ATFAQ197 – Q1. Headmouse for iPad, Q2. Talking clocks or watches, Q3. Caregiver Paging Systems, Q4. BVI Navigation in Public Spaces, Q5. Retro Assistive Tech you want back

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I have a question.

I’ve always wondered.

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Welcome to ATFAQ, Assistive Technology, Frequently Asked Questions, with your host Brian Norton, director of assistive technology at Easterseals Crossroads. This is a show where we address your questions about assistive technology, the hardware, software, tools, and gadgets that help people with disabilities lead more independent and fulfilling lives. Have a question you’d like to answer it on our show, send us a tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ. Call our listener line at (317) 721-7124, or send us an email at tech@Eastersealscrossroads.org. The world of assistive technology has questions and we have answers, and now let’s jump into today’s show.

Hello, and welcome to ATFAQ episode 197. My name is Brian Norton, and I’m the host of the show. And we’re so happy that you’ve taken some time to tune in with us this month. We’ve got a great lineup of assistive technology questions for you today. But before I jump in, just want to take a moment to go around our virtual room and introduce Josh and Belva, who are with me for today’s show. So the first is Josh. Josh is the director of our assistive technology program here at Easterseals Crossroads, that incorporates our clinical program, in data program, digital literacy services, home mod programs, and many other things. He’s also the popular host of AT Update, one of our other podcasts here at Easterseals Crossroads. And so Josh, finally, after that long introduction, do you want to say hi?

Man, that is an amazing introduction, and a lot to live up to, but hi everybody. Thanks so much for tuning in today.

Excellent, excellent. Next is Belva, Belva is our clinical assistive technology vision team lead, vision and sensory team lead. She has her caddis, and has been around here for a long time, and knows lots of stuff about visually-impaired, blind, deaf-blind, lots of different things, and we’re so happy to have her today as well. So Belva, you want to say hi?

Well, thanks Brian. I’m excited to be here, always looking forward to the exciting questions that our listeners send in for us, and the great answers that we can come up with.

Excellent, excellent. Hey, for new listeners, I just want to take a moment to talk about our show and how it works. We come across various assistive technology related questions, and we solicit your feedback each month. And so as we come across those questions, we’ll kind of compile those into a show, and then we sit around here, just like we’re doing today, and try to give the best answers we can, point people in different directions to be able to find answers if we can. But yeah, we’re really just trying to provide as much information as we can about the different questions that we come across. And we also know that we don’t have all the answers, and so if you guys have answers, we’re soliciting your feedback, we’ll want your feedback so that we can provide well-rounded answers to the folks who are providing us the questions.

A couple of different ways, you’ll hear this throughout the as well, you can get us your questions by going to the listener line, that’s (317) 721-7124. You can also send them to our email at tech@Eastersealscrossroads.org, or send us a tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ, all great ways to get us your questions or your feedback.

Without further ado, we’re going to jump into some feedback that we got from our episode 194. And so this was Sandy from Utah, and she was responding to a question about smart glasses for the visually-impaired. This is what she had to say, she said, “I found the Ray-Ban glasses most useful for reading the dinner menus at my senior independent center in which I live. It’s also wonderful to not have to ask someone to read the menu for me. I also find them useful for learning where envelopes I receive in the mail and where they’re from.” And so a couple of practical uses for the Ray-Ban Smart glasses, and so I’m glad that someone has some practical experience with them and is using them in that way.

Yeah. And I appreciate her information, or her sharing that information with us as well. I think the Ray-Ban Meta glasses have become a hot topic recently, and I think a lot of people are a little confused about exactly what all they can do, as well as many people are excited about the things that they can actually do for them. And she identified two very commonly used purposes for them, and at least when I’ve recommended them that’s been a very major reason, is so that you can read whatever printed text is in front of you, whether it’s a menu or your snail mail. Not everybody wants to have somebody else read their personal mail. They want to be able to do that independently, and honestly, the Ray-Ban glasses have been one of the easiest hands-free, cheapest ways that I’ve known of, or learned about, I would say, over the last year or so. So thanks so much for sharing that.

Yeah, it’s really kind cool to see stuff like the Ray-Ban sunglasses, or not sunglasses, but regular glasses, I guess they can be sunglasses if you want them to be.

Yeah, yeah.

But anyways, I mean, it’s kind of nice to see these mainstream technologies start to take on some, what I would call an assistive technology flare to it, where it provides some really useful access to persons with disabilities, in this situation, someone who’s visually impaired, to be able to get access to things that are in their environment, really, really cool. So thank you Sandy, appreciate that feedback.

Now without further ado, we’re going to jump into our first question today. The first question is, my son uses the AbleNet Tracker Pro head mouse to access his iPad, but it looks like the Tracker Pro has been discontinued. Are there any recommended head mouse alternatives that would work well with iPads? And so yeah, I’ll just kind of open that up.

