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Cell Phone For the Blind?
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.
Sorry...
Why not just refer to information from some local organisation of blind people? There's this survey of accessible mobile phones in the UK, but surely there must be something similar for the USA.
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....
http://www.screenlessphone.com/
Has voice commands (In that it will read the command name to you as you go over it), as well as well-defined separations between the keys. It, has good battery life, too. It's a candybar phone, however, and is very limited. I picked one up (with prepaid service) for about $12, but their full retail US is still only around $50. CDMA and 3G are both available.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
Google provides a lot of info, I found some interesting information and most of it appears recent. The 22C is a screenless-specific GSM phone that appears to be a good match.
Check out http://www.codefactory.es/en/
I have a blind daughter and she uses an Nokia N95 and it works verey good, i also know that there is some OCR software for Nokia N82 coming up soon which can read a photo, that could be an even better choice.
He might find this meets some of his needs:
Jitterbug
However, it looks like you have to also buy service through them.
I volunteer in an NGO that helps blind people in various ways, and is also my passion, privately.
I am VERY happy this question appeared here on /. for once, because last time I mentioned MP3 players that would be just as functional for blind as for seeing people, I was derided. But the truth is, making MP3 players and mobile phones with a user interface that is usable for blind people does NOT detract anything from the usability for seeing people. In fact, I'd argue that it makes them more usable for the seeing people as well - allowing for a whole new area of use cases.
The trend is, however, unfavourable for the blind: touch screens and the related user interfaces make it impossible for blind people to operate such gadgets, unless they have a voice feedback.
And now, to the point of the question, and related to voice feedback: there are plenty of Nokia phones with software designed to make it possible to be operated by a blind person. Such software would announce who is calling or whose call you just missed, who is the sender of an SMS and read the SMS to you, or give feedback on your commands. Nokia phones in general (especially the slightly older ones, say, 2006, 2007 generation) have a user interface that is more suitable for blind people than most other. I am just now trying to teach my visually impaired mother how to use a certain Panasonic mobile phone (only one extra phone in the house at the moment), and I notice how the UI emphasizes using the same button for several functions. Like, locking the phone requires two pushes on the same button. Unlocking it requires three pushes on that same button, and the only feedback you have is visual. WTF? Total rubbish.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I know nothing about this phone,
http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phones/samsung-jitterbug-dial-sph/4505-6454_7-32115117.html
but see it recommended often for older folks and those with poor eyesight. A real barebones phone, with limited features, big keys, and decent battery life.
hth,
jeff
My blind friend uses an HTC Mogul, with a mobile version of JAWS. JAWS is probably the speech software for most blind computer users.
Why yes, I *AM* new here. Why?
If the blind guy had mod points he'd be looking for the braille key for -1 pathetic right now...
Why does he want a cellphone if he's blind? I mean, he won't be able to use the camera. He can't send text messages. Can't use it for games or videos. I suppose he could listen to mp3s. What? He wants to make phone calls. Good luck finding a cell phone that's good at that....
This guy's the limit!
Some phones have voice recognition. I have an older LG VX5200 on Verison that has this feature, I press a button easily found on the side, and it asks for a command. The phone itself is otherwise not fat-thumb friendly. Lookup "Voice Dialing (Speaker-independent (automatic))" http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/
There is no Kitsune in Kitsune Udon
A couple of weeks ago I helped a blind guy, with a service dog, board a commuter train. I watched as, later, he whipped out a phone and called his party to let them know that he's on the way.
I don't remember what model it was, but it looked like a fairly recent phone, with all the usual bells and whistles on it. So, even though I don't know the model, there are definitely some out there which blind people can easily use.
Blind people often have a heightened sense of touch. I'd say you're probably looking for a phone that's on the larger side, not a tiny crumb with teeny keys; but rather something substantial, with individual dial keys that are slightly raised, and can be easily felt, by touch.
The blind person might need some initial help to set up speed dial keys, but once that's done 99% of the time he'll need to press only a couple of keys to do the desired function.
