Assistive Listening Knowledge Base
  • Venue guidance (operator's page for patrons)
  • Undated (read )

Wi-Fi Based Assistive Listening System

From https://assistivelisteningknowledgebase.org/evidence/chautauqua-2026-wifi-listening/ · record checked 13 October 2026

  • Chautauqua Institution

Independent (Chautauqua Institution, a not-for-profit organisation in Chautauqua, New York, writing about the system in its own halls; the system is Listen Technologies' ListenWIFI)

Summary

A venue's own guide to the Wi-Fi assistive listening system it introduced in 2024 and has extended across its halls, with what patrons need, how to join and what to do about echo and dropouts.

Key findings

  • Says the system was introduced in 2024 after extensive testing, expanded to four venues in 2025 and to three more in 2026, and that user feedback indicates it "works best for patrons with moderate to severe hearing loss".
  • Patrons need an Android or Apple smartphone or tablet that can download apps, and Bluetooth headphones or hearing aids already paired with it, or wired headphones. They join the amphitheatre's guest Wi-Fi or, in other halls, a network named for the hall (for example "Bratton Listen"), then start the app and choose the venue. Allowing the app location access helps it connect to the right server, and staff help patrons set it up before Sunday events.
  • Explains the echo some listeners hear as latency between the loudspeakers and the stream, and suggests wired noise-cancelling headphones, muting hearing aid microphones in the hearing aid's app, and closing other apps.
  • Says buffering can build up so that the echo grows during a lecture, and that pausing and restarting the stream clears it, which may be needed more than once on older phones. Wi-Fi routers can sometimes lag and the signal be lost for a moment or two; live captions are offered as a backup.
  • Does not lend headphones for phones, saying the point of the system is to let patrons use the phones and hearing aids that suit them, and keeps its existing RF system, with free loan receivers, alongside the Wi-Fi system.
  • Tells listeners "A fully charged device would be very helpful", and says muting the hearing aids' microphones "eliminates the echo".
  • The Benefits section says using personal devices avoids collecting a venue receiver. Before Arriving at the Amphitheater asks patrons to install ListenWiFi and test their audio connection with music or video; it recommends location permission to help find the correct server but explicitly calls that permission optional. When You Arrive at the Venue directs listeners to choose the venue in the app and then press play.

Limits

A venue's instructions and summary of user feedback, with no numbers of users, measurements or survey method. The page shows no date; its metadata gives first publication on 18 July 2024 and a last change on 31 July 2026, and the text describes the 2026 season.

Read the original

www.chq.org/visit/explore-the-grounds-and-gardens/accessibility/wi-fi-based-assistive-listening-system

Link checked . We link to the original and do not host copies.

Cited in

Cite this source

Chautauqua Institution. Wi-Fi Based Assistive Listening System. n.d. https://www.chq.org/visit/explore-the-grounds-and-gardens/accessibility/wi-fi-based-assistive-listening-system/ (accessed 13 October 2026).

The original gives no date, so the citation says “n.d.”. The accessed date is when this library last checked the link; use the date you read it. To point readers to this summary instead, link to https://assistivelisteningknowledgebase.org/evidence/chautauqua-2026-wifi-listening/

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