So I can start it off. And some of this depends on what kind of iPad you’re using, so if you’re using an iPad that has facial recognition on it, so I think that’s the pros. I don’t know if the regular iPads have the facial recognition or not. You’re supposed to be able to set up head tracking in your switch control, where it will actually look at your face, and I think it pretty much focuses on the nose, but it can actually use your face as the head tracker. So you don’t have to connect anything, you don’t have to put anything else on it.

I personally have not tried this, so I don’t know how well it really does work, but it says it’s very easy to set up. You can set facial expressions as your clicks, so basically, you can smile, or do different things like that, in order to actually click once you get the pointer to where you want. So that is an option, if you’ve got a newer iPad, and again, I think that’s just the pros. Brian, I could be wrong, but I don’t think the new iPad, regular iPad, I think it still does fingerprint or something like that.

Yeah, I believe you’re right.

I bought myself an iPad mini, oh, about a year ago, so not too long ago, but it does not have facial recognition, it’s still just the finger.

Okay.

So now that was the mini, but I would tend to believe that you’re probably correct about that. And a head mouse that’s going to work with the iPad is not something that I am familiar with at all, but I did a very quick Google search, and came back with the HeadMouse Nana or Nano. Have you guys heard of that? Is that a thing?

Yes, that’s a great one. Yeah.

Yeah, it seemed like the research that I pulled up on it very quickly, was exciting, but then I seen the price, and I was like, “Oh, yeah, it’s kind of expensive.”

Yeah. And actually, what I have heard too, is that HeadMouse Nano is also kind of hard to find these days. It’s still available from some suppliers, but it’s harder to find. And so if you can’t find the… Although the Able Net Tracker Pro has been discontinued, you can get the head mouse, but it’s going to be harder for you to find, and so you might have to search for that for a little bit.

Why do you suppose that is, Brian?

I’m kind of thinking it’s probably there’s parts and pieces that are manufactured in different places, and finding those parts and pieces may be difficult. I don’t know.

Well, I think it’s a little bit that, and it’s a little bit that things are becoming built-in.

That’s what I was wondering.

And not just that, if you really think when these things were first made, you didn’t have cameras in every single device. I mean, your laptop has a camera in it, your tablet has two cameras on it, your phone, all these things. So I think, and I would guess you’ll probably see them move more towards the app and the software kind of side of it, because they really don’t have to build the camera anymore, it’s already there.

Yeah. Not to mention not as high quality cameras either. I mean, you used to have cameras, but they had devices that had cameras, but not as high quality as they are today, so yeah.

True, true, true. Yeah, yeah. But now with the importance of those, you can kind of see it. And before we get too deep into that, I did find one other that I know we’ve kind of used, and I don’t even know, I’m going to guess this isn’t available, with just the way we’re going, but is it GlassOuse? Is that the one, Brian?

Yeah, mm-hmm.

But I’m pretty sure you can connect that and use all different kinds of things, head movements and other stuff. Now, if they’re on a computer, there are some other options. There’s software like Smyle Mouse, or even Cephable that I know that you can put on, that can do a lot of head tracking and kind of movement stuff, and they’re a little less expensive. But on an iPad, yeah, the ones you guys mentioned, and then the built-ins are really the easier way to go, that I found at least.

Yes, yep. GlassOuse is a really great one for folks. You will probably need to mess with your iPad accessibility settings to make sure you can optimize that pointer control. There’s another one out there too, we’ve seen this at ATIA and a couple of the other assistive technology conferences. I don’t know how to say the first word. It’s Q-U-H-A, Quha?

Oh, Quha.

Yeah, something like that. But Quha Zono, it’s Q-U-H-A. Zono, Z-O-N-O-2, and that’s a wireless mouse that can be worn on your head, your hand, or even your glasses, but it does pair with Bluetooth, it does work with the iPads pointer control that you can find in the accessibility setting. So, yeah.

Brian, that’s the one that looks almost like an old-school… Oh, the little Bluetooth kind of headset. You can hang it kind of on your ear, and yeah, you can do the pointing.

Yeah, yeah.

I didn’t mention that one because I can’t pronounce it, so I wanted you to go through that so I didn’t have to.

I’ve never understood how to say that first name.

Me neither.

