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Cell Phone For the Blind?

Posted by Soulskill on from the can-you-see-me-now? dept.

brigc writes "Here's one that's got me stumped. A friend of mine who is blind asked me for help tracking down a cell phone for him. He's interested in a flip phone with well-defined separations between the keys, and as much voice control as possible. Battery life is the only other thing he mentioned. Preferably something that would work on AT&T's network in the US. We spent part of the afternoon in a local AT&T store checking out all the flip phones they had and didn't find one he really loved. Anyone have any ideas?" There was a story some months back about a phone that would read to you by interpreting pictures from the built-in camera, but it doesn't have much information about usability. I'm sure it'd be handy to have some sort of text-to-speech option for common cell phone features like caller ID and text messaging, or even just reading menu names.

2 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Why Not Jitterbug ??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why not Jitterbug. It doesn't work with AT&T but it does have large well separated buttons and is relatively easy for people to use. I don't think your friend wants a "complex" phone -- more buttons and more potential for error.

    Here is the linky : http://www.jitterbug.com/phonesDial.aspx

    Good luck....

  2. I work in this area by Deliveranc3 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There are too many touch screen phones on the market these days.

    If you're blind and looking for a good phone look at the Nokia 6810... it has a good screen reader and an open source GPS system for navigation called Loadstone (which I did some work on).

    For a blind user, bluetooth is a must as it lets you keep a headset with a reader for interfacing. I walked around for a while with the phone talking to me and it freaked people out.

    Good luck on the search and message me if you want some more info...