PhonEtech: Recording Audio and Displaying Accompanying Text

The rise of the Covid-19 disease has brought challenges and opportunities that we have not been faced with before. With the new use of masks in our daily lives, reading lips to communicate with others when the surrounding environment may have increased noise levels, is a simple task that we no longer are able to fully utilize. The elimination of masks, however, does not eliminate the overall issue that trying to communicate in a noisy environment creates. To solve this issue, we have created and implemented an Android based phone application, PhonEtech, intended to facilitate and streamline communication between a variety of users, more specifically, when verbal communication is not ideal. Over the duration of a semester-long time frame, our team has designed, developed and tested this application idea, leading to a usable and functionable application. The finalized result is a phone app that can be developed further to create a more customizable experience with newer features. PhonEtech is not a replacement for verbal communication but instead an aid to a variety of users faced with various communication issues and roadblocks.