The four options
1. An induction loop (hearing loop)
A wire around the room drives a magnetic field that hearing aids pick up directly on their telecoil setting. When it works, it is the best experience available: no extra device, no queue, no sign-up. The listener switches their own hearing aid to T and the room is simply audible.
The costs are installation and maintenance. Looping a room means running cable, usually under flooring or around a perimeter, and getting it commissioned and tested to standard. Older buildings, listed buildings and rooms with a lot of metal in the structure are harder and more expensive. It is a capital project, not a subscription.
Its real limitation is reach: it only helps people whose hearing aids have a working telecoil and who know to switch it on. That is a shrinking share. Many modern hearing aids — and every pair of ordinary earbuds — have no telecoil at all.
2. FM or infrared receivers
A transmitter at the front, a bodypack receiver and headset for each listener. No building work, and it reaches anyone, hearing aid or not. Infrared has the useful property of not passing through walls, which matters for confidential rooms.
The costs are per unit and ongoing: receivers to buy or rent, batteries, charging, cleaning, and a person to hand them out and get them back. The practical problem is social rather than technical — collecting a labelled device from a desk at the front is a public declaration that you cannot hear, and a lot of people will simply not do it.
3. Phone-based streaming
The room's own audio is streamed to the phones and earbuds people already carry. Nothing is installed in the building and nothing is handed out; the listener scans a code and puts their own earbuds in, which looks identical to listening to anything else.
The costs are usage-based rather than capital, and the requirement moves onto the listener's device: a phone, a data or Wi-Fi connection, and earbuds. It also reaches people a loop cannot — visitors without telecoils, people with mild hearing loss who have no hearing aid at all, and anyone sitting behind a pillar.
4. Live captions on screen
Frequently forgotten, and often the highest-value option per pound spent. Captions on the main screen or on personal phones serve people with profound hearing loss whom no audio system reaches, and they are also read by people with no hearing loss whatsoever — non-native speakers, anyone in a noisy overflow room, anyone who missed a name.
The honest limits of the phone approach
These are real constraints, and better heard now than discovered in your building:
- In the room, earbuds are not optional. The stream lands roughly a fifth to a third of a second behind the room. Through earbuds that is inaudible. Played out loud on a phone speaker it sounds like an echo, and it will annoy everyone nearby.
- It depends on the listener's device. A dead battery, no data allowance or forgotten earbuds all mean no service that day. A loop has no such dependency, which is exactly why some venues keep one.
- The microphone decides everything. A soundboard feed or a headset mic reads cleanly. A phone at the back of a reverberant hall does not — for captions or for audio, in any language.
- It may not satisfy a regulation. Some jurisdictions and building standards specify assistive listening in named terms. If you are meeting a legal requirement rather than serving people well, check the wording before you replace anything.
How to choose
The useful question is not which technology is best, it is who you are currently failing to reach.
- You have a working loop and people use it — keep it. Consider adding captions, which reach an entirely different group.
- You have a loop nobody uses — this is common, and usually means telecoil reach has fallen in your congregation or audience. Test it, then add a phone-based option beside it rather than replacing it.
- You have receivers that mostly sit in a drawer — the barrier is probably social, not technical. Something people do from their own seat on their own phone tends to get used far more.
- You have nothing and no capital budget — start with phone-based audio and captions. There is no installation, and you can test it on a real service in fifteen minutes before deciding anything.
- You are fitting out a new building — loop it. It is dramatically cheaper during construction, and it is the one option with no dependency on the listener owning or charging anything.
The part that is not technology
Whatever you install, the people who need it most are the least likely to ask for it. A sign at the back is not a rollout. Saying it once, out loud, from the front — "if you are hard of hearing, scan this and put your earbuds in" — does more for uptake than any equipment decision on this page.
Common questions.
Can phone streaming replace our hearing loop?
Functionally it reaches more people, including everyone without a telecoil. But it depends on the listener having a charged phone and earbuds, and a loop does not. If you are meeting a specific legal or building-standard requirement, check the wording before removing anything — many venues are best served running both.
Does the listener need to install an app?
Not for Koine. They scan a code and listen in the phone browser. There is an app, and it adds history and notes, but nothing needs installing to hear the room.
Why does the audio have to go through earbuds?
Because the stream is a fraction of a second behind the live room. Earbuds mask that completely. A phone speaker does not, and the offset reads as an echo to everyone sitting nearby.
Does this work for people with profound hearing loss?
Amplified audio does not help beyond a certain point, which is why captions matter. Live text on the phone or the main screen serves people no audio system can reach, and it is worth running alongside any audio option.
Do we need translation to use this?
No. Streaming the room's own language, with no translation at all, is a normal way to use it — and it meters at about a third of the rate of a translated language.