Estonian live captions and productivity tool for phone & video calls
For deaf and hard of hearing people.
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store
Everything you need to follow Estonian phone & video calls
Four tools built for deaf and hard of hearing Estonian speakers.
Follow the call in real time
- Captions appear word by word as the other person speaks
- Works on any call — no app integration required
- Put the call on speaker and point the microphone toward it
- Handles compressed call audio accurately
International and foreign-language calls
- They speak their language — you read in yours
- Translates in real time as they speak
- 60+ languages, no setup
- For family abroad, international business, or travel
Transcribe any call recording
- Record the call and upload for a complete written transcript
- Review instructions, information, and decisions after
- Organised by speaker
- Works on any call recording
Key information extracted from any call
- Important points pulled from any call transcript
- Useful for medical calls, customer service, and work calls
- 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.
A call home to family in Tallinn, Tartu, or Pärnu — catching up in Estonian at the pace of a family phone call.
A work call with Estonian colleagues or clients — professional Estonian with its standard register and the regional accent of the speaker.
A callback from a perearstikeskus (GP centre) in Tallinn or an apteek (pharmacy) — healthcare calls where every detail about medication or a referral must be understood.
A call from Eesti Energia, a bank, or the Tax and Customs Board — automated Estonian menus followed by an agent at full speed.
A call from Estonian diaspora in Finland, Sweden, or Germany, mixing Estonian with Finnish, Swedish, or German mid-conversation.
A WhatsApp or FaceTime video call with family in Estonia — the standard platform for Estonians in Finland and across Europe staying connected with Tallinn.
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
Built for the calls you have been avoiding
Captions as they speak
Words appear on screen word by word while the other person is still talking. You read what they say at the same pace everyone else hears it — no delay, no reconstruction.
Works on any call app
Captio AI does not need to integrate with any platform. Put the call on speaker, point the microphone toward the audio, and read the captions. It works the same way for any app on any device.
No more asking for repeats
Every word is on screen as it is said. If you missed something, glance at the caption rather than interrupting the call — the full sentence is there.
Handles call audio accurately
Compressed phone audio is less clean than in-person speech. Captio AI is built for real-world audio conditions, including the reduced quality of standard phone and VoIP calls.
Any language
For calls with family abroad, international colleagues, or foreign-language customer service. Live Translator captions and translates in real time with no manual setup.
Record and review after
Record any call and upload it to Audio Transcription. Get a full written record of everything said — useful for medical instructions, work decisions, and anything worth having in writing.
Why Estonian is hard to understand
Three-way quantity system
- Short, long, and overlong durations distinguish words — invisibly
- Estonian has a three-way phonemic quantity system — short (Q1), long (Q2), and overlong (Q3) — in both vowels and consonants. These three lengths distinguish words that share the same sounds: 'koli', 'kooli', and 'kooli' (with overlong). On the lips, the mouth holds the same position for all three; only the duration differs, making the distinction entirely auditory.
9 vowels and 25 diphthongs
- A large vowel inventory with minimal lip shape variation
- Estonian has 9 monophthongal vowels including front rounded vowels (ü, ö) that are absent from many European languages, plus up to 25 diphthongs in native words. Many vowel contrasts differ in tongue height or rounding with minimal lip shape change, making the inventory one of the hardest in Europe to lip-read.
Quantity gradation
- Stem vowels and consonants alternate length across case forms
- Estonian morphology involves both quantitative and qualitative gradation — the same stem changes its vowel or consonant length depending on the grammatical case. A lip-reader who learns the stem form encounters a different duration pattern in inflected forms of the same word.
South Estonian (Võro/Seto)
- South Estonian dialects are a different language on the phone
- South Estonian dialects (Võro, Seto) are so divergent from Standard Estonian that linguists debate whether they constitute separate languages. A phone call from Võru or a Seto speaker from Setomaa sounds entirely different from standard Tallinn Estonian — a dialect gap that is disorienting even for native hearing Estonians.
Estonian-Russian code-switching
- Russian enters mid-sentence in Tallinn and the northeast
- Approximately 25% of Estonia's population are Russian speakers. In Tallinn and the northeast (Narva, Kohtla-Järve), code-switching between Estonian and Russian is common on phone calls. The phonological shift between the two languages is abrupt and entirely unpredictable.
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreHearing loss in Estonia: recognised rights and a persistent access gap
Estonia has a population of 1.4 million. Applying the Global Burden of Disease 2019 prevalence rates for the European region gives an estimated 280,000 Estonians with some degree of hearing loss. Estonian Sign Language (EVK — Eesti viipekeel) was legally recognised under the Estonian Language Act in 2007 and is protected as a cultural heritage language — placing Estonia among the early European countries to recognise its sign language in law.
Despite this recognition, phone-based accessibility in Estonia lags behind the country's digital reputation. Estonia's e-governance infrastructure (X-Road, digital ID, e-residency) is widely praised, but real-time captioning for phone calls — banking, healthcare, utilities — is not part of the public digital service offer. Deaf and hard of hearing Estonians making phone calls to government services, health centres, or utilities navigate these calls without captioning support. The Epidemiology of Deafness study (PMC6719589) notes that even in countries with formal sign language recognition, the gap between rights on paper and access in practice remains wide for phone communication.
Captio AI captions every Estonian phone call in real time — from a South Estonian dialect call to a Tallinn bank callback in standard Estonian — so deaf and hard of hearing users can follow every word independently.
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
"Estonian vowel length differences are impossible to lip-read and nearly as hard to hear with my aids. Captio AI captions every word in real time and I finally follow phone calls the way I used to."
"My perearstikeskus calls back quickly but speaks fast standard Estonian. Captio AI gives me the transcript as the doctor speaks and I manage my healthcare without needing anyone to interpret."
"I call home to Võru on WhatsApp. My grandmother speaks South Estonian — completely different from standard Estonian. Captio AI captures it accurately and I understand her calls for the first time."
"Calls in Narva mix Estonian and Russian constantly. Captio AI follows both and I can handle calls to the Tax Board and the bank without asking my Russian-speaking neighbour to help."
"Estonian vowel length differences are impossible to lip-read and nearly as hard to hear with my aids. Captio AI captions every word in real time and I finally follow phone calls the way I used to."
"My perearstikeskus calls back quickly but speaks fast standard Estonian. Captio AI gives me the transcript as the doctor speaks and I manage my healthcare without needing anyone to interpret."
"I call home to Võru on WhatsApp. My grandmother speaks South Estonian — completely different from standard Estonian. Captio AI captures it accurately and I understand her calls for the first time."
"Calls in Narva mix Estonian and Russian constantly. Captio AI follows both and I can handle calls to the Tax Board and the bank without asking my Russian-speaking neighbour to help."
Download for free
Download on theApp StoreFrequently asked questions
Follow every call in Estonian.
Captio AI is free to start
coming soon
Download for free
Download on theApp Store