Quha Zono. I don’t know, I’m just going to make my best guess. But all good ways to be able to get there as well. And really, Josh, I think, I mean you’re hitting the nail on the head with just in the future, I think that stuff’s going to kind of be built in. I mean, every time they come out with a new version of iOS, there seems to be more and more accessibility features that kind of used to take some sort of proprietary hardware to make it work, now it’s just built right into the software, so that’s really cool. I was also going to throw out there the PCI by Tony, by Tony, the brother of Tobii. No, Tobii Dynavox, PCI. I mean, it’s not really head control, it’s really eye control at that point, which is different, but it does offer maybe some similar features for you to be able to just simply look at different things on the screen and be able to control that as well. Something to also consider, it’s going to be expensive. Anything that involves eye control sometimes can be a little expensive, and so-

If you’re getting to those, there’s different eye tracking systems. So if that is something the person wants to look at, just that kind of plug of reach out to your ATX provider, because like Brian said, those things are quite expensive. So there’s a chance your ATF provider may not have a lot of them in stock, but kind of reach out, because if they have some of those in their lending library, you might be able to try some out and see if maybe an eye tracking system is the way to go. And then just what one works best for the individuals. Some of them have different bells, different whistles, or a little easier to set up, or harder to set up. But it could be just if you’re used to using a head mouse and using the different kinds of movements with that, eye tracking might be a little tough to move to, or it may actually even open up some more doors, and be even more accessible, so I’d say definitely try it out.

But I know in our lab we have a HeadMouse Nano set up. We have different eye tracking devices so people can come in and try those out. And if you ever do want to find our library, or anything like that, you can go to Eastersealstech.com, and if you unfortunately aren’t in Indiana, you can do Eastersealstech.com/states and find your local ATX too.

Excellent, excellent. Well, hey, I would love to open this question up to our listeners. If you have any feedback regarding this, kind of looking for head mouse alternatives for the iPad, we’d love to hear from you. You can give us a call on our listener line, that’s (317) 721-7124, or you can send us an email at tech@Eastersealscrossroads.org. Again, we’d love to hear from you. Thanks so much.

All right, so our next question is, my mom is visually-impaired and we’re looking for an analog style clock or watch that can announce the time out loud. Ideally, it would also allow for other voice messages and alerts, like medication reminders. Are there any accessible clock or watch options that offer these features?

There are. There are lots of different talking watches, but to find one that will allow you to customize, or even have reminders, is the challenge. But if you go to Amazon and just put in “Talking watches,” you’ll find that there are lots of them out there. From my quick Amazon search, the one that grabbed my attention was one called Five Senses, and that’s because it’s like a jumbo smart talking watch with the voice reminders. The concern that I have with it is it does require a connection with a smartphone. So if you’re looking to just have an independent watch for your mom, and maybe she don’t have a smartphone and no one living in the household does, that might not be the best option. But I did, if I understood it correctly, once the watch is set up and the reminders have been created on the app, the phone and the watch don’t necessarily have to be in the same area.

So it might be that you could actually set the watch up, leave it with your mom, and leave with your smartphone, and it would still work. I’m not 100% sure about that. But that was the one that caught my attention from Amazon. So then I said, “Well, wait a minute. If I were looking for this type of device, I would jump over to LS&S products and take a look, because they too have lots,” actually I think it was 220 different devices that came back on my search.

Now these are watches and clocks, and not all of them do offer the reminders, so you’ll want to be careful to look and make sure that the one that you’re interested in does have the reminder feature. And they start at like $10, and they go up to $100. So all different price range, all different shapes and sizes. This also would be a good opportunity to check with your local assistive technology act to see if they have a selection that you might be able to try out. Because I do know, and I hear very clearly, the listener’s question about one that is clear, because the voices can sometimes be very hard to understand.

Right.

And I know that some people want a male voice, some people want a female voice, and so all of those things could be tested. And then I also just lastly want to throw out there a smart assistant. If you could get a small Dot or a Google Home device, all those things could happen in one place, with just a simple question, with “What time is it,” and have a reminder that would pop up and say “It’s 2:00, take your noon meds,” or “It’s noon, you need to eat your lunch,” those kinds of things. And those smart assistants are so easy to use nowadays, once they’re set up, and the only downfall to that is what, you have to have internet in the area to be able to use those. So that is an option that could make that not be a good choice.

But LS&S Products, you can just Google that if you have access to the internet. They have lots and lots of different devices that you can look at. Also, I will tell you, they’re very friendly. If you see something that you want more information on, or you have a question, give them a call. They’re happy to help you over the phone. I’ve had to call them many a times to get… Because they don’t give a whole lot of detail on some of their products, but they’re happy to share that with you if you give them a call.

Yeah. And I’ve had to call them before, and I don’t think they had the answers, and they got me in touch with the people that made it. So it was, yeah, they’re extremely helpful. I’ll go with everything Belva said. Yeah, they have everything from a just one button that you touch and it automatically gives you the time, up to some that can do a few voice reminders.

