BrailleWatch is a simple and focused Apple Watch app that lets you feel the current time in Braille, using gentle haptic ticks and a clean, high-contrast dot display.
No menus. No clutter.
Just time you can touch.
BrailleWatch divides the watch screen into four Braille cells:
Top-left: Hour tens
Top-right: Hour ones
Bottom-left: Minute tens
Bottom-right: Minute ones
Slide your finger across the screen and the watch will respond with a soft tap whenever you cross a raised (active) dot.
BrailleWatch supports Direct Touch, so it works also when VoiceOver is on. Once the Braille area is activated, your finger movements are passed directly to the app for continuous tactile reading.
Features
• Full 4-cell Braille time display
• Gentle haptic feedback for each raised dot
• Works with VoiceOver (Direct Touch)
• Without VO completely silent — ideal for discreet use
• High-contrast neon dots for low-vision users
• You can place BrailleWatch as the top item in your Dock for quick access without VoiceOver
Important notes:
BrailleWatch is not a Watch Face. It is a standalone Apple Watch app, so it does not appear on your home screen and must be launched.
It also takes some practice to learn how to navigate your finger across the touchscreen and read the haptic ticks. With a little time, the technique becomes much more intuitive.
The Braille cells are 2x2, because only numbers are displayed and the lower dot row is not required.
Comments
No Braille haptics
When I turn speech off, I slide my finger across and get no haptics other than the normal ones, both in the BrailleWatch app and on the home screen. What am I missing?
Even with Voiceover I get nothing.
I feel absolutely nothing when I have Braille Watch in focus. I just hear voiceover saying Braille time. I turned voiceover off and hear little clicking noises when I try running my finger across the display, but no vibrations of any kind. I'm using an Apple Watch series 7. Oh yeah, and I don't see Direct touch as a roter option when going through my roter options. So, yeah, very confused and feeling no love, much less vibrations or anything resembling dots. Do I need to have contrast on on the display, or does screen curtain need to be on or off? I'm totally blind, so have screen curtain on pretty much all the time.
Usage Hints
Hi @kjw810 and @Joy,
Thank you for using BrailleWatch!
Here are a few tips that should help you feel the dots more reliably.
Make sure that Settings → Sounds & Haptics → Haptic Alerts = On
On the home screen BrailleWatch is not present. You need to launch the app. (I personally have put it into my dock favorites for convenience). In our tests it was not necessary to activate direct touch with the rotor. Apple just defaults to indicate that activation message with VO on.
Start by placing your finger in the center of the screen. In the very center you will feel nothing, which is normal. This gives you a neutral starting point and avoids triggering system gestures.
From the center, slide your finger diagonally toward one of the four Braille cells: upper left for hour tens, upper right for hour ones, lower left for minute tens, or lower right for minute ones. When you reach the general area of a cell, try making a small circular or rotating motion with your finger. This often makes the individual Braille dots easier to detect.
The dots do not vibrate continuously when touched. Instead, they produce a subtle haptic tick only when you slide across a raised dot. We deliberately chose this subtle tick because stronger haptics on the Apple Watch come with an audible sound, and the goal of BrailleWatch is completely silent operation without VO on.
It is also important not to begin your sliding movement at the very top or bottom edge of the screen. Starting there may cause system menus to slide in and cover the app. Once your sliding motion has begun, this will not happen, which is why starting in the center is recommended.
If you try these steps and still cannot feel anything, please let me know and I will gladly help further.
Stefan
Always on?
Hi,
Is there any way of having this always on? It strikes me as redundant if you need to open the app each time to tell the time so I'm assuming there is a way of having it set up so it's the first thing one touches.
Dock is the best option for daily use
As far as I know, Apple does not provide any way for third-party apps to stay always on. WatchOS automatically returns to the clock face after a period of inactivity, and apps cannot override this.
What comes closest is to change the Dock setting from “Most Recent” to “Favorites” and put only BrailleWatch there. Then you can press the side button and tap once, and you are immediately back in the app. This is currently the most reliable way to keep BrailleWatch quickly accessible.