If he didn't like any phones in one AT&T store, he should go to another. Different stores have different phones. Or, if living in a large city, try independent stores that sell unlocked GSM phones (that can be used with AT&T or T-Mobile, here in the US). That's going to be a slightly larger hit in the pocket, but you'll have a larger selection of phones to try out.
Hands down the best voice commands I've ever used in a phone is Voice Commander for Windows Mobile 5. (I believe it's now included with WM6 as standard.) Not only does it do voice dialling of your contacts and numbers by simply saying "Dial 555 1234" but it also gives you control over the launching apps, mp3 playback, reading SMS messages, signal status and time and appointments.
For a full list take a look at the Microsoft website.
It also doesn't need any training or any setup you just press and speak and it works surprisingly well.
As for hardware that'll depend on your budget and availability but there are lots of options for Windows Mobile powered phones including candy bars and and flip phones.
http://www.nuance.com/talks/premium.asp
I love the whooshing sound the joke makes when it flies over people's heads.
I always wonder why nobody has done a phone with a Braile output
Because there aren't enough blind people to make it profitable. There are 1.3 million legally blind people in the United States. That's less than one half of one percent of the current population.
Complex Problem + Increased R&D spending + Small Market = Few Products
Glad to see there are some players in this niche though.
I'm a big tall mofo.
I have the RAZR2 (V8). You can operate the phone entirely through voice commands, including dialing people in the phonebook and just dialing phone numbers. You can set "Talking Phone" mode so that it reads each menu item as you go over it. The keys are not physically separated but there are ridges between the rows of keys, and the imprinting is raised so you can tell by feel when you're on a key. The phone has audible caller-ID, but for some stupid reason T-Mobile disables that on their phones. If you look into the RAZR2, be sure that features is enabled or get an unlocked phone.
Too late to be known as Bush the First, he's sure to be known as Bush the Worst.
Get a phone from this list: http://www.nuance.com/talks/phones.asp Then buy this software: http://www.nuance.com/talks/ It's a screen reader for Nokia S60 phones. It is perfect for blind and visually impaired persons. My dad is blind and he's used it for quite a few years now. The supported phones are top of the line. My dad has a Nokia N95, I think, and he really likes that the Talks screen reader is compatible with most of the phone, including email, web browsing, media player, calendar, address book, and the amazing voice commands, which provide a great shortcut for blind users. I highly recommend it. And Nokia phones are the best, IMO.
I'm not sure what network AT&T is, CDMA or GSM, but if I were to select something for a blind person, I would get a simple cellphone with very few keys, for example something like this one:
http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_ku990_viewty-2070.php
By the way, the site above has pictures for quite a lot of phones so you should be able to find several easy to use ones.
I have a motorola razor, and although I'm not a huge fan of the address book functionality, the keys are an etced tin plate with a ruber ridge seperated them and the '5' key has a raise bump. The volume control is a large easy to find button on the side of the phone that can be pushed up or down to adjust the phone's volume. It can also take voice commands (voice button is also an easy to find button on the opposite side as the volume button). Battery life seems pretty solid on it. I toss it on the charger every couple of days and it holds up for hour long calls with out an issue.
Anyway, as a non-blind person, it's not my favorite phone. but if you don't have to look at the address book, it might be just fine :)
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Just got my dad a Pantech Breeze from AT&T. It's quad-band GSM, nop gadgety features (like media/mp3/etc), does voice tags, has large buttons, has 3 dedicated speed-dial buttons (actual buttons, not softkeys), has good battery life, and does bluetooth.
It's designed for old people, not blind people, but it has everything you described.
This would be an ideal problem to be solved by open source (other than physical issues like being able to easily mash the keys).
What we have now is lots of phones with little to no support that don't share their efforts.
Open source and open phones would allow users to benefit from a group effort/concern that is small locally but large online.
Any Symbian series 60 phone can, in principle, be adapted for blind/low vision users using an application called Talks. The website is http://www.nuance.com/talks/ There is a free trial download you can try.
