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Readout’s screen can caption calls on your home phone line, answered on your own phone as always. What’s said shows big on the TV as you talk, from the first hello, and the TV goes back to what it showed once you hang up.

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What you need

  • A phone-line splitter, between a wall jack and a phone
  • A ground loop isolator, to keep out hum
  • A USB sound card on the Raspberry Pi
Plug the splitter’s audio cable through the isolator into the sound card. Then in the app’s remote, open the TV’s Settings → Phone line and choose that sound card.

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When a call comes

At the first ring the TV shows Phone ringing, with who’s calling once caller ID says, and the lights can flash. Pick up and the same screen shows the call’s captions. When you pick up to make a call, it shows On the phone as soon as you hear the dial tone. A Pi without a TV of its own can show its calls on a Chromecast: choose it under Settings → Calls show on.

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Clearer calls through a cordless phone’s base

If your cordless phone’s base takes a Bluetooth headset (Panasonic’s Link2Cell phones do), the Pi can pair with it as one, and hear calls straight from the base. In the remote’s Settings, press Pair under Phone’s base, then pair a headset from the base’s menu: it finds “Readout”. Keep the splitter plugged in, as it’s how the Pi knows a call has started.