I wanted to throw one in there called Reminder Rosie 2. It’s not analog, it is a digital clock, so you’re not going to have that, but it has voice reminders. It can be set up to very, very loud. So if you need some change, or some kind of extra sound to be able to do, you can also record up to 25 different voice alarms. So instead of having something go off at 8:30 in the morning, it can be a loved one’s voice saying, “Hey, mom, take the pills labeled M,” or “The red pill,” or whatever it is that they might need, or “Hey, don’t forget to feed the cat,” or whatever it might be. Again, you can have all different kinds. You can set them up daily, weekly, every other day, however you want those to do. Also, if I remember correctly, it’s pretty easy to use. You don’t have to be a genius. You set an alarm and it walks you through how to record, how to save it, how to set it up for times, and it does not [inaudible 00:18:42].

It’s pretty inexpensive too, isn’t it, Josh?

It’s a little over $100.

Oh, okay.

It’s not super duper cheap. I think this is the kind of newer version, so maybe the older version might’ve been a little bit cheaper. But it still, I mean, has some pretty good features, if that’s what you need, and that’s going to be able to help you. But kind like you said, you can also just touch it and it’ll tell you what time it is too, so it does have that kind of feature.

But I know for some folks, and Belva, you mentioned it, that voice drives me crazy, and I hate that thing, always telling me… If it’s a loved one’s voice, make sure it’s a loved one that doesn’t drive them crazy, but you could record those things too. So I know we’ve got at least one of them in our library, maybe the older version, but I know some folks have used that for queuing and staying on task, and other things like that. So it’s another option that might be able to help, but definitely go check out LS&S, and even Amazon, because yeah, there’s tons of different ones, from very simple, where you can record one or two different things, or just tell you the time, up to very high tech and have lots of different features.

I know LS&S also has the necklace watch, and some of the ladies that I’ve worked with over the years have preferred that rather than having something on their wrist, because they’re afraid when they wash their hands they’re going to get it wet, or something. And they’re kind of stylish. And two, they can be programmed to have the reminders, if you pick the right one. So, yeah.

You guys didn’t mention Maxi-Aids earlier. I just wondered, do you guys still refer folks to Maxi-Aids as well? They’re very similar to LS&S Products.

Yep, yep.

Okay. Excellent, excellent. Well, hey, I want to open this up to our listeners. If you guys are familiar with analog clock or watch that could be able to give voice reminders, specifically for things like medication reminders, and other types of things, we’d love to hear from you. You can give us a call on our listener line, that’s (317) 721-7124, or send us an email at tech@Eastersealscrossroads.org. Thanks so much.

All right, so our next question is are there caregiver paging or monitor systems that can be used for an elderly person with muscular dystrophy who needs to alert their spouse at night without using Alexa or Google Assistant? So something that would allow someone to alert their spouse if they’re in another room, or something to that effect.

So I mean, I guess we actually turned on Belva’s devices, I think.

Yeah, she’s answered that question.

Sorry about that.

Yeah, she was answering your question, Brian.

Don’t let her replace us yet. Don’t let her replace us yet.

There are literally a ton of these things, just all different kinds. So it sort of depends, because it said to kind of alert a loved one. So is that loved one on site? Is it somebody in the house? Is it some kind of system they need for that, or is it someone remote? So is it the daughter-in-law down the road? Is it my son three states away? I guess the first thing you got to look at is who are we trying to alert? Not to jump on Belva’s bandwagon, but if you go to Amazon, and seriously, just look up “Caregiver pagers,” or “Call button for caregivers,” there are just absolute tons of them with lots and lots of reviews. Another option is, and I don’t know if this would fall too much into the smart home assistant thing, but I know a few people that have the Simply Safe wireless kind of… Oh, it’s like a home security thing. It runs off your internet, but it gives you door locks, and those kind of things.

They have add-ons that you can have essentially, like panic buttons, or caregiver call buttons attached to it, that can essentially make the device screech. It can alert other folks, and other things like that. And I don’t think you have to have the whole home security in order to do that. But it’s another option that is maybe a little bit more involved, but it could alert a lot more people at once. Plus, if you buy something off Amazon that looks like it’s going to be great, you may or may not have support, whereas this is kind of a company that’s probably going to have support. It may have an extra cost, and you probably have to have Wi-Fi for, so it really depends on what you’re looking for. For something that someone can wear all the time, and again, are we trying to alert someone in the house, someone outside the home, the authorities? There’s so many, many different kinds of questions, I guess, I have for which one might be best for this kind of need.

I’m thinking that it might be someone outside of it, but I’m thinking, I’m guessing, because of them not wanting to be Alexa-

You know what, I guess it says “Alert their spouse,” so I’m assuming they might be in the same house.

