Assistive Listening Systems are used to help hearing-impaired attendees be more able to hear presentations, panels, speeches, etc., especially in noisy environments (like Court, for example). The SCA ALS can be used by any attendees of an event to improve their ability to hear under less than ideal circumstances, such as from the back row of the crowd or outside the room entirely.
Unlike more common Assistive Listening Systems, this system is built to stream audio via your phone and the earbuds or hearing aids you already have. Under ideal conditions, this can reach up to nearly three hundred feet from the SCA ALS wireless access point.
Caution: There are no controls inherent in this system that will correct for the potential of an extremely wide range of sound volume. That is, the difference between listening to a quiet conversation and a raucous cheering crowd may be painful to the user. If your mobile device and listening devices (hearing aids, ear buds, etc.) have the ability to offer some protection against very loud sounds, you will likely want to turn that on. If you can, create a use profile that will allow you to easily recover these settings in the future.
Before you can use this system, you will need to install the ListenWIFI app from your app store. If you are reading this guide on your mobile device, you can install the app by going to the Apple Store or to the Google Play store. You can also go to your app store and search for “ListenWIFI”; the correct app has a light blue logo of a pair of headphones. The following QR codes will take you directly to the app, for Android devices on the left and Apple devices on the right:
Android ListenWIFI app
iOS ListenWIFI app
SCA ALS is built using a completely self-contained wireless network, so we are never reliant on an event site to have wifi. As a result, you won't be able to complete the setup until you arrive onsite (or at the location of the Court or ceremony). Fortunately, once you have done this your device should remember it forever, and you won’t need to do it again. The easiest way to complete your setup is:
Go to the location where Court or the ceremony is being held - you'll need to be within 300 feet to join the SCAALS network (possibly closer, depending on the building).
Find one of the SCA ALS business cards and scan the QR code on the front.
Agree that you want to join the SCAALS wireless network and you should be all set.
WIFI: SCAALS
Password: YouShallNotPass
Once you have the ListenWIFI app installed and are connected to the SCAALS wireless network, open the app. It should immediately come up to a screen with a stream listed to select, marked with a Sparky logo. Select it and listen.
If upon starting the ListenWIFI app you are presented with a large button to “Rescan Venue”, select it. It should immediately take you to the list of (one) stream to choose from, but if it counts down from 30 all the way to 0 and fails, find a member of the Consort's Guard and tell them that the ALS appears to be down.
As with Zoom, YouTube, and Google Meet, SCA ALS supports automatic closed captioning. (And, as with those applications, its interpretation of many SCA names and terms will be wildly off-base.) To use the captioning, your device must meet certain specifications:
Android: Android 10 or later
iPhone: iPhone 11 or later, running iOS 16 or later
If your device is running Android 11 or later, you can turn on the Google native Live Caption function for this purpose. To do so:
Tap the volume up or volume down button on your phone, to show the volume slider.
Press the Live Caption button (usually underneath the volume slider) to turn on Live Caption.
For Android devices that don't have this shortcut, you can go to Settings -> Accessibility. Different devices will have the Live Caption function under different headings; it may be under "Captions", "On-Screen Text", or "Hearing Enhancements".
Live Captioning for installed iOS apps is set via the Settings menu, and may only be available in English.
Go to Settings > Accessibility > Live Captions (Beta).
Turn on Live Captions, then tap Appearance to customize the text, size, and color of the captions.