Android's Accessibility Settings Give Access to Phones Like Never Before

It’s been a long half-century since closed captions were created in the 1970s. With the World Health Organization estimating that, by 2050, 2.5 billion people will have some hearing loss, advancements in this area are becoming more important than ever. Google introduced Android Expressive Captions in December 2024, which doesn’t just tell you what’s being said, but how someone says it.

I minimize the number of times per day I look at my phone to prevent triggering a migraine. I’ve found myself drawn to the same features that someone with low vision might also find helpful, from using the built-in screen reader (which reads on-screen text aloud) on bad days, to brightness, contrast, and font and icon size customization on others.

Android has launched a series of updates with new options like the TalkBack screen reader. “This feature describes your actions and tells you about alerts and notifications, allowing you to interact with your device with touch and spoken feedback,” Ghosh says. “For someone who is blind or has low vision, TalkBack screen reader provides spoken feedback, allowing them to navigate their device without seeing the screen. For example, a user can hear, ‘home screen, page 1 of 2’ or ‘incoming call from John,’ and navigate accordingly.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that approximately 7 million people in the U.S. are visually impaired. According to the American Community Survey, 80 percent of peoplee with visual impairments own a smartphone. A variety of interactive controls have been introduced for people with many disabilities, like difficulty seeing one’s surroundings or needing to use touch to navigate through a phone. These include the following, according to Ghosh.

Voice Access: This control lets you control your device with your voice, using it to open apps, navigate, and compose texts. “With Voice Access, users don’t need to use their hands to navigate through their phone—they can simply say commands, making it easier for someone with low mobility to use their device.”

To activate Voice Access, go to Settings > Accessibility > Interaction and dexterity > Voice Access and toggle the switch to On.

For Android users, utilizing Sound Amplifier and hearing aid support can offer a respite from the constant requirement of turning up the volume.

“Sound Amplifiers let you filter, augment, and amplify the sounds in your environment or on your Android device via wired or Bluetooth headphones,” says Ghosh.

Google has also made managing hearing aids easier for users. “We also introduced LE Audio compatibility first on Samsung Galaxy S25 devices earlier this year for easier access to hearing aid management, including hands-free calling, a way to change presets via native settings and lower latency Bluetooth connections,” she says.

Android also offers Live Transcribe and, as an option for users who experience speech impairments, Real Time Text (RTT).

“Live Transcribe allows you to capture speech and sound and see them as text on your screen for a visual aid, and you can use Real Time Text (RTT) to text to communicate during a phone call,” says Ghosh.

To activate Sound Amplifier, download the app from the Play Store.

To activate hearing aid support, go to Settings > Accessibility > Hearing enhancements > Hearing aid support.

To activate Live Transcribe, go to Settings > Accessibility > Hearing enhancements > Live Transcribe.

To activate Real Time Text (RTT), go to Settings > Accessibility > Hearing enhancements > Real Time Text.

One of the most frustrating parts of having a disability or limitation is the lack of control and customization options you encounter in your everyday life. Phones that increase your choices and hand you back the power over your experience are winning in accessibility feature innovation.

Android’s ability to change your display gives users more control back. And though many readability enhancements have been present within the Android ecosystem for years, they remain useful. “You can change your display settings to change the size of items on your screen, zoom or magnify your screen via magnification, and adjust contrast and color options with features like Dark theme,” says Ghosh. “Using display adjustments like Dark theme (or Dark mode on Samsung devices) and high-contrast text can reduce eye strain for users with light sensitivity, especially in darker environments/lighting where brightness may usually be turned higher.”

When I feel a headache coming on, I find it helpful to increase magnification, increase the contrast for text, and alter the brightness setting.

To change your display colors and magnification, go to Settings > Accessibility > Vision enhancements.

To enable Dark mode, go to Settings > Display and select the radio button under Dark.

Ghosh reminds users that while the features listed above are included on most devices, they can be dependent on the version of Android, the device, and even the region you live in, and that some features will need to be enabled in settings before you can use them.

Williams recommends watching video tutorials on specific features to learn how to turn them on and off as needed, and saving those steps or shortcuts for newer features. While making these features work for various disabilities can take some setup and acclimation, he says that the vision to encompass all users is key to evolving and improving accessibility.

“We all have unique journeys, but seek a common goal, effortless experiences,” he says. “Accessibility features will continue to evolve into common experiences, to enhance all experiences.”