Kannada live captions and productivity tool for communicating with deaf & hoh
For deaf and hard of hearing people.
coming soon
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Everything you need to follow Kannada communicating with deaf & hoh
Four tools built for deaf and hard of hearing Kannada speakers.
You speak. They read.
- Your words appear on their screen word by word
- No sign language required from you
- Works at home, at work, anywhere
- Any accent, any pace
When language is also a barrier
- You speak your language, they read in theirs
- Translates in real time as you speak
- 60+ languages, no setup
- Handles mid-sentence switches
Save the conversation for them
- Record and transcribe any exchange
- They can review everything at their own pace
- Organised by speaker
- Any length, any format
Make sure nothing important was missed
- Key points extracted from any transcript
- Useful after appointments, meetings, or important conversations
- Organised into clear sections
- Works on any saved recording
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreEvery situation covered
Designed for the real moments that matter — not just quiet controlled environments.
Kannada family meals — in Bengaluru, Mysuru, Hubballi, or a family home abroad — move at a warm, fast pace, with hearing family members speaking naturally in regional Kannada at full conversational speed. Captio AI captions what they say so a deaf or hard of hearing family member follows without asking anyone to repeat.
Bengaluru workplaces mix Kannada and English constantly for everyday exchanges. A hearing colleague speaks in whichever blend fits the moment — informal Kannada, English, or a fast mix. Captio AI captions everything so a deaf or hard of hearing colleague follows desk conversations, instructions, and team discussions.
When your partner is deaf or hard of hearing and Kannada is the language you speak at home. You talk naturally — the casual Kannada of daily life. Captio AI puts every word on their screen as you say it so nothing is lost between you.
Daily home life in a Kannada household — calling from another room, talking during the evening serial, quick exchanges before leaving the house. Captio AI covers the continuous thread of home conversation that a deaf or hard of hearing family member might otherwise piece together from guesses.
When a deaf or hard of hearing person meets a new hearing Kannada speaker — at a family gathering, a community event, or a Ugadi celebration. Set up Captio AI and the conversation begins naturally, without anyone needing to adjust how they speak.
Group settings — a Dasara family gathering, a large multi-generation meal, or a community event — where some people are deaf or hard of hearing and some are not. Captio AI captions whoever is speaking so every person at the table is fully part of the conversation.
Most accurate and fastest models
word accuracy
independent benchmark, 2025
real-time captions
first word appears as you speak
Download for free
Download on theApp Store
You talk. They follow. No adjustment needed.
You speak naturally
No slowing down, no special phrasing, no training required. Captio AI handles everything — you just talk the way you always do.
They read as you speak
Your words appear on their screen word by word while you are still talking. Not a summary after — the full sentence, in real time.
Works wherever you both are
Living rooms, offices, restaurants, social gatherings. No venue setup, no special conditions. Captio AI works anywhere you have a conversation.
No sign language from either side
You do not need to learn anything new. Neither do they. Captio AI bridges the gap without requiring any change to how either of you communicates.
Works with how you actually speak
Fast, accented, casual. Captio AI handles real speech — not just slow, clear dictation. You do not need to perform clarity for it to work.
Private by default
Your conversations are never recorded, stored, or shared. Audio is processed in real time and discarded immediately — nothing is kept.
Why Kannada is hard to understand
Dravidian retroflex contrast
- Kannada's retroflex and dental consonants are invisible at the lips
- Kannada distinguishes dental /t/, /d/, /n/, /l/ from their retroflex counterparts /ʈ/, /ɖ/, /ɳ/, /ɭ/ — all produced with the tongue curled back behind the dental ridge, invisible behind the lips. These distinctions occur throughout everyday Kannada vocabulary and are entirely inaccessible to a deaf lip-reader who can only observe the outer mouth.
Northern Kannada phonological divergence
- Northern Kannada preserves older sounds that differ from Bangalore standard
- Northern Kannada dialects (Dharwad, Hubballi) preserve older phonological features not found in Southern varieties (Bangalore, Mysore). A deaf person who lip-reads standard Bangalore Kannada finds that a hearing family member from North Karnataka produces some phonemes at different articulatory positions — the same words produce different mouth shapes.
Coastal Tulu-Konkani influence
- Coastal Karnataka Kannada carries sounds from Tulu and Konkani contact
- Coastal Karnataka dialects — Mangalore, Udupi — have absorbed phonological features from Tulu and Konkani through centuries of close contact. Hearing family members from the coast use some phonological patterns that are unfamiliar to a deaf lip-reader trained on the Bangalore or Mysore variety, even when the words are recognisably Kannada.
