What is OpenEar?

OpenEar is a free, open-source system that provides real-time AI-powered captioning for church services — with real-time translation into any language on the roadmap.

A small computer taps audio directly from your soundboard and uses OpenAI's Whisper speech recognition model to transcribe sermons in real time. Captions stream to any phone, tablet, or display on your local Wi-Fi. No app to install. No account to create. Just open a browser.

Everything runs locally. No audio leaves your building. No internet connection is required during services.

Why it's different

• No subscription, no per-minute charges. Free and open source, forever.
• No cloud dependency. Commercial solutions like CaptionKit, Wordly, and Sunflower AI route your audio through third-party servers. OpenEar doesn't.
• No internet required. OpenEar runs on a local network only — no internet connection needed. Don't have Wi-Fi? A simple $30 router is all it takes.
• Clean audio from the source. Taps your soundboard directly — not ambient room noise through a phone mic.
• Personal, not projected. Captions appear on individual devices. Those who need them get them, without a distracting overlay for everyone else.
• One-time hardware cost — if needed. Runs on a ~$600 Mac Mini or any PC with an NVIDIA GPU.

Roadmap

The story

OpenEar was built by a pastor who spent a decade as a software engineer before entering ministry. He wanted every member of his congregation to feel fully included — regardless of language, hearing ability, or what resources they could afford.

Every congregation deserves accessibility — not just the ones that can afford it.