Translator for MEDICA 2026

MEDICA fills its halls with exhibitors and buyers from across the world, and almost none of them share a first language. It runs from 16 to 19 November 2026 at Messe Düsseldorf; Caliptic turns your phone into the interpreter you did not budget for, working on the device without the hall's Wi-Fi.

What the halls look like

MEDICA is laid out by product category across many halls, and buyers arrive with a list rather than a plan to wander. A conversation at a stand tends to be short, specific and technical — certification, volumes, who registers the device in which market — and it is the kind of exchange that fails quietly when neither side is sure what the other agreed to.

How it works at a stand

Press Start and set the phone on the counter of the stand. You ask, they answer, and both languages stay on screen — which matters when the discussion is about certification, shelf life and who carries the registration cost. Nobody passes a phone back and forth, and nobody types.

Use the earbuds you already own

A hall is loud, and in a loud room the microphone decides everything: a translation can only be as good as the speech the microphone actually picked up. This is the part people get wrong when they buy a dedicated translator gadget — they are paying for a second small microphone to carry around. The noise-cancelling earbuds already in your pocket contain a microphone array designed to pull one voice out of a crowd, which is precisely the problem an exhibition hall poses. Caliptic uses whatever headset you pair, so the quality of your own earbuds becomes the quality of the translation.

Nobody has to wear your earbud

At a fair you talk to dozens of people a day, and handing your earbud to each of them is not something either side wants. You do not have to. Keep your earbuds in; for the other person, simply hold the phone towards them — the translation is spoken out loud and that is enough at the distance you are already standing. If you sit down for a longer negotiation and both prefer to listen privately, Couple Mode splits one pair of earbuds so each of you hears only your own language, one ear each.

Works without the hall's Wi-Fi

Speech recognition, translation and the spoken voice all run on the phone. Fair Wi-Fi is shared with thousands of people and roaming data abroad is not cheap; Caliptic needs neither. Download the languages you need before you travel and it keeps working in the hall, in the taxi and over dinner afterwards. Nothing you say is uploaded, which also matters when the conversation is about prices and quantities.

German, and twenty-one other languages

German is the language of the host country and of a large share of the exhibitors at MEDICA; beyond it the halls run on Arabic, Chinese, Spanish and Turkish more than on English. The full list: Turkish, English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian. You pick your language and the one the person across the table speaks; the interface follows your own, right-to-left included.

Do I need internet at the fair?

No. Download the languages before you travel and everything afterwards happens on the phone. The only thing that needs a connection is that first download.

Does it really work in a loud hall?

It works as well as your microphone does. With a noise-cancelling headset it holds up in a crowded aisle; with the phone lying on a table in the middle of a loud stand it will miss words. Sitting down in the meeting corner is the difference between the two.

Is my conversation sent anywhere?

No. There is no account and no server. The recognition and translation models sit on the phone, so there is nothing to upload and nothing to leak.

Can I rely on it for regulatory or clinical wording?

No, and you should not. It is built for the conversation, not for the paperwork: use it to understand each other at the stand and have anything contractual or clinical translated properly afterwards. Every line stays on screen so you can check what was actually said.

What does it cost after the free month?

The free version keeps working: 12 minutes every 30 minutes. Unlimited costs about one dollar a month, tax included; the App Store and Google Play show the exact figure in your own currency.