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Dot Watch – A braille and tactile smartwatch

fingerson.strikingly.com

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Re: Dot Watch – A braille and tactile smartwatch

#71

Post by bigblind »

I'm visually impaired. I tried the apple watch a couple of months ago, but concluded it wasn't for me because using VoiceOver imposes such a delay that it's not noticably faster than taking my phone out of my pocket. This braille watch might be much more practical.

I'm seeing a lot of healthy scepticism in the comment section. I'm visually impaired, not blind, so I haven't checked this page with accessibility tools. And, although I've heard about a lot of failed kickstarters, I'm not good ad judging them. But if this is real, and gets built, I'd love to try one out.

Re: Dot Watch – A braille and tactile smartwatch

#72

Post by bigblind »

rkalfane wrote: post #5
unwind wrote: post #3

That looked a bit like blogspam, or whatever the word it. It wasn't very information-dense, anyway. The manufacturer seems to be here: http://fingerson.strikingly.com/ . I guess it's a smart watch since it pairs over BT with a cell phone, and can show notifications from the phone. It can show the current time without a phone connection, yay. No custom installable apps on the watch itself as far as I could see, but pe…

It looks like the 3D renders display a bit too many dots. When you look at the picture of the man holding a prototype, you have 4 cells with no split.

I deidn't count the dots, but you'd expect 6 dots in each braille cell, 2 vertical rows of 3;

Re: Dot Watch – A braille and tactile smartwatch

#73

Post by panglott »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #53
panglott wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, under terrestrial Earthlike conditions, anyway. In the deep ocean, the evolutionary pressure towards sight is so slight that most animals gradually lose it (there is too little light).

Is that really true? There are many photo luminescent creatures there, so light must be important to them. I'm thinking they appear to be blind to us in normal daylight, perhaps because their sensitivity is to extremely low levels of light. In their environment, they can see perfectly well?

Deep ocean may be an unusual case because species and individuals can relatively easily move between different layers. Unlike caves.

But marine creatures have many different adaptations. Cetaceans IIRC have relatively good visual acuity, but are monochromants. Lots of animals lose color vision. Some animals develop huge eyes to pick up tiny bits of light; some have a bioluminescent lure for those fish with sight. Others go blind. But no marine creatures adapted to deep ocean are going to have the level of visual acuity and sensory dependence on sight that terrestrial creatures often have.

Blindness is a continuum.

Re: Dot Watch – A braille and tactile smartwatch

#74

Post by timthelion »

DanBC wrote: post #66
timthelion wrote: post #49

Please don't share sites like this. This is a common theme. People advertise "revolutionary products" for blind people, whithout actually explaining what kind of microactuators they use. I am 99% sure this is a fake non-invention that does not exist.

The original link was to the UK's RNIB, and they're pretty careful about avoiding hyped products. https://audioboom.com/posts/5655817-the-first-braille-smartw... They include interviews with blind people who've tried it. They say that it's smaller, lighter, and cheaper because they use a new type of actuator that isn't "on a ceramic substrate". The company plans to ship its first 150,000 devices by the end of the yea…

> They say that it's smaller, lighter, and cheaper because they use a new type of actuator that isn't "on a ceramic substrate".

That means nothing. Modern actuators are piezo-electric. I have no idea what "ceramic substrate" they are talking about.

The mashable link is just a press kit.

I don't know what is in the RNIB podcast, because the audio is not available to me.

Re: Dot Watch – A braille and tactile smartwatch

#75

Post by Someone »

timthelion wrote: post #62
j_s wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This site seems to share the common theme - a Braille tablet: http://blitab.com/videos/

Yeah, they are really common. While I was working in braille, my grandparents would send me a new "miracle invention" for blind people every week. Fucking disgusting. I don't even understand what these companies, and sometimes even seemingly non-profit organizations get out of this. But it also seems that it is a bug in the psyche of the tech industry that we share these stories and upvote them. We are obsessed with…

Tiny correction: you _can_ create a multiline display. Two-line devices have been sold, and full-page ones demonstrated. However, it isn't practical or affordable.

Impractical: you can stack piezo-electric Braille cells, but your device will be about half an inch high per line of text. Weight also goes up, of course.