Bengaluru Kannada–English switching
- Bengaluru's tech culture creates pervasive Kannada–English code-switching
- Bengaluru is a global tech hub where English and Kannada are used interchangeably in everyday speech. Urban Kannada speakers switch between languages within sentences and paragraphs without any signal. For a deaf lip-reader tracking Kannada, English phonological material appears mid-sentence as a completely different visual pattern, collapsing disambiguation.
Fast casual syllable drop
- Casual Kannada contracts the syllables that give lip-readers their footholds
- Conversational Kannada at home pace sheds syllables from long verb forms and common phrases. The gap between formal Kannada and the fast, informal variety that hearing families use at home is significant. The casual variety produces mouth shapes that don't match the full forms a deaf person may have learned from written or formal resources.
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreHearing loss in Karnataka: the second most common disability in a high-prevalence state
Karnataka consistently ranks among Indian states with the highest disability prevalence rates in NFHS-5 data (PMC10874552). Nationally, approximately 63 million people in India suffer from significant auditory impairment — 6.3% of the population (WHO). Hearing disability is the second most common form of disability and the leading cause of sensory deficit in India. Community-based studies report disabling hearing loss prevalence between 4.5% and 18.3% across age groups, with rural areas and the elderly carrying a disproportionate share. Karnataka's diverse geography — from urban Bengaluru to rural Uttara Kannada and coastal Dakshina Kannada — creates a wide range of healthcare access across the state.
Indian Sign Language (ISL) has institutions in Karnataka — NIMHANS in Bengaluru has specialist services, and there are deaf schools in Bengaluru, Mysuru, and Hubballi. But ISL reach into Karnataka's rural districts and coastal communities remains very thin. For the large majority of deaf and hard of hearing Kannada speakers — in small towns across the Deccan Plateau, in coastal villages, or in the tech suburbs of Bengaluru — communication with hearing family members depends on informal strategies rather than any structural support.
Bengaluru's large Kannada-speaking population includes many people who are deaf or hard of hearing and working in the tech sector — one of the most communication-intensive professional environments in India. This creates a demand for real-time captioning of fast, informal, code-switched Kannada-English speech that no existing mainstream tool has been designed to meet. Captio AI captions natural Kannada speech in real time, at a family Dasara celebration in Mysuru or a tech team's quick chat in Bengaluru, so a deaf family member or colleague reads exactly what is being said.
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreWhat you hear stays with you.
Gone the moment it ends
Captio AI processes your audio in real time and discards it immediately. Nothing is recorded. Nothing is kept.
Not a product
Your conversations are not something Captio AI sells, shares, or monetizes — to anyone, for any reason.
Not used to train anything
What you say in a doctor's appointment or a job interview never ends up in a training dataset. Not ours. Not anyone else's.
Private by default
Download on theApp StoreCaptio AI supports 60+ languages
People love Captio AI
"Bangalore Kannada at home pace is fast and colloquial — very different from written Kannada. Captio AI reads what my husband says at his natural speed. I follow our conversations without needing him to face me or slow down."
"Dharwad Kannada has different sounds from Bangalore standard. My family's speech was hard to lip-read consistently. Captio AI reads their dialect correctly and I follow the family table without asking anyone to repeat."
"Tech office in Bengaluru is Kannada and English in the same sentence constantly. Captio AI handles the mixing and I follow what my colleagues say without asking for written summaries afterwards."
"My grandchildren speak fast and drop syllables all the time. I was catching maybe half. Captio AI reads their speech in real time and I understand them without asking them to slow down or repeat for me."
"Bangalore Kannada at home pace is fast and colloquial — very different from written Kannada. Captio AI reads what my husband says at his natural speed. I follow our conversations without needing him to face me or slow down."
"Dharwad Kannada has different sounds from Bangalore standard. My family's speech was hard to lip-read consistently. Captio AI reads their dialect correctly and I follow the family table without asking anyone to repeat."
"Tech office in Bengaluru is Kannada and English in the same sentence constantly. Captio AI handles the mixing and I follow what my colleagues say without asking for written summaries afterwards."
"My grandchildren speak fast and drop syllables all the time. I was catching maybe half. Captio AI reads their speech in real time and I understand them without asking them to slow down or repeat for me."
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreFrequently asked questions
Make every conversation work — for both sides in Kannada.
Captio AI is free to start
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store