People with visual impairments can use mobile features like Siri to speak their commands, and they can utilize the text-to-speech functionality to send messages – but touch screens on smartphones and watches do not cater to this demographic.
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“Until now, if you really took possion of information on iOS off of your girl friend, for instance, you would have had and see Siri hear it to your account in so far as express, which happens to be impersonal”, says Kim, noted on Tech in Asia.
Dot, a start-up South Korean tech company, has announced a smartwatch for the blind.
According to a report on Ubergizmo, the Dot smartwatch sports four groups of Braille with six dots in each group, which allows the smartwatch to raise the Braille and make four characters available at a time at a cycle speed that ranges between 1-100 per second. The watch can then be adjusted to display characters in speeds ranging from one hertz to 100 hertz.
Dot uses haptic technology to deliver real-time information to the user’s fingertips. Dot can run for 10 hours per charge, however, as per the company, average users can charge the smartwatch every five days, reports Digital Trends.
Most smartwatches are just techno-toys – but a new device could genuinely change blind people’s lives.
The tiny screen on a smartwatch can be maddeningly hard to read even for someone with 20/20 vision, so for anyone with visual impairments, models like the popular Apple Watch or LG Watch Urbane definitely aren’t an option. Reported by Dot co-founder and CEO Eric Ju Yoon Kim, the Dot was created in order to offer a more intimate wearable for the visually impaired.
Release of the Dot Braille is due for December, 2015, and it’s expected to have a highly competitive price.
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Ultimately, Kim wants to implement the same technology used by Dot into other products, such as microwaves, rice cookers, and ATMs.