Well, yeah, but okay, then maybe it’s Wi-Fi that they’re trying to avoid.

It could be, or just having something listening to them, maybe that’s kind of the thing that they’re looking for.

Right, yeah. It sounds like a very unique situation though, and I think this would definitely be one of those areas where if you could try it, or just reach out to the Assistive Technology Act to see what devices they might have, or that could be offered for you to try out. It sounds like it would be a perfect solution for the old-fashioned pager, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. Where you just push a button and it makes a buzz on somebody else’s end, but I don’t even know if those are things that you can even still get anymore.

I was going to say we actually have a couple of those types of systems. We’ve had a couple of situations that we’ve had somebody ask us to put something like that into our library, so we’ve got a couple of options. I believe one of them is called the Call to You Wireless Caregiver Pager, and Call to U, it’s the letter U, not the spelled out word you. But basically the person wears it, has a wearable button, and then the other person, as they walk around the house, or wherever, they’ve got a receiver. Whenever that person pushes that button, it’ll basically send a chime or a vibration to the whatever the other person is wearing, that receiver. So simple setup, you don’t require internet. They talk directly to each other, and I think it’s pretty inexpensive, something like 30 to $60. It’s not very expensive.

Another one that we’ve done before too, is I think we’ve done in different situations, different types of intercom systems. There are plug and play intercom systems that you can put around your house. This would work very similarly to the Alexa. So depending on, you’ve got Alexas spread out throughout your house, you can communicate between them. However, by the way, I’m sorry I keep turning your smart speaker on.

Every time.

And quite frankly, for everybody else that’s listening to this podcast, I apologize. But basically, yeah, you basically plug these in, and you can have voice-to-voice communication between rooms, because every one of them are meant to be able to communicate inter-connectively with each other. So you don’t have to press a button, you can just start to speak, and that basically two-way system kind of speaker system that you have, microphone system that you have will allow that, your voice to go into those different areas of the home. And those are a little bit more expensive but not too much, and so just a couple of options there as well. I would, Josh mentioned it earlier, Belva mentioned it with the last question, but check out the library. I do know we’ve got a couple of those systems in our library here in Indiana, and if you don’t live in Indiana, as Josh mentioned before, you can go to eastersealstech.com/states and find your local assistive technology act.

I also wonder if inexpensive walkie talkie set would be something that could possibly work in this situation. I know when the grandkids were little, we played with those throughout the house, and scared them a couple of times with them, but yeah, it might be something to look at. Those are usually battery-operated though, so I’m not sure how reliable that would be without making sure that you keep up on the battery. But, yeah.

Great information, guys. I appreciate that. Hey, I want to open this up to our listeners, if you have any feedback regarding this type of situation, I’m sure this happens all the time in people’s homes, especially if you’re trying to care for a loved one, you want to know what’s going on, and if they have a need, you want to be able to find out about that quickly. If you have any suggestions, or information about something that you guys have used in the past, we’d love to hear from you. You can give us a call on our lister line, that’s (317) 721-7124, or you can send us an email at Tech@Eastersealscrossroads.org. Thanks so much.

All right, so our next question is what assistive technology options are available to help individuals with visual impairments navigate public spaces independently?

So recently, as recent as Friday of last week, and this is Monday, so very recently, I learned about a new device that is expected to, I guess, be released sometime, perhaps maybe this month, called Glide. So Glide is a AI-powered mobility aid, and it’s designed to help people obviously, that are blind or visually-impaired. And it’s a wayfinding device, that it reminds me when I look at it as the little popper toys that we probably all had for our children, or played with ourselves.

Oh, the little popcorn thing that you push and the little balls pop up, the little circle kind of on wheels with a handle, yeah.

Yes, yes, yep. So it’s got a little, I guess we’ll call it the brain, at the bottom, on two wheels, and then a handle that you hold onto, and you just kind of push it in front of you, and it’s going to use AI to give you information about your obstacles in front of you and whatever the safe path might be. Now, I think that this could be interesting. Am I leery of it? Absolutely, I always am. Whenever there’s a new technology, I always want to wait and see how it really acts when it’s in the hands of the real users. But you can go to their website and pre-order today, with them saying that they’ll hopefully be released sometime spring of May, or I’m sorry, spring of 2025, so I think we’re about to be there. So that’s called Glide, G-L-I-D-E. Looks to be pretty interesting, and I understand that it’s got the attention of a lot of folks. And I understand that they were not at ATIA, but they were at… What’s the other one? The other big-

CSUN?

CSUN. So they did have it there, and I guess that’s one of the ways that they got the word out on it. So that’s one way. Another one, and Josh, I’m going to fall back on you, this is one that I don’t never say it right, IRA. IRA, is that right?

I think so. I think so. That’s how I always say it.

