For the student who catches half the lecture and rebuilds the rest from context, Hearing Buddy puts free, private live captions on the device they already carry. Everything here — professional access to try it yourself, ready-made accommodation language, Caption Together for group work — exists to make support easier. No student data, nothing to buy.
Apple Design Award Finalist
in Inclusivity
Hard-of-hearing students spend enormous energy just keeping up: lipreading a moving teacher, guessing across group work, borrowing notes to reconstruct a class they were present for.
Hearing Buddy puts live captions on the student's own iPhone — lectures, discussions, club meetings. With Caption Together, nearby iPhones share one caption stream, so group projects and study sessions stop being the hardest part of the day. It's free, there's no account, and audio never leaves the device — nothing for IT to review, nothing for anyone to manage.
Built by Lilly Seay, who lives with hearing loss — and remembers exactly what the back row felt like.
No minute meters, no session caps, no account, no credit card. Captions are never paywalled.
Audio never leaves the phone — nothing is recorded, uploaded, or stored anywhere. Works fully offline.
Caption Together shares live captions with the iPhones nearby — group projects and study sessions included, free.
A tap on the wrist when someone says their name or asks them a question — attention without the anxiety.
Requires iPhone with iOS 26 or later · Not on Android or Chromebook (we're honest about that) · Optional Buddy+ upgrade is $59.99/year — captions stay free either way
Everything a student needs in class is free, forever. There's no commission, no upsell pressure, no revenue share — recommending it costs them nothing and costs you nothing.
No accounts, no student data, no cloud audio — there is simply nothing collected. It lives on the student's personal device, so there's nothing to deploy or review.
It's iPhone-only (iOS 26+) — many classrooms are iPad- or Chromebook-first, so check devices before writing it into a plan. And it supplements, never replaces, interpreters, CART, or IEP services.
We kept it deliberately simple — no fees, no licenses, no procurement. Just tools for you and your students.
You can't recommend what you haven't used. Educators get every Buddy+ feature — Watch alerts, summaries, Speaker Labels, translation — free, for good. Request below; we'll email your code within a day.
Ready to adapt for 504 plans, IEP support lists, or college accommodation letters: "Student may use a personal live-captioning app (e.g., Hearing Buddy) on a personal device to caption lectures, discussions, and group work."
A classmate or teacher opens Hearing Buddy, the student joins from their own iPhone, and everyone's words merge into one caption stream — free, offline, and nothing to set up beyond the app itself.
We're a small team and we build quickly. If something would make Hearing Buddy genuinely more useful for your students — a feature, a resource, a printable for parents — tell us. Educator feedback moves to the top of the list.
Thirty seconds, no sales call. We give every request a quick human look, then your lifetime Buddy+ access code lands in your inbox — usually within a day.
We'll send one welcome note, never a newsletter. The code unlocks Buddy+ on your personal device — students just download the free app.
Hearing Buddy is an assistive communication tool. It is not a medical device, and it does not replace interpreters, CART services, or supports provided under an IEP or 504 plan. The partner program involves no payments to or from educators.