The Samsung Jitterbug and the Owasys 22C (screenless) are useful for this.
Current phones tend to be terrible at screenless operation. For use while driving, it should be possible to do everything important with voice, through a wireless headset. But that's unnecessarily hard with many phones. Reviews don't address this issue well. Things like the speed of voice recognition are important. Samsung phones seem to have voice recognition that takes 5-8 seconds to load, then about as long to recognize a name on the speed dial list. Motorola was doing better than that five years ago, and Wildfire (a centralized service) did even better eight years ago.
Buy a simlock-free phone. Huh, wat? Yes, you've read that correctly... it's cheaper. Do it online where the phone you desire is the cheapest. Then also order a 'subscription' (damn English is not my native language) that is not tied to the phone by default. Calculate how long and therefore how much money you have to cough up during lengths of the contracts. Now pick the AT&T one that is equal or less than the amount of money that you're phone costs without a subscription. Do $Price_of_phone - $Total_amount_of_money_that_your_contract_will_cost_over_time.
Why?:
1) You can pick any phone that you like, even if it's outside of AT&T's offering
2) If you pick a phone from a webshop it is cheaper than what everyone offers, inclusing AT&T
3) 'Free' phones are calculated like this:
$Overrated_pricetags_of_phones_that_are_even_simlocked_and_bricked - $Total_price_of_subscription_that_is_more_expensive_to_make_the_phone_'free'_instead_of_letting_you_pay-less_for_the_total_price_of_ownership/use_and_an_additional_30_dollars_or_so
4) ^You buy a phone and you get a subscription for free and the total cost of ownership is way less than avarage
5) If this is not enough reasons for you than you should also know that a 'free' phone that cost $20/month gets you less ''free' call minutes' than a standard, $20-without-a-phone-subscription.
Here be signatures
http://www.wireless.att.com/about/disability-resources/mobile-speak-magnifier.jsp "AT&T now offers the latest in screen reader and screen magnifier software from Code Factory. This software works to enhance the functionality of some of our most popular wireless devices for those who have low vision or are blind. The screen reader and screen magnifier software is available for both Symbian and Windows Mobile Smartphone devices."
www.visioncue.com
I know the owners of this business personally, and they're good people focused specifically on mobile devices for the blind / vision-impaired.
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...
You want to check the Motofone F3 by Motorola. Then why not apply Braille to the keyboard? It's a simple mod. Any commercial options?
If he's using a Windows Mobile device, he's not using jaws. While Freedom Scientific does make a version of Jaws that works on Windows Mobile, they only offer it for use on hardware they've produced, no third party products. He's probably got either Mobile Speaks or Pocket Hal.
tired of online ads?
I'm not sure about AT&T, but I've got a few blind friends that use the LG VX8300 on Verizon. It's got dedicated music controls on the front of the phone and 512 MB cards for it are fairly cheap.
There are countries with as few people, but they still sell mobile phones there
Do you think government subsidies have anything to do with that?
Add up all the blind people everywhere, go global and it's possible to make a profit.
Obviously, there are easier ways to make a profit or you or someone else would be doing it now.
I'm a big tall mofo.
I do not at all make claims to understand a blind person's needs, but I have spent some time trying to understand a blind person's requirements as part of working for a company that makes products for blind people - a highly successful company that must be doing a few things right.
One big thing I noticed is that most blind people are highly motivated to adapt to existing technology and generally don't need a big helping hand (unless they became blind very late in life). One blind guy I spoke to can Braille faster than I can type (ok not such a big challenge as I'm not a fast typer). This guy would learn how to use a candy-bar phone pretty quickly, but would likely prefer some special bumps/touch on some of the more important keys [5 to locate center of number pad, dial/hangip keys etc].
Most voice feedback is pretty crappy for blind people. Most blind people don't care for high quality spoken sound. What they want is fast. Most blind people will crank up the speed on their text to speech devices to full speed and at those speeds Joe Average non-blind person will not be able to understand.
