Built by someone with hearing loss
Hearing Buddy was made by Lilly Seay, who lives with hearing loss, and Scott Krager — her real-life hearing buddy.
A hearing challenge that needed a real solution
Lilly went to Apple Entrepreneur Camp in 2023. Soon after, she took a full-time engineering manager role — an in-office job leading 20 software engineers and running in-person trainings.
It was a wonderful team and a fast-paced environment with lots of meetings — and it made something clear: even in the friendliest rooms, hearing loss makes group conversations hard. Around a big table, Lilly might only catch half of what was said, no matter how kind everyone was.
Scott saw how much energy it took her to stay in every conversation — at work and in everyday life. He's the one who notices when she misses something, repeats it without being asked, and makes sure she's never left out. He wanted to help her hear better.
Then they went to WWDC25, Apple's developer conference. Scott started testing Apple's newest speech technology to see how well live captions could keep up with a real, fast-moving conversation. It was a breakthrough — captions that are quick, remarkably accurate, and run entirely on your iPhone.
Lilly has always preferred live captions over hearing aids — they're far gentler on her ears. After a couple of hours with hearing aids, her ears are sore. Reading a conversation as it happens just feels better.
They built Hearing Buddy because the technology is finally good enough: accurate live captions, even in some noisy rooms, running privately and on-device. On-device AI is the most sustainable way to do this, and it means the captions can stay free.
That's the heart of the Hearing Buddy brand — making real hearing-loss solutions accessible to everyone.
Behind Hearing Buddy
From Apple Entrepreneur Camp to the App Store — built hands-on, and used every day.
