Tech Forum

Hello LDS Tech Team,

a couple of days ago I had an idea to a problem that I was trying to solve for a long time. I will describe the problem first follew by my idea and the advantages

The problem:
We are a fairly international ward and therefore have the need of a translation on Sundays or other occasions like Institut. We had one of the translation suitcases with microphone and ear pieces but that is now highjacked from the Stake.

The idea:
My idea is it use an app to broadcast the translation made by an human via WiFi to all the users of the app.

The advantages:
1) The biggest advantage is that the costs for the very expensive translation equipment are gone. The members will use their own smartphones.
2) The infrastructure for the translation is all ready in the place with the churches WiFi or a self created hotspot.
3) The batteries of the receivers would not need to be recharged or reequipped with batteries.

Note:
A Bluetooth network would not be sufficient as it allows only up to seven devices being connected to a master device.

What is your opinion on such an app?

I am not sure if a standalone app would be the best solution or if it can or should be integrated in one of the existing apps.

Greetings Mathias

Thanks for sharing a good idea!

As of now I try to solve the issue in my ward via setting up a Raspberry Pi as a voice streaming server. The Pi arrived last week and I am checking my possibilities

I hope this works out! Please keep us informed.

One thing to watch out for is that everyone who needs the translation has access to a device to receive it. In an age when most people have smartphones, it's important to remember that some people don't.

mathias.kuchar wrote:The problem:
We are a fairly international ward and therefore have the need of a translation on Sundays or other occasions like Institut. We had one of the translation suitcases with microphone and ear pieces but that is now highjacked from the Stake.

You might want to ask the FM Group for another one.

I downloaded an app that seems ideal for this.

It is called Be On Air. The basic version which can broadcast and listen is $0.99. There are in app purchases up to $4.99 that add functionality primarily to the broadcaster. I believe that there is an Android version.

I would love to see the church acquire this app. Our stake has four English units and three Spanish units. The stake president does not speak Spanish. We do not have enough receiving devices for non-spanish speaking or non-English speaking high councilors to speak without side by side interpreters (which is horribly slow).

We can arrange for enough devices to translate stake conference for Spanish speakers but if a Spanish speaker is to speak he would need side by side translation.

We probably could not count on enough smart devices to avoid using the normal receivers but it would certainly help to augment our capabilities if we could rely on the smart devices that are available.

In City Church, Klaipeda, Lithuania we are using this solution www.interactio.io for streaming english and russian translation.

It help us to expand our current hardware as more and more people are having smartphones these days and it is far more convenient for them to not having additional device.

We are also using sound jack splitter (http://www.amazon.com/Generic-23-3-5mm- ... B001E3ZM8M) so two people can listen to translation from one device.