Third-Party Braille Computers: Their Viability Today

Thank you - I had no idea that was possible. I will have to give it a go. That might help solve my anxiety over upgrading to newer versions of MacOs.

Completely off topic but if you have 512gb like me you can easily just create a secondary internal partition and only use it for beta testing. That's what I've been saying here for about 4-5 months. IF you have less than honestly just buy a small 256gb ssd and do it there.

Oh I never realised you'd done that, even though I probably have read it on here. That's also a good idea, but I'm not sure I am confident enough to go messing with my Mac partition. A flash drive feels much safer to me.

That was using Boot Camp of course, so I could run a partition with Windows 10. 😝

I'm a happy user of the braille sense 6 mini :) I personally love the blindness-specific interface design and that I can do almost everything exclusively in braille. The Sense is miles ahead of the braille note touch as well: I had that device previous and to others' comments in this thread, found it slow, unresponsive and behind. The BS6 has more custom hardware design and I think has the processing power and ram to remain relevant for quite a few years yet. My main use cases for the BS6 mini are: reading ebooks (usually while listening to multimedia at the same time on commutes and such), taking notes while making higher-phi audio recordings incase I miss anything, SSH-ing into remote servers without having to pull out my laptop, controlling my phone, sending emails and such on the fly, etc. I know third party note takers are a splurdge, but I for one find the well designed ones so worth it because as a totally blind person I can use them with far less cognitive load than a windows or mac laptop catering to an interface built for the sighted first.

The Elbraille was actually my first choice before the BS6, but when I found out it was discontinued I decided not to opt for something like the b.book: it seemed to be pretty low spec and didn't use Jaws. I didn't want to learn yet another windows screen reader lol.

It's not a problem.

I think you're right, cane training can be useful. Like you said; it's good to have the skills so that if the tech does fail, you can rely on something else.

Being lazy is ok if you have someone there with you, what happens when they're not there? I guess you could order an uber, it's what i'd do, but they can get quite expencive.

My mobility trainer talked to me about that stuff too, I have a talking microwave from their department.

I have no idea when I got it, I want to say I've had it for about 5 years now but I'm not sure.

As for the mobility trainers, there really does need to be more of them than there is at the moment.

That Braille Sense 6 Mini sounds sweet. Oh, and @Brad, talking microwaves sound cool, but I would be content just to have a tactile microwave.
More affordable I would think...

I got it for free but yes, i'd not actuallly buy it and would buy a cheepish one.

Those talking microwaves are something like $400. But hey, never say no to free tech! 😃

I recently got a microwave that works with Alexa, and while I did initially require sighted assistance to scan the setup code, I find I much prefer to give quick cooking instructions by voice than to rely exclusively on braille labels or tactile adhesives. I've never used a talking microwave before, but judging by the last comment, they sound much more expensive than any microwave I've seen.

Just to give you an example ...
https://a.co/d/ap19BEZ

I'm not sure why the microwave oven I have has been discontinued but the one I've found is for £265.

Of course, I have only seen the talkie microwave listed on Maxi-Aids, and Blind Mice Mart. Both are overpriced websites. The Amazon link above has the seller listed as Maxi-Aids.
Hmm, I wonder what shipping and handling would be for a device like that overseas. 🤔

I can appreciate the idea of a streamlined customized interface especially when it comes to Braille. I'd kind of not mind trying a BrailleSense out just to see what they have come up with. But as aluded to by others, one of the big problems I see with these custom devices is they fall behind. I just checked the Hims page* and it currently shows tech specs of Android 12. Googling tells me Android 12 was released in October 2021, so three years old now. While Android traditionally is more fragmented than iOS, I'd stil expect a number of mainstream Android apps to start failing. No one should be surfing with a three year old web browser for security reasons alone. I'd be much more potentially interested if they both showed a trackrecord and commitment to keeping it up to date. If it is going to replace and be the equivalent to a minstream device, and charge a premium to do so, it has to earn it.
* https://www.himsintl.com/en/blindness/view.php?idx=30

Travis, I was about to write exactly the same thing. I'd love to check one out just to see how the interface is and such, but would be concerned about the device falling behind. The nice thing about this ElBraille is that even though I had to do a tiny bit of hacking, I was able to get Windows 11 up and running on it. I doubt you could do that with a Braille Sense.

You shouldn't buy a BrailleSense if you want the experience of using an Android tablet with refreshable braille. You should buy a BrailleSense if you want a braille-first interface with streamlined apps designed by SELVAS which has Android—and therefore the Google ecosystem—as its core.

If a person feels that the default apps on the BrailleSense won't meet their needs and that they will need to rely predominantly on third-party apps, a mainstream device would be much more suitable because they will have the benefit of a touchscreen—the manner in which Android and those apps were designed to be used—and they would not have to deal with the idiosyncrasies of the BrailleSense.

However, I'm not necessarily saying that an Android power user will find the default apps basic or that they will consider their access to the third-party apps to be limiting. A power user may appreciate the ability to launch virtually any default app with one keystroke from almost anywhere on the device. They might also find that the keystrokes that allow them to access functions within apps allow them to work more efficiently than navigating around a touchscreen to the extent that performing tasks like sending emails, formatting text, navigating around textbooks and listening to podcasts are easier with the default apps than their third-party equivalents which lack this functionality. A user who is truly in harmony with their technology can subconsciously come to know when the default apps won't meet their needs and then can use third-party apps to supplement the default apps, just as many of us come to know whether a smartphone or a computer is the better device for a particular task.