Not affordable: ballpark, a _cheap_ piezoelectric Braille cell costs at least $25 per character (http://www.aph.org/orbit-reader-20/ uses a different technology, but is considered cheap at $500 for 20 characters). That's $3.50 per 'bit'. At that price, two 80-character lines would cost you $4000 (In reality, that probably buys you _one_ 80-character line)

Re: Dot Watch – A braille and tactile smartwatch

#76

Post by smhost »

gravypod wrote: post #64
joelcollinsdc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The made the mistake of asking this to my gf who is a teacher for visually impaired kids. Braille is reading, and listening to earbuds is not reading. We teach our sighted kids to read even though they could just all have audiobooks, just like we should teach children Braille even though they can still listen. Another good argument she made was it's about multiplexing. What if someone wanted to learn the time while l…

What kind of logic is "people need to do something more difficult because it's easier for people who aren't the same as me"? Also, who's to say that people shouldn't be encouraged to use audiobooks rather then read text-based liturature? When listening to an audio book I can do many other things like study for an exam or program. I can't read a book via text and write software at the same time. I don't think we shoul…

Is Braille actually harder to learn/use than normal writing systems?

> When listening to an audio book I can do many other things like study for an exam or program.

Why don't you just study for your exam and write code in audio?

Re: Dot Watch – A braille and tactile smartwatch

#77

Post by Someone »

ewyueywu wrote: post #45
falsedan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have eyes + aren't active while finding food/avoiding predators in an environment with limited visibility & great sound conduction.

alright, what about nocturnal animals with huge sensitive eyes ? or why not evolve searchlights or even lasers ?

If you are a predator and carry a search light, chances are your prey will learn what your search light means. If you are prey, would you think it is a good idea to advertise "there's something to eat over here"?

Re: Dot Watch – A braille and tactile smartwatch

#78

Post by sleepychu »

timthelion wrote: post #74
DanBC wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original link was to the UK's RNIB, and they're pretty careful about avoiding hyped products. https://audioboom.com/posts/5655817-the-first-braille-smartw... They include interviews with blind people who've tried it. They say that it's smaller, lighter, and cheaper because they use a new type of actuator that isn't "on a ceramic substrate". The company plans to ship its first 150,000 devices by the end of the yea…

> They say that it's smaller, lighter, and cheaper because they use a new type of actuator that isn't "on a ceramic substrate". That means nothing. Modern actuators are piezo-electric. I have no idea what "ceramic substrate" they are talking about. The mashable link is just a press kit. I don't know what is in the RNIB podcast, because the audio is not available to me.

>RNIB podcast, because the audio is not available to me.

Nothing extra.

Re: Dot Watch – A braille and tactile smartwatch

#79

Post by DanBC »

timthelion wrote: post #74
DanBC wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original link was to the UK's RNIB, and they're pretty careful about avoiding hyped products. https://audioboom.com/posts/5655817-the-first-braille-smartw... They include interviews with blind people who've tried it. They say that it's smaller, lighter, and cheaper because they use a new type of actuator that isn't "on a ceramic substrate". The company plans to ship its first 150,000 devices by the end of the yea…

> They say that it's smaller, lighter, and cheaper because they use a new type of actuator that isn't "on a ceramic substrate". That means nothing. Modern actuators are piezo-electric. I have no idea what "ceramic substrate" they are talking about. The mashable link is just a press kit. I don't know what is in the RNIB podcast, because the audio is not available to me.

> Modern actuators are piezo-electric. I have no idea what "ceramic substrate"

The piezo crystals are the ceramic. This new device claims not to use piezo crystals, and that's why it's smaller.

There's a possibility it's using electroactive polymers in a closed bubble together with latches. This would be much cheaper than piezo systems, and also smaller.

N. Di Spigna, P. Chakraborti, D. Winick, P. Yang, T. Ghosh and P. Franzon, “The Integration of Novel EAPBased Braille Cells for Use in a Refreshable Tactile Display,” Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices, San Diego, March 2010, p. 9.

Re: Dot Watch – A braille and tactile smartwatch

#80

Post by ewyueywu »

timthelion wrote: post #62
j_s wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This site seems to share the common theme - a Braille tablet: http://blitab.com/videos/

Yeah, they are really common. While I was working in braille, my grandparents would send me a new "miracle invention" for blind people every week. Fucking disgusting. I don't even understand what these companies, and sometimes even seemingly non-profit organizations get out of this. But it also seems that it is a bug in the psyche of the tech industry that we share these stories and upvote them. We are obsessed with…

thanks - very interesting - but also disappointing that it's fake
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