How to tell which side a voice is coming from at a busy table

Telling which side a voice comes from is one of the first things that gets harder with hearing loss, and a busy table makes it worse. The practical fix has three parts: sit where you can see faces, ask people to take turns, and add captions that show where each voice is. This guide covers the research behind the problem, the seating habits that help in a restaurant, a family dinner or a team meeting, and how Captio AI, a live captioning app for deaf and hard of hearing people, shows the side of a voice on iPhone.

Why is it hard to locate a voice with hearing loss?

Listeners with hearing loss locate sounds less accurately than listeners with normal hearing, and a crowded room widens the gap. In a 2020 study in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 8 listeners with normal hearing and 15 with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss tried to find a target talker in a simulated reverberant room¹. The listeners with hearing loss "were less accurate at locating the target", with more front-back confusions and larger errors, and accuracy among several talkers was lower than in quiet¹.

One-sided hearing loss has its own problem. A 2017 paper in Ear and Hearing says that, at a minimum, unilateral hearing loss impairs sound localization, and that the extent of the difficulty has not been fully appreciated by others². The same study found that people with unilateral loss localized better for sounds on their hearing side than on the other side².

These are small laboratory studies, and results vary from person to person. They explain a common experience: at a table, you hear that someone spoke but not where to look.

What helps at a restaurant table or a family dinner?

At a restaurant table or a family dinner, three habits help most: seeing faces, taking turns and picking a quieter place. Alberta Health's pages for people who find it hard to communicate say everyone has trouble hearing in groups, especially when more than 1 person talks at the same time, and that it takes more effort to listen in groups³.

• Sit across from people. For restaurants, Alberta Health advises sitting across from your guests instead of beside them³.
• Ask for one voice at a time. The same page suggests asking that only 1 person talks at a time³.
• Avoid the noisy corner. Alberta Health says to try not to sit close to noisy areas like the kitchen, lounge or front door, and to go to restaurants when they are less busy³.

These habits work with or without an app. For the social side of long dinners, see What is dinner table syndrome?.

How does Captio AI show which side a voice comes from?

Captio AI shows small waves at the edge of the captions screen, on the side the current voice comes from, in the colour of that speaker's tag. The feature is called Speaker direction. You lay your iPhone flat on the table, start Live Captions, and a wave grows on the left or right edge while a person is talking⁶. The colour tells you who, and the side tells you where.

What to know before relying on it:

• Phone: it works on iPhone 16 and later, running iOS 26 or later. Apple's iPhone 16 specifications list Spatial Audio recording among the phone's features⁴, and Captio AI's 1.1.4 release notes say "on iPhone 16 and later, waves at the edge of the captions show where the voice is coming from"⁵.
• Not on iPad or Android. On other devices the setting does not appear and captions work as usual.
• Flat on the table. It works best with the phone lying flat.
• Only while words are being written. Room noise alone, such as plates or a coffee machine, does not show waves.
• Battery. It uses a little more battery than captions alone.
• On by default. You can turn it off from the notice in the captions, or in Settings under Captions, Speaker direction.

Speaker direction answers "where", and saved voices answer "who". To get names on the tags as well, read How to see who is talking in live captions.

Which situations is it useful in?

Speaker direction is most useful where several people sit around one phone. The table below names the use case and what the waves change. Each use case has its own page on the site.

Speaker direction is not a replacement for a booked captioner when you are entitled to one, as in a class or a conference. See What is CART captioning?. Live captions also need an internet connection.

What does Speaker direction not do?

Speaker direction does not tell you the exact position of a voice, and it does not work on every phone. It shows the side a voice comes from, not a map of the room. It needs an iPhone 16 or later with the phone's own microphones, and it is not on iPad or Android. The 1.1.4 release notes describe it as waves at the edge of the captions⁵; nothing more is promised.

If your phone is older, the habits in the section on seating still apply, and Captio AI's captions still separate speakers as Speaker 1, Speaker 2 and so on.

How do I set it up in 3 steps?

1. Update Captio AI to the latest version from the App Store, on an iPhone 16 or later⁵, with iOS 26 or later.
2. Lay the phone flat in the middle of the table and start Live Captions.
3. Watch the edge of the screen. When someone talks, a wave appears on their side while new words are written.

If you want to switch it off, open Settings, go to Captions and turn off Speaker direction. The first sessions also show a short notice with a Turn off button.