Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought the Hamilton CapTel 840i with the intention of being able to keep up with family telephone calls which due to ear problems I was finding difficult to hear even using latest hearing aids. It seemed the ideal choice. Setting it up was extremely simple, but then I work with computers and comms. It will run happily over WiFi or on a direct ethernet connection. The first thing that you have to realize is that the phone itself does not do any of the clever work. It requires a high speed internet link (mine is business level 50+Mbs) to CapTel where a human monitored computer does the voice to text and then transmits the text back to be displayed: this takes time and the delay is cumulative. The translation itself is not bad but if there are any special names, words or phrases they are often mistranslated (watch the captioning on a news program to see how that works). So every now and then the operator will change the translation when it is obvious the machine has got it wrong. One to one - this system is not bad - the person on the other end needs to be told you are using a caption phone and then it works fine as they accept the occasional 5 - 10 second pause. I would think someone with a slower internet connection would have an even longer pause. If as in my case you are trying to listen in to a conversation between two family members, then the captioning gets further and further behind and can be a minute or more behind in even a simple unhurried conversation. The system allows you to save the conversations so you can see what was said but you cannot join in or if you do the others need to realize you are 45 seconds to a minute behind what they were saying. Quite often "(speaker too quiet)", "(Speaker unclear)", or "(Multiple Speakers)" etc. are embedded in the captions when the machine (and the operator) cannot make out what was said. The Captions will put (M) or (F) to show that it is a male or female voice which may be of some use sorting out who said what. If the speakers are the same sex then it can become confusing following other people's conversations, The CapTel phone is explicitly for the deaf, so it is rather strange that the handset is not hearing aid compatible, no magnetic loop capability instead it has volume control that can make the handset volume louder. However, a digital hearing aid when it senses a loud sound reduces its gain - so raising the handset volume does NOT work at all with a modern digital hearing aid. We are in a world where MicroSoft demonstrated an executive giving a speech in English to a Chinese audience which was real time translated and turned into his voice speaking Chinese with all the grammatical complexities that has - yet phones are not available that can translate voice to text in the same language in real time. The CapTel 840i works as advertised. It can be useful one to one for a slow conversation but is little support if it is used to take part in rather than just listen to conversation between two (or more) other people on the line. Finally, as it is federally supported under a program for the deaf, this phone cannot be passed on or sold on. I presume that when I have finished with this I have to return it to CapTel.