Readout Open captions

What works with Readout

Readout shows live captions of a conversation on a phone, tablet or computer, in its web browser, with nothing to install, and on the TV in the room. It can also switch the TV to captions by itself, add a camera and microphone to any TV, and flash the lights when someone needs your attention. Here’s what each of those works with.

Tested marks a brand or kind with models that have run with Readout in someone’s home, listed on its card. The others work the same way, but haven’t been tried yet.

TVs

Any TV with a web browser shows captions by itself: open readout.tv/tv on it, and pair it once, with the code it shows or its QR code. That works in LG’s browsers back to 2016 and Samsung’s back to 2017.

With the home agent on a computer at home that stays on (a Mac, a Windows or Linux computer, or a Raspberry Pi), the app also switches the TV to captions itself, whenever captioning starts if you like, and works as its remote.

LG

  • Shows captions in its own web browser, or switches to the input they’re on
  • The app is its remote, with its apps, typing, pointer and brightness
  • Turns its picture off while its sound plays on, and chooses where its sound goes
  • Pops messages up over what’s on, and captions in pop-ups

Samsung

  • Shows captions in its own web browser, or switches to the input they’re on
  • The app is its remote, opens its apps and switches its inputs

Panasonic

  • Shows captions in its own web browser, or switches to the input they’re on
  • The app is its remote

Sony

  • Casts captions to its built-in Chromecast, or switches to the input they’re on
  • The app is its remote

Philips

  • Casts captions to its built-in Chromecast, or switches to the input they’re on
  • The app is its remote

Vizio

  • Casts captions to its built-in Chromecast, or switches to the input they’re on
  • The app is its remote, and switches its inputs

Google TV and Android TV

  • Casts captions to its built-in Chromecast, or switches to the input they’re on: TCL, Hisense, Sharp, Xiaomi, Toshiba and others
  • The app is its remote, opens the best-known apps and types into the box chosen on the TV

Hisense

  • Switches to the input captions are on
  • The app is its remote

Roku TVs

  • Switches to the input captions are on
  • The app is its remote, opens its apps, types and searches them, and plays a link or a radio station
  • Tunes its own channels, says what’s playing, and makes its remote beep to be found

Fire TV

  • Shows captions in its web browser, on a Fire TV stick or cube, or a TV with Fire TV built in: Insignia, Toshiba, Pioneer, Hisense and others
  • A TV with Fire TV built in also switches to its HDMI inputs
  • The app is its remote, opens its apps and types

Chromecast

  • Casts captions to it
  • The app is its remote, for Home, volume and playback, says what’s playing, and plays a YouTube link or a radio station, captioned

Apple TV

  • No captions: it has no web browser, and nothing casts a page to it
  • The app is its remote, opens its apps, and turns it on and off, paired once with the PIN it shows

Google Home and Nest speakers

  • No screen, so no captions
  • The app sets its volume, plays, pauses and stops, and plays a link to a song or a radio station, on one speaker or a group
  • The TV schedule plays a radio station on it at a time

A TV with no network

  • An older TV, or one never put on the Wi-Fi: Readout’s screen on one of its HDMI inputs shows captions (see below)
  • Through an infrared blaster in front of it, the app is its remote and the schedule turns it on and changes its channel: a Broadlink RM mini 3, RM4 mini or RM4 pro, or a SwitchBot hub

Cable and satellite boxes

  • Its buttons join the TV’s remote, with a list of its channels and what’s on them
  • An Xfinity box, a DIRECTV Genie or receiver, or a DISH Hopper or Joey (through Readout’s screen, over HDMI-CEC)

Soundbars and receivers

With the TV’s sound going through one, the TV’s own volume does nothing: the app sets the soundbar’s instead, as the TV’s remote and the schedule do.

Sonos

  • Volume and mute; on a soundbar (a Beam, Arc or Ray), its TV input, speech enhancement and night mode

Denon and Marantz

  • Receivers: power, volume, mute and input

Yamaha MusicCast

  • Power, volume, mute and input, and Clear Voice on a soundbar that has it

Bose SoundTouch

  • Power, volume, mute and input

Readout’s screen

A Raspberry Pi on one of the TV’s HDMI inputs shows captions and the TV schedule itself, and switches the TV to them over HDMI-CEC, whatever its brand. One command sets it up. What you plug into it does more.

Raspberry Pi 4

  • Runs the home agent, and shows Readout full screen
  • The one Readout’s screen runs on now

The TV’s own remote

  • OK starts captions of the room, answers calls and confirms reminders
  • Reaches the Pi over HDMI-CEC, which most TVs have, by one name or another: SimpLink, Anynet+, Bravia Sync

Webcams

  • The family drops in on the room from the app, or video calls the TV
  • A USB webcam, plugged into the Pi

Microphones

  • The screen captions the room by itself, with no phone, and hears calls
  • Listens for the doorbell, knocking, a smoke alarm, a phone, a baby or a dog, without what it hears leaving the Pi

Speakerphones

  • A microphone and speaker in one, for calls and captions of the room
  • One whose mute button reaches the Pi starts captions with it

Speakers

  • Plays calls in place of the TV’s own speakers, chosen in the app’s remote

Presentation clickers

  • Its big button starts captions of the room
  • Such as Logitech’s R500s, its receiver plugged into the Pi

The house phone

  • A USB telephone recorder on the landline, between the wall and a phone, captions its calls on the screen
  • Calls are answered on the phone, as ever

Lights and plugs

The home agent switches and dims the lights, plugs and wall switches at home, and flashes them when the doorbell rings, a smoke alarm goes off, someone taps the bell, a call comes or a reminder comes up, in every room. Each is reached on the home network, with no cloud.

Philips Hue

  • Through its Bridge, once its button is pressed

IKEA

  • Through its DIRIGERA hub, once its button is pressed

Nanoleaf

  • Its panels, once their power button is held

LIFX

  • Found on the home network as they are

WiZ

  • Found on the home network as they are

Shelly

  • Found on the home network as they are

TP-Link Kasa

  • Found on the home network, and a new plug is put on the Wi-Fi from the app

Belkin Wemo

  • Found on the home network, and a new plug is put on the Wi-Fi from the app

Govee

  • Found on the home network as they are

Yeelight

  • Found on the home network as they are

WLED

  • Found on the home network as they are

Elgato

  • Found on the home network as they are

Meross

  • Its plugs, with the Meross account’s key where they need one

Matter

  • Any Matter light or plug, once its pairing code is typed into the app

Home Assistant

  • Whatever lights and switches a household’s Home Assistant has, once its address and a token are typed into the app

Sensors

A presence sensor shows in the app whether someone’s in the room, and tells the family’s phones of a fall, of a room that’s seen nobody for hours, or that someone’s up in the morning. One can wake the camera on Readout’s screen to follow whoever comes in, and turn on a night light, dim, as someone comes in at night.

Through Home Assistant

  • Its presence sensors and any that say a fall, such as an Aqara FP2’s zones

Over Matter

  • Presence sensors, such as Meross’s MS600 and MS605

Over Zigbee

  • Through a coordinator on the network: presence, a door, water, vibration, and a button whose press asks the family for help