Here is an interview with someone who was able to use many features of the BrailleSense 6 in his job as a music teacher in a mainstream school.

Interesting points. So from what I understand, it would be kinda like having my old BrailleNote Mpower back, but also the ability to run actual Android apps too. Obviously I know the operating systems and applications are different, but it sounds like a lot of the system being built from the ground up would feel a lot more like KeySoft than an Android tablet with a Braille display.
Does it have its own screen reader or does it use Talkback? If it has its own, how well does it handle apps from the play store? Is the experience as good at least, as what Talkback would offer?

Yes, the experience would be very similar to using KeySoft with the benefit of having access to Android. You'd be able to get an even closer experience if you purchased a BrailleNote Touch Plus (although that isn't a good idea because it was released in 2019).

The BS6 uses its own screen reader when accessing Android apps so that there is a level of continuity between the experience of using the default apps and third-party apps. I don't actually own a BrailleSense 6, but the consensus from the people I've spoken to is that there are thousands of usable apps, and Android apps that weren't designed with accessibility in mind tend to be more accessible than iOS apps which weren't designed to be accessible.

Very very interesting. It's out of my price range for sure, but definitely has me interested. Especially if they have a mini with all the same features. Would be nice if these companies would do payment plans even for those who don't have the best credit.

I think you'd have to get a plug adapter for UK plugs to work with US sockets, also i'm not sure if places like the RNIB and Cobolt ship to the US but you're more than welcome to take a look.

Argh, foiled by your funky wall plugs! *Shakes fist*

Muhahahahaha, UK plugs for the win.

Ya, looks like you all over in the UK use something closer to what we use for laundry dryers and oven/ranges on all your electrical outlets, and it's 50Hz, instead of 60Hz; major buck converter for that. We mostly have split single faze outlets with 120V at 60Hz for typical appliances. I'll admit ours is a little crazy because it has to be backward compatible to systems designed over a hundred years ago that are grandfathered in and still in use.

I'd still get an adapter, if it meant getting a talk in microwave for around $200 cheaper. For seriously.

At the moment Pound to dollar means we get %25 roughly off the dollar price. So logically this means that £250 would be a %25 increase for you guys. Or at least I think thats right. Bit confusing.

the google says it's $316 so with shipping and all that, you'd probably end up paying a similar price.

Apparently, a US to UK step up transformer and converter is about fifty dollars. I didn't check the current limitations, though, and it would be easy to overload something with a microwave. Thought it would be about twice that price.

At this rate, I may as well just stick to US prices and US merchandise. 🙂‍↔️🙄

Hey.
Question for the person who mentioned about using SSH on the BS 6 to remote in to a server how do you do that?
What app SSH app do you use?

Right.
But you know, if you learn to cook on a hobo stove made from a coffee can, and fueled by a tea candle or a bunch of cardboard and paper towels, you could save even more money...

I said it before, and I will say it again. When the zombie apocalypse happens, I'm hanging out with you, OldBear. 🐻🧟‍♂️🧟‍♀️🧟🧟‍♀️🧟‍♂️🧟🧟

Hello. On the topic of third party note takers, I'd like to create a portable windows braille note taker. Please note what I've thought of is all in my head, and that this will take at least a year or two to have a working prototype, provided I go to the right people. Anyways, I believe it was the first post that I ran across someone mentioning the BT Speak. Well, what about if it were to run windows, and you could take it anywhere? I'd call this project idea, WinSpeak. Win is part of windows, and Speak meaning that it's a speech only device. I'd make it pocket sized in order to easily carry it around. It would have a program running as it was booted to give you that note taker style interface, with 12 items in a menu. What would you guys think?

So…, Basically Windows 8/10s tablet mode, with Braille support? All built into one device of course.
Not knocking your idea at all, just clarifying. 🙂

Several Windows machines have been developed, and they're all garbage! We're still waiting on the Optima which may or may not be released. Windows is bloated and Microsoft will more than likely constantly enforce artificial mandatory hardware upgrades every few years to give their OEM partners a steady revenue stream. How much do you want to bet the official system requirements for Windows 12 will be Copilot+ PCs? Blazie has the right idea with the BT Speak and Linux, though sadly the hardware they're using right now is trash as well.

The idea is an interesting one, and if you can find people to help you pull it off, all the more power to you. However, you may not find it's as cheap as you'd hope, especially when you consider the smaller market, licensing costs, etc. That doesn't even get into producing future models, licensing new versions of Windows when Microsoft decides your current hardware and software is too obsolete, etc.

They use raspberry pi like hardware aren't they? BT Speak.

The BT Speak currently uses the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 which is basically the guts of the Raspberry Pi 4. I have a Pi 4, and the performance when running Orca and the MATE desktop is okay, but not great. However, there's a big difference between my $100 computer and the $1,200 BT Speak. I'm not paying $1,200 for the same slow performance in desktop mode.

No, windows 11, not windows 8 or 10. Those are out of support now, and it needs the current windows version available from Microsoft.

I have connected my E reader to my phone. That is actually about the most productive use. I have found for it. I was able to configure buttons on the E reader to do specific tasks on the phone. It works well. I will also mention that this is my third device that I have received from my state. My state is Florida. It works well and I have no problems with it now. In my opinion, braille no takers are a losing proposition. This is because of the simple fact that you cannot keep up with technology when you're always working from two steps behind. Unless a gigantic company such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, or maybe Samsung decides to develop a notetaking device specifically for the blind we are stuck. It's difficult for us as a population to have the resources to develop a product that can keep up with changing technologies.