Oliver
I'm also confused about the use case for this.
Why wouldn't I just use taptic time or speech?
Use Cases
TapTic is actually far from silent — its pulsing vibrations are quite audible, which can become irritating if used repeatedly. In contrast, BrailleWatch is more of a gamified Braille experience, and it’s actually fun to use.
I still don't understand.
How can taptic time be heard? You’d still have to wake up the watch and open the app. Perhaps muscle memory could help open the dock and launch it, but that’s quite a bit of effort just to check the time. I do find the concept intriguing, and it might be more practical if integrated into a complication or shortcut.
@Quinton Williams
The Taptic Engine is unfortunately not totally silent. Strong vibrations—like the Taptic Time signal—can be heard from more than 2 meters away in a quiet room, based on our tests. Most of the time this isn’t a real issue, but of course there are situations where you may want to avoid audible feedback. VibraBraille is way more quiet.
Launching VibraBraille is actually quite fast if you keep only one app in the Dock—just press the side button and tap.
And good news: integration with an Apple Watch complication is already in testing. This will make access even easier and more immediate.
Not successful
To me it seems not to work. I tried to follow the instructions above but all I could feel is just one click in each cell.
So i'd rather have a clear vibration in each corner very similar to Apples clock for the blind but even better. Because if each cell would only vibrate its value I'd be able just to count the minutes or the tens and so forth.
Would be a great watch for the blind.
Check band enclosure
If you can hear Taptic Time, you'd better make sure that the band enclosure is not broken or that the band itself isn't somehow defective. I used to never be able to hear Taptic Time until I unknowingly used a third-party Milanese loop. It slightly warped my band enclosure, not enough to make it useless just to make the band move around a little bit. And from then on, I could hear a slight buzzing each and every time I used Taptic Time. This has also made bands like the Milanese loop useless because there's not enough grip on the band attachment point to keep it attached to my watch. It can easily slide out. Thankfully, this is not an issue with the bands I regularly use, formerly the Solo Loop, which broke within 6 months, ever since, the ever reliable sports band, which has a little bit of rubber on the attachment point which adds enough friction that it slipping out, despite the defective band enclosure, is a non-issue.
@Jurgen
If you do feel one click in each cell, then this means, that it works, and you just did not discover the other active braille points, if more than one in a cell. It takes some practice to discover them. You cannot discover them in one single tap, but only by sliding the finger slowly, because only one braille point is clicking at once.
Your idea to vibrate the value by counting would work, and certainly be useful, but the idea of the app is to let you explore the braille representation.
Many blind users today never had the chance to learn Braille. The motivation behind BrailleWatch — and also VibraBraille — is to encourage learning and practice by making the experience engaging and enjoyable.
Version 1.2 is out with Apple Watch complication support
You can now add BrailleWatch to your watch face and open it instantly by tapping the complication. It works on most watch faces, including newer watchOS styles. Note: some Apple Watch models need to be powered off and restarted once before a newly installed complication appears in the list.
Re: Not successful
Thank you for your reply, and I understand exactly what you mean. I’m really glad that I learned Braille and can use it confidently.
Still, I find it a pity that you don’t want to implement my idea as an optional mode. I believe a lot of enthusiastic users would otherwise be left out. And I don’t think those people will learn Braille specifically for the app.
But of course, it’s your app, and I admire your approach of trying to make Braille appealing for idealistic reasons, even if that costs you some users.
All the best, and thanks again for your valuable efforts.
Difficulty Feeling Multiple Braille Dots? Here’s Why
If you have difficulty finding more than one braille point in a cell, you might think this is caused by technical limits of the screen. That is not the case. Extensive tests show that the real issue is the coordination between touch and perception. In other words, your fingers do not always do what you think they are doing. This improves gradually over time, and the process also is a general training for your finger’s fine motor skills.
There is one technical issue to be aware of. If you approach the braille cell from the very bottom edge of the watch screen, the system control panel can slide in by accident. To avoid this, always approach the cell from the center area of the screen.