ is free to try for your first 90 days; after that, captions and alerts stay free forever and a small one-time fee keeps the glamorous extras. No subscription, ever. Privacy first: all listening, transcription, translation, and sound classification run entirely on your device. The only exception: if you use Music ID, a short audio fingerprint — never raw audio — goes to Apple's Shazam service to name the song. Compare that to other apps! Built for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community. Stay aware. THE UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR, FOR REAL Science fiction promised a device that simply understands — no setup, no picking languages. Vigilant Ear is the closest thing yet: it detects the language being spoken on its own, separates the voices, and captions every speaker in the room in your language, live and entirely on your device. ## Key features - Visual and haptic sound alerts - Real-time speech transcription - On-device sound identification - Directional sound guidance - Severe weather alerts - Apple Watch integration - Siri and Shortcuts support ## Pricing and in-app purchases Base price: Free. **One-time purchases** | Purchase | Price | Type | | --- | --- | --- | | Power Pack+ | $5.99 | one-time | ## Is Vigilant Ear safe? Not enough ratings yet to assess Vigilant Ear. ## Is Vigilant Ear legit? Vigilant Ear: Deaf Sound Alert has limited verification signals. The AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for Vigilant Ear is 58 out of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data. ## Recent user reviews (2 of 2) All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/vigilant-ear-deaf-sound-alert/id6761978703/reviews.md ### 5/5 — Amazing game changer for hearing impaired *2026-09-26* Very intelligent app. It’s very sensitive to alert to many of the audible sounds that keep me safe and help me navigate ### 5/5 — Useful App *2026-08-26* I found the app to be incredibly helpful in detecting unexpected sounds and conversations. As someone who’s older, I feel more secure using this app to become more aware of my surroundings. ## Frequently asked questions about Vigilant Ear ### Does Vigilant Ear have ads? Vigilant Ear does not contain advertisements. It is designed to be an unobtrusive aid for its users. ### What sounds can Vigilant Ear detect? Vigilant Ear can identify over 300 everyday and emergency sounds, including alarms, sirens, knocks, a crying baby, severe weather, and nearby speech. It also offers earthquake alerts. ### Is Vigilant Ear a certified safety device? Vigilant Ear is an experimental research and accessibility aid, not a certified or life-saving device. Users should always maintain their own situational awareness. ### How does Vigilant Ear handle privacy? All listening, transcription, translation, and sound classification run entirely on your device. Audio or telemetry data never leaves your device, except for a short audio fingerprint for Music ID to Apple's Shazam service. ### What devices does Vigilant Ear support? Vigilant Ear is supported on Apple Watch, iPhone, and iPad, offering alerts on your Apple Watch even when your iPhone is asleep. ### What are the 'Power Pack+' features in Vigilant Ear? The optional Power Pack+ includes features like on-device translation of captions, Constellation for linking nearby iPhones for a more precise sound picture, and Music & Sound ID to name songs. It is free to try for 90 days. ### How often is Vigilant Ear updated? The latest version of Vigilant Ear is 1.0.18, last updated on August 25, 2026. Updates typically include new features, bug fixes, and performance improvements. ### Can Vigilant Ear transcribe speech from multiple people? Yes, Vigilant Ear's Speaker Mode provides live captions that transcribe nearby speech, separating it by speaker. This transcription is done entirely on-device. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 1.1.14 — 2026-10-20 NEW — Vigilant Ear speaks Polish, its 16th language: every screen, the help panel and the tour. Polish speech is captioned in Polish, and Polish joins Live Translation and Auto-Detect Language in the Feature Playground. NEW — Feel the beat on Apple Watch. With music playing and the Vigilant Ear app open on your watch, the kick and snare pulse as rings, beat 1 of each bar is marked, and your wrist gets a light tap on every beat 1. Double-tap anywhere on the watch screen to turn the tap off until the music stops. Alerts always come first. When Music ID names the song, its title shows on your watch too. NEW — A tour step shows the beat on Apple Watch. BETTER — Italian reads like everyday Italian: plain words and short sentences. And, miscellaneous improvements to base functionality. ### 1.1.13 — 2026-10-17 NEW — Name Called on Apple Watch. When someone says your name, your watch taps three times and shows an arrow toward the voice. When the phone can't tell left from right, a fan shows both sides. It works with your iPhone locked while the Vigilant Ear app is open on your watch. Name Called needs Speaker Mode on. NEW — Try it before you need it: a Test button under Preferences → Name Called sends a practice call, and a new tour chapter shows how to set up the watch. BETTER — A second call isn't missed. After an alert, Name Called is ready again in 3 seconds instead of a minute. NEW — Share Vigilant Ear from the help panel (the life ring): a code someone beside you can scan to get the app, a link to the App Store, and our Instagram. BETTER — Sound alerts are less likely to be cut off while Vigilant Ear runs in the background. On iPhones with the enhanced captions, the app now lets go of its caption models after 30 seconds in the background: on an iPhone 17 its memory fell from about 1.6 GB to 85 MB, so iOS is far less likely to close it when another app needs room. Captions come back about a second after you return. BETTER — On iPhones with the enhanced captions, long stretches of speech in a noisy room are captioned more accurately: in a busy room on an iPhone 17, Spanish went from 9.2% of words wrong to 7.3%, French from 25.1% to 22.3%, German from 18.7% to 17.1%. FIXED — Hindi captions no longer slip into Urdu script: on an iPhone 17 in a quiet