Earphones for a translated service: what to hand out, what to skip

Bring earphones to hand out. That one line answers most of the question, and it took us a few Sundays to learn it.

Why phones and not a headset system

A translated service used to mean an interpreter's booth and a box of radio headsets: one receiver per listener, batteries to charge, a volunteer to collect them at the door. It works, and it is the right choice for a church that already owns the kit.

For everyone else, the listener's own phone is the receiver. A QR code on the screen or on a card in the pew opens a page, the listener picks a language, and the sermon arrives as a natural voice that keeps the preacher's tone and rhythm, under a second behind the speaker. Nothing to install, nothing to return.

What people forget to bring

The phone is there. The earphones often are not. Half the congregation has a pair in a pocket; the other half will hold the phone to one ear or, worse, play the translation out loud. So:

• Keep a bag of plain wired earphones at the welcome desk. The cheapest ones are fine; they are used for one hour.
• Put one sentence on the QR card: "Bring earphones, or ask at the desk."
• The person at the desk should know the two things listeners ask: "which language" and "why is it not starting" (nearly always: the phone is on silent, or the page was opened in the wrong browser).

Wired or Bluetooth

Bluetooth earbuds work. They add a fraction of a second, which nobody notices, and they drain faster than a wired pair, which someone notices at minute fifty. A church that hands out earphones hands out wired ones, because they cannot be paired to the wrong phone and cannot be lost in the same way.

The sound desk side

The translation is only as good as the microphone feed it hears. Take a direct line from the desk, not a phone lying on the pulpit: one aux cable and one USB interface is the whole setup, and it should be tested once before the first service, not at 9:55.

One thing to decide before Sunday

Decide who says the first sentence. "There is a translation into Farsi and English today, scan the code on the screen, bring earphones." Said once from the front, it reaches everyone; printed on a card alone, it reaches the people who read cards.