Captions for Hearing-Impaired Twitch Viewers
Add live captions to your Twitch stream so hearing-impaired and deaf viewers can follow every word. Real-time, browser-based, OBS-native. No plugin to install.
Why hearing-impaired Twitch viewers need captions
Twitch's built-in "closed captions" feature only works on a small number of partnered channels — and even those are fragile, language-locked, and don't work on Twitch Mobile or via OBS browser source. Hearing-impaired viewers regularly tell us they leave channels in under 30 seconds when there's no caption track.
StreamTranslate adds reliable captions to ANY Twitch stream — partner, affiliate, or brand-new — by rendering them on the OBS canvas itself. The captions are part of the video, not a separate caption track. They show up everywhere viewers watch.
How to add captions to your Twitch stream
- Sign up at /control — first 6 hours free, no credit card needed
- Choose "same-language" mode (your spoken language → captions in the same language)
- Copy the browser source URL we give you
- In OBS, add a Browser Source, paste the URL, set width to 1920 and height to 1080
- Captions appear on your stream in real time as you speak
Most streamers have it working within 60 seconds. Full step-by-step setup guide.
Customization for accessibility
- Font size — slider goes up to 80px for low-vision viewers
- Outline thickness — control text outline so it's readable on any background
- Position — top, bottom, or anywhere in your overlay
- Color — white on black, yellow on black, or match your brand
- Word-by-word streaming — captions appear as you speak, not in big chunks
Latency and accuracy
Captions appear under 2 seconds from when you speak. We use Deepgram nova-3 — the same transcription model used in medical and legal contexts. Accuracy on clear speech is >95%. Background music or multiple speakers can reduce accuracy slightly, same as every caption tool.
For deaf viewers especially, that latency matters: captions that lag 5+ seconds are unusable in real-time chat interaction. Our pipeline is optimized for this specifically.