I’m not deaf or hard of hearing, but I might as well be when I’ve got my headphones on and I’m listening to music or watching video. I’m looking for some software for Win11 or android that can listen for certain noises and throw a popup on my windows screen or buzz my phone to alert me about just those specific sounds.
I do own headphones with sound pass-through options and if I’m listening to a podcast or a talking heads video, that’s fine, but that’s unacceptable when I want to enjoy the sound of what I’m watching or listening to.
Ideally, it can be trained on hearing the sound of my name called, and the sound of a dog scratching at a door, but perhaps the noise level going over a certain volume might be good enough.
If you’ve got a Pixel (and maybe other brands), it’s a built-in function, if not there is a link to a Google app at the Play Store in the support document.
That app looked promising but apparently it’s not compatible with my phone, a Samsung Galaxy Note 9. Not the most recent model, but not exactly an ancient thing by any measure. Grrr.
One selling point Google uses to sell Pixel phones is their ability to do things with audio (like voice transcription). Maybe they are gatekeeping those features away from other phones to sell Pixels or, maybe (I do not know), the AI Tensor chip on Pixels can do things other phones cannot.
But yeah…their audio AI magic seems mostly locked into the Pixel. (I may be wrong, I have not checked all Android phones for this feature.)
FTR: I have a Pixel 8 Pro but I am not a fanboy and I have no financial interest in Google (employed or invested in).