Okay. Didn’t you have them on your podcast?

Yes.

Okay. I thought so, so I was going to fall back on you to talk a little bit more about that.

I think that’s right. It’s been a while. It’s been a while.

Yeah. And it’s my understanding that some universities and big places that were offering this free, are starting to backtrack on that. It started with the pandemic, and because the pandemic’s gone now, I guess, they’ve decided that maybe they don’t want to offer it as freely. But it can still be a monthly fee that an individual can use too. It’s an app basically, on your smartphone, and what they do is they provide you with sighted interpreting for the environment around you. So if you’re looking for the stairway or the elevator, you basically contact the sighted person, let them, through your phone, see where you are, and they can try to guide you that way. There is their fee-based thing, and it’s very, to me, complicated. I mean, I want things that are simple, and when I went to try to make some sense out of it, I found it to be very complicated.

So I’m not even going to pretend that I know how much it costs, nor am I going to try to share that information with you. I will just direct you to their website to get that information. There’s also Be My Eyes, which is a smartphone app. Again, that’s a visual interpreter. You’re going to call up someone who’s volunteering and they will help you try to figure out where the stairwell is, the elevator is, the bathroom, whatever it is you’re looking for, what street signs, whatever. That is totally free, and also it’s a smartphone app. I will say that my partner, when he gets stuck somewhere and I’m not right beside him, he uses FaceTime, and he calls me up and says, “Hey, what’s in front of me? I’m looking for door number four. Help me find door number four.” So that’s also another free alternative. But if you want more information on Glide, you can go Google it, G-L-I-D-E Assistive Technology Device for Visually Impaired.

And then also AIRA, is A-I-R-A, and I couldn’t find it when I just put that in, but I put in “AIRA for the blind,” and then I found it. So those are what I’ve got. Now, people are trying to convince me that these Ray-Ban Meta glasses are supposed to be a good visual interpreter, and I’m not buying it. Again, my partner has the Ray-Ban glasses and they’re great. There’s a lot of things that they can do, and I wouldn’t say that they shouldn’t be used for mobility, but I would say that I don’t think that they are a standalone mobility tool. I think that if you, for example, are taking public transportation, and you need to kind of verify where it is that you’re being let out at, or something like that, if you’ve got the Ray-Ban glasses and your smartphone in your pocket and you want to see where it is that you’re getting out, or something like that, that might be okay. Or to make sure that you’re hopping into the right car, that might be okay.

But as far as using it to walk around inside a building and try to find a specific door, or the elevators, or the restrooms, or something like that, I’m not seeing that it’s going to be a good tool for that just yet. Now they’re partnered with Be My Eyes, if I’m understanding correctly. And if they have partnered with Be My Eyes, then yes, it would give you a hands-free option for using Be My Eyes instead of having to pull your phone out and use Siri to make that call for you, you would be able to do that without having your phone in hand. So I don’t know, that one’s still in the air for me. But I do know, and again, I can’t wait. I will be asking our library to get that Glide as soon as we can get it, that’s for sure. By the way, I did see the price on it. It’s around $1,100, so it is not going to be a cheap device. Yeah, I know, Brian’s chin hit the floor.

Did you say $1,100 or $11,000?

No, I said $1,100.

Oh, okay. That’s a little bit better.

Yeah, not $11,000, but hey, that wouldn’t scare us too bad either, right?

Right.

But no, it’s not going to be cheap, as most of these things are not, so-

Very cool. Belva, I just wanted to ask, have you heard of Good Maps?

No, I haven’t.

Good Maps is a mapping program that I’ve heard a lot about at conferences, at conferences like ATIA used them last year, which is the Assistive Technology Industry Association, for their vendor hall and for basically, where the conference was being held. But basically, it’s an indoor or outdoor navigation system, that uses… Within buildings, you use basically a camera-based mapping system. And since ATIA used them, I just wanted to mention that. I don’t think it’s for everyday individual use, I think it’s for companies to implement within their building, so that if someone did come in who’s visually-impaired, they’d be able to open up the Good Maps app and have access to the things that are inside their building. So I just wanted to throw that out because I’ve been hearing more and more about them, from the different conferences that I attend, and they’re partnering with some of these bigger players in the ATIA industry to be able to kind of help with navigation for folks who are blind or visually-impaired at the conferences that they throw. So anyways, it’s called Good Maps.

Yeah, Brian, that’s great information. Actually, I just Googled it and pulled it up, it does look like that it’s just a real-time GPS navigation system, both indoor and outdoor, so that’s interesting. Yeah.

Yeah. Josh, it looks like you were about to say something. What were you thinking?

Brian, for Good Maps, do they have to give a map of the inside of the place? It doesn’t just automatically have it, right, for indoors, if I remember right. But anyway, that’s what-

I think you’re right. But, yeah.

