The world's first braille smartwatch is on its way to buyers
Thursday 23 February 2017 | 1 Comment
The world's first braille smartwatch is on its way to buyers
After three years of false starts, the Dot smartwatch will hit the market
next month.
Since 2014, the South Korean startup Dot has been tweaking its raison d'être
the aptly named Dot smartwatch, which uses braille to inform its visually
impaired users of the time.
The watch itself boasts a smooth, futuristic white face displaying four
cells of six tiny moving components (the smart device's answer to braille
bumps). Its clean lines and pared-down design appear to have taken
inspiration from Apple's mantra of minimalism. However, the watch
encountered problems with its face. The watch, ironically, didn't stand the
test of time, at least when it came to robustness: the moving bumps which
the braille comprised didn't last particularly long when perpetually
prodded.
But the kinks have now been ironed out, with Dot confirming that the watch
will be commercially available from March onwards. Sporting a battery that
lasts up to seven days, the smartwatch will retail at $US290. Dot's founder
and CEO Eric Juyoon Kim anticipates that 100,000 of the watches will be
available this year, heralding with the release a new age of inclusivity.
Prospective buyers, he said, had reached 140,000, and included celebrity
endorsement from Stevie Wonder.
Video of Dot : The first Braille Smartwatch.
Smartwatches for the blind or visually impaired have previously relied on
audio prompts, which can be disruptive, whereas Dot's braille watch stands
out from the crowd by displaying four braille characters at a time on the
screen. Users can use the two accessible side buttons to send instigate
simple commands, replies or actions.
Kim plans to expand his range of braille-dependent devices from the Dot
smartwatch to the Dot Mini, an educational braille reader, which would
purportedly retail at $200 or less. Another project in the pipeline might be
brought to fruition in partnership with Google, namely an e-reader named the
Dot Pad a work in progress for now, but one that we could see as early as
2018.
Mashable anticipates that the smart braille system could and should one
day be adopted by governments for public use. For now, Dot's smartwatch is a
welcome addition to a rapidly expanding roster of products helping the
visually impaired.
Images: Dot
This article originally appeared at alphr.com
URL:
http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/452293,the-worlds-first-braille-smartwatc
h-is-on-its-way-to-buyers.aspx?eid=19&edate=20170223&utm_source=newsletter_2
0170223&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily_newsletter&nl=daily
__________________________
....................................................
To post to dbaust, send email to:
dbaust@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Join or Leave the List
Visit http://freelists.org/list/dbaust
Type your email address under User Options and select Subscribe (Join) or
Unsubscribe (leave) and click the GO button.
Disclaimer: Dbaust is a free community service. While reasonable efforts are
taken to ensure that messages are accurate and appropriate in scope, the
moderators are unable to take any responsibility for the actual content of
posts from members or for the actions of list members.