What would be very interesting would be a blind person's special interest group adopting an open (eg OpenMoko) or semi-open (eg. Android) phone and seeing what sorts of UI design etc come out of that.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Very good mobile products for the blind, though not cheap: http://www.knfbreader.com/
When blind people use a computer they use software called a "screen reader". It reads all of the text on the screen to them using speech synthesis (text-to-speech) or alternatively using a braille display. It requires using some extra keyboard shortcuts to navigate around and tell it what to read, along with the normal keyboard shortcuts all of us can use.
There's only one mobile phone operating system that supports fully-functional screenreaders: Symbian. Almost all Symbian-based Nokia phones support screenreaders, and just a couple of other brands that run Symbian.
There are two major phone screenreaders: "Talks" and "Mobile Speak". (Both companies also make mobile phone magnifiers for people who have low vision.) Both Talks and Mobile Speak have approximately the same functionality, they're both way too expensive (around $400), and you can purchase both of them separately from the phone and install it yourself.
In theory, you can use the phone book, send and receive text messages and email, use the media player, use the web browser, and hear the caller ID name spoken when someone calls. In practice there are often bugs on particular phone models - I've heard of a lot of problems with the web browser, caller ID, and the media player - but it is possible to get them to work. The main complaint with the web browser is that it's functional but almost completely impractical to use - even more so than it is for a sighted person on a mobile phone. On the other hand, SMS and email seem to work great - my blind friends can text as fast as anyone I know.
My Grandmother is legally blind.
She LOVES her Jitterbug flip phone because she can open it, hit one button (which is easy to find by feel) & tell the Jitterbug Operator which of her contacts she wants to call.
The phone can be programmed with contacts in a "Speed Dial" arrangement, so she can do it herself, but if she can't remember which Speed Dial Number someone is, it's literally one button to get that info read to her by someone who seems to enjoy being a help.
As she put it, it is THE best birthday present she's ever gotten.
It allows her to keep in touch with her family & friends, even as her glaucoma gets worse, and all for a monthly charge that she can afford while living on her Retirement Funds.
If you have a blind family member, friend, relative, or coworker who wants a cell phone that works well, suggest a Jitterbug phone.
I don't work for them, I have no association with the company, other than as the Grandson of a very happy Grandmother who enjoys her new phone.
=)
When I think of blind phone users, I think of regular phones, where you dial numbers and they reach people. While it would be nice to have speaking menus so a blind user could navigate their phone and access the spiffy features, perhaps some cool text to speech to handle text messaging, I think the main goal would be your basic no frills phone. Nice pad with a mark for the number 5, as well as an obvious send and end button.
I can't think of the model, but tracfone had a Nokia in their lineup which was just this, a basic phone with no real features other than being a phone. No camera, no MP3 support, just a phone.
Call me silly, but that should be the main criteria, the ability to operate based on typing in a bunch of numbers and making a call.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
If you really want to impress me make a cellphone for the deaf...
My blind sister uses an LG Env 2. It has screen reader software on it, so she can text message. It's pretty amazing actually. When she receives an incoming call, it says out loud who is calling. It's not quite as good as the screen reader on her computer, but it gets the job done. It has a full qwerty keyboard, which she uses since she knows the layout of a standard keyboard. Also, once it's closed, it has a standard key pad on the front, for dialing. She's had the phone for about 3 weeks now, and completely loves it.
Unfortunately, she won't stop texting me.
This space for rent, inquire within.
I understand that this post was loaded with sarcasm, but blind people actually can send text messages. There are multiple phones with screen readers built in.
This space for rent, inquire within.
My cellphone (a Sanyo Sprint S1) has TTY support built-in, specifically so that it can be used by the deaf.
While I was sure blind people usually had someone with them to help them and I'd think to make calls, I guess not always but there are plenty of standard phones that support voice recognition you could probably also find phone with braille keys or at least bold numbers.