Yeah, I feel like it kind of has to be mapped. But a few other ones, do people still use Blind Square? I can’t remember. I don’t even know.

Yes. Yes, they do.

When getting around. It does a really good job of… Think of, oh, if you’re using Google Maps or something like that, and you’re walking around, especially like a metropolitan area, it might tell you, “Hey, up on the right’s a coffee shop,” or “Hey, up here on the left’s a really great Vietnamese restaurant,” or something. Blind Square Kind does the same thing, you go in your location, but it’ll actually tell you a little bit more information about what’s all around you, and really help you find anything that you might need.

And if you’re using Blind Square inside a building, now, correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that building have to have the beacons throughout the building for you to be able-

Yeah.

Yes, okay.

It does. It does. Now, outdoors, I think it’s just using your GPS and information from other things, from Foursquare, from some other kind of programs and apps, to give you that information. But yes, indoor, if you want to, you can add these beacons that make your place Uber-accessible, and will give them even more information once they come inside. And then talking about the standalone devices, Humanware makes something called the Stellar Trek, which uses artificial intelligence, the cameras on it and everything, to really give you a little extra audio guidance. It’s supposed to be able to identify street addresses, entrances to places, landmarks, crosswalks, and things coming up, and all these other information. Really, it kind of says it gives you audio guidance for the last 40-feet of the journey.

So my GPS app might tell me how far I have to walk, even what crosswalks are coming up, but then how do I know where the door is on the building, and other stuff like that. And then as we talk about tech and everything else, I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t get around without their white cane or their service animal, or those kind of pieces of technology. I don’t know if we can count a dog as technology, but I would. I wish we had dogs in our own library that I could just play with every day, I think that would make my job even more fun, but-

I would be a big advocate for that. So, yes.

Yes, yes, extra dogs in the loan library. But these are definitely still pieces of technology that are very important, and really a lot of folks with visual impairments use them every single day. And most of the things we’ve talked about today supplement those accommodations as opposed to replace them.

Right, right. And that’s very important, I’m glad you pointed that out, because that’s one of the things that’s kind of worrying me right now, is I think that people are thinking that, for example, that the Ray-Bans might be a replacement for having their cane or having their dog, and that’s absolutely not the case. Nothing replaces the cane or the dog. So that’s important, I’m really glad that you mentioned that.

Well, hey, I would love to take a minute just to open this up to our listeners, if you guys have any feedback on this, again, maps for navigating public… And I cannot say places or whatever today, my gosh. Navigating public spaces independently, this would be buildings, other types of inside locations a lot, but it could be also outside as well. But if you guys have any information on that, we’d love to hear from you. You can give us a call on our listener line, that’s (317) 721-7124, or send us an email at Tech@Eastersealscrossroads.org. Thanks so much.

And now it’s time for the wild card question.

All right, so the next question is our wild card question, and this question is something that we haven’t had any time to prepare for, but the question for today is this: what’s an outdated or retro piece of assistive technology you wish would make a comeback and why?

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. So I just Googled mine and I forgot, they have brought it back.

What? Your wish came true.

Yes, yes. My wish came true. Mine was the Jordy. Do you remember the old Jordy that was hands-free?

It’s back?

Yeah.

It’s not the same thing. It’s not the same.

Okay, well, goodness. Thank goodness.

From users who used it before, it’s not the same.

Okay, good. Because I was very concerned when I Googled it and I pulled up one, and I was like, “What?” Yes, so it was the Jordy. And the reason that that was so cool to me at the time, was because I had consumers that were using it to do their job in different ways, but it was a hands-free magnifying device that individuals that were visually-impaired. Now for blind, it was not a device meant, it was meant for individuals that had different vision impairment, and it would allow them to magnify and also change their contrast colors. So for example, I had a gentleman whose job was to do something mechanically for the water temperatures for the zoo, to help make sure that the animals that were in the water, what do you call those, the aquatic section, that all of the mixtures were exactly right and the temperatures were exactly right. And without his Jordy, he just couldn’t simply see that no matter how hard he tried. But with his Jordy, he could see all that information, and it was beautiful.

Also had folks that were doing repairs on different things. Like I had a young man who was a transmission repair person, and he used his Jordy to be able to look down inside the transmission and see different parts that he needed to see. So when that went away, it was very disappointing to a lot of folks. And the reason that it went away, it went away without them admitting that it was gone. They left us believing that it was going to come back. But the reason that it was gone was because what I was told, they needed a 50-cent piece, and that’s what they called it, was a 50-cent piece that they could get nowhere but one country that was no longer producing it, and that one piece prevented them totally from being able to make the Jordy.