room, words in the wrong script fell from 26% to 8%, and word errors from 45% to 35%. BETTER — Fewer captions in the wrong language. On iPhones with the enhanced captions, when a speaker is briefly mistaken for another language, the app now checks the words before switching. In a noisy English test recording on an iPhone 17, a 27-second stretch that had been captioned as Romanian stayed in English, in both test runs. This works when the app is captioning English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Russian or Romanian. FIXED — Captions keep going while your iPhone downloads a translation language. BETTER — Traditional Chinese addresses you with 你, as Apple Taiwan does. FIXED — Translated weather warnings keep their official titles intact. FIXED — In the Acoustic Scope's Spectrogram, sound labels now stay for the whole picture instead of disappearing halfway across. And, miscellaneous improvements to base functionality. ### 1.1.12 — 2026-10-11 NEW — The map now shows a distance scale at the bottom, always visible, so you can tell how far away things are. NEW — Wind on the map: whenever the weather radar is on, light arrows show which way the wind is blowing, anywhere in the world, updated every hour. BETTER — Captions in loud places. On iPhones with the enhanced captions, an improved speech model makes far fewer mistakes in noise: in a loud bar on an iPhone 17, German captions went from 45% of words wrong to 20%, and Russian from 19% of characters wrong to 9%. Quiet rooms gain too: German from 8.4% to 6.4%, Russian from 5.6% to 3.2%. The same model captions English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese. It replaces the old one by itself over Wi-Fi (about 730 MB). BETTER — The first word of a sentence is no longer cut off, and captions are more accurate overall: on an iPhone 17, word errors fell from 6.7% to 5.4% in English and from 10.5% to 8.9% in German. FIXED — Long captioning sessions no longer use more and more memory (about 135 MB more each hour before). FIXED — A phone call that takes the microphone no longer closes Vigilant Ear. Listening comes back by itself when the call ends. BETTER — Weather warnings show their official title in your language. In Arabic, a "Tropical Storm Watch" is no longer translated word for word into a wristwatch. NEXT in the warning panel steps through several warnings. BETTER — Arabic captions are far more accurate on iPhones with at least 6 GB of memory that don't use the enhanced captions: the same recording went from 43% to 24% word errors on an iPhone 17. Hindi captions spell better there too, with character errors down from 25% to 15%. BETTER — On an iPhone set to another country's region, German, French and Italian captions now use their own country's speech recognizer. German word errors fell from 25% to 9%. FIXED — The last sentence before a pause no longer goes missing. BETTER — Vigilant Ear does far less work when nothing is happening: about 80% less on the main thread at idle on iPhone 16 and 17. BETTER — Traditional Chinese uses Taiwan wording, and several Russian, Arabic and French labels are corrected. BETTER — Remote Link's video is bigger, and captions stay clear of it. IMPORTANT — Linked phones (Constellation) are now always encrypted. Phones running Vigilant Ear 1.1.6 or older need to update to join. And, miscellaneous improvements to base functionality. ### 1.1.11 — 2026-10-05 BETTER — 30-second Rewind keeps every line again. On iPhones using the captioning model downloaded in 1.1.10, Rewind showed only the line still being spoken. Finished lines and their translations now stay, and a translated line gets a full 30 seconds from the moment its translation arrives. BETTER — Sound direction now uses the exact size of your iPhone on every model that runs iOS 26, from iPhone 11 and SE to iPhone 18 Pro Max. Many models were using an average. BETTER — Weather radar no longer disappears for up to five minutes when a radar service withdraws a frame, and rain no longer looks heavier while a zoom finishes loading. BETTER — Chinese captions no longer put a space between characters, and they end with 。 instead of an English period. Arabic and Hindi captions no longer end with an extra period. And, miscellaneous improvements to base functionality. ### 1.1.10 — 2026-10-03 NEW — Weather radar on the map. Radar shows rain and snow around you on application startup, from the national radars of the United States, Canada, Japan, Italy and much of Europe, and a satellite rain estimate across most of the rest of the world. If you don't want it for that session, tap the weather pill to turn it off. Touch the screen and the last hour plays back three times; a scale at the bottom reads from Light to Dense. BETTER — More accurate captions, in each speaker's own language. On iPhones with at least 8GB of memory, a one-time captioning model download (about 1 GB, over Wi-Fi, or on cellular after asking) captions each turn in the language actually spoken — so a room that switches between English, Spanish, French and Arabic stays readable. In our tests, word errors in a four-language conversation fell from about 80% to 14%. NEW — Translation while people are still talking. Finished sentences are translated as soon as they end, instead of waiting for the speaker to stop, and translations now arrive in a fraction of the time. BETTER — Captions no longer repeat a long sentence over and over. BETTER — Being on a phone call no longer prevents Vigilant Ear from starting; listening resumes on its own when the call ends. BETTER — On application startup, Standing Watch tells you how long the app wasn't listening for alerts (how long the mic was muted or our app was swiped away). BETTER — Warnings alert you first and translate after, and their titles arrive in your language. BETTER — Speech recognition is ready the moment the app opens, so the first words are captioned sooner. Earthquake checks keep running every 5 minutes in the background. NEW — A life ring on the map lists who to call for help in the country you are in. NEW — Spoken alerts have their own switch. 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User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-10-24.*