What is BeMyEars?
BeMyEars is a macOS application designed to make audio content accessible through real-time live captions and translations. It captures any audio playing through your Mac's speakers—from video conferencing tools like Zoom and Google Meet to web browsers, online classes, and streaming media—and converts it into subtitles instantly. With support for over 10 languages, including Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Indonesian, BeMyEars helps you understand content in your native language.
The app uses Apple's CoreML and Speech frameworks to process all audio entirely on your device, ensuring privacy as no audio or video data is ever uploaded. Additional features include a recording and export function for transcribing audio to m4a files, and an 'Ears Care' feature that alerts you when audio is too loud. BeMyEars is optimized for macOS 13.0 or later and benefits from the M1 Neural Engine for enhanced performance.
Features
- System-wide Live Captions: Captures audio from any macOS application and displays subtitles in real-time with sub-second delay.
- Real-time Translation: Provides on-device live translation of captions into over 10 languages, including Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Indonesian.
- Recording and Export: Allows users to record and export transcribing voice as m4a audio files for later use.
- Privacy First: All processing happens on-device using Apple's CoreML and Speech frameworks; no audio or video is uploaded.
- Ears Care: Monitors audio volume and alerts users when sound levels are too loud to protect hearing.
Use Cases
- Live captioning and translation of video conferencing calls (Zoom, Skype, Google Meet) for non-native speakers.
- Adding captions to online classes, webinars, and un-downloadable streaming media.
- Assisting individuals with hearing impairments to access audio content in real-time.
- Recording and transcribing audio from meetings or lectures for documentation.
- Monitoring and protecting hearing by alerting when audio is too loud.
FAQs
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What motivates BeMyEars?
The developer created BeMyEars after realizing a hearing-impaired colleague could not access videos without subtitles, aiming to make audio content accessible through real-time captions. -
Why am I seeing 'the language: XXX model is missing'?
BeMyEars uses Apple's CoreML and Speech frameworks, which require downloading the language model if not already installed. This download happens in the background and may take up to 30 minutes depending on your network. Rebooting can help. -
What macOS version do I need?
BeMyEars supports macOS 13.0 (Ventura) or later, with optimization for M1 Neural Engine. For best experience, we recommend BeMyEars 6.0 and macOS 15.0 (Sequoia). -
Is BeMyEars available on other platforms?
Currently, BeMyEars is only available for macOS. No Windows or mobile versions have been announced.