Now, the Jordy wasn’t anything fancy to look at. It was a big device that was probably pretty uncomfortable to have to wear for long periods of time, but the fact that it did what these people needed it to do made it very worthy, in my opinion. So yes, and I guess the new Jordy is out and it looks cool. The Jordy name came after the guy. It was named after the guy from Star Trek, and that is a true fact. And I guess the new one does look a little sleeker and maybe cuter, but if you say it doesn’t operate the same, then I’ll trust you on that, because I’ve not seen the new one, so I don’t know.

Now that’s what I’ve been told, just from someone who used it, I think used to use the old one, and said it’s not quite the same. Now, that was quite a few years too, their vision could have been very different between those two times, or couldn’t remember it, or just sometimes you like something and nothing’s going to replace it.

Right, right.

So yeah, I know that’s definitely something. So Brian, I’ll go real quick. Can I just say non-subscription based AT, is that-

Hey, there you go.

Oh, my God.

You can definitely say that.

That would be really nice. Belva, I’m not 100% sure, but I’m pretty sure that Glide you talked about, I think it has a monthly fee too.

It does. It absolutely does.

So again, it’s $1,100 out of the box, and then a monthly fee. Well, we’re not probably going to have it in the library because we can’t have monthly fees constantly. So anyway, so I guess if I really had to answer, it’d be that. But no, mine’s very simple, it is a free app that used to be on the phone, called HP Reveal. And it was an app that was made for advertising essentially. You’d open the app, you’d hold your phone up to a movie poster, and suddenly the trailer for the movie would play, which sounds neat, sounds fun, sounds cool, but you could make your own. So I could take a picture of a giant dishwashing machine in the back room of a restaurant, and then record a video of how to use that machine, so that if somebody’s working there and they need some queuing and some prompting, they just open that app, hold their phone up, and suddenly I walk out from behind the machine and teach them how to use it.

So it was super simple. You didn’t have to print out QR codes, you didn’t have to do much. It was pretty darn simple to really use, to record, to set up. It did not take hardly any time. I mean, it was you hit record, you took a picture of the thing you wanted to use, and that was the end of it. So it was great. It was free, it worked. I know it worked on iPhone, I never tried it on Android, but it was great, and it was just called HP Reveal. It was called something else before that, it changed to that, and then one day it just went away.

And I don’t know, it’s again, not the most high tech thing in the world, but man, if you were trying to make instructions for somebody on how to use a device, or on the job, or other things like that, it was so intuitive, because as long as you could just snap that picture of what it is they were trying to do, it was pretty darn simple to use. So I did like it. Plus it was really great to demonstrate, and it always made people go, “Whoa, wow,” and then you hear them all with it on their phone messing with it.

Awesome.

And I like both of yours, Josh, because both of them, they’re not real high tech things, but they’re things that were simple and cheap, or even free.

And useful.

Yeah, useful.

Just plain useful.

Yeah.

Well, hopefully you’ll like mine too, Belva.

Okay. What you got, Brian?

It’s also the Jordy. It’s also the Jordy, you’ll love it.

Let me throw this one out there to you, my favorite keyboard of all time was the IntelliKey’s keyboard.

Yes.

I miss the IntelliKey’s keyboard. If folks aren’t familiar with the IntelliKey’s keyboard, it’s a flat keyboard and it responds to touch, so it makes it a lot easier for folks with limited motor control to be able to use it. It had customizable overlays, so you had a QWERTY keyboard, an alphabetical keyboard, you had a internet keyboard, different types of overlays, and you could completely customize the overlay depending on the application that you were in, if you needed to. And really, what I loved about it is it was so nice that it was super flat. I could position that in front of really anybody. If they’re in a wheelchair, I could get it down into their lap, so they could just simply pull right up to the desk. And it was just really helpful, it had built-in features like sticky keys, filter keys, those types of things to be able to kind of really help adjust the touch settings for the particular person’s use case, as far as can they get their finger on and off a keyboard key in time.

I could set that up, that delay to really any amount of time, to make it easier for them to use. It was just such a nice customizable keyboard, and they don’t make it anymore. You can still find some resources, and you still have access to a few in a couple of different places. I know we have a couple of those keyboards still in our library. But they’re no longer made or manufactured, and so what we have is what we have, and is what we’re going to have forever. So I wish someone would take that and redo it, and bring it back. That’s really my hope for that, is that keyboard.

And the best part about that keyboard was it was so easy to clean. It wasn’t like other keyboards, if it got gooey, you just could wipe it off and it was ready to go again, nice and fresh. So yeah, that’s a good, interesting one. I remember when I very first seen that, I thought, “Oh, my gosh, this has got to be so complicated because it’s got all these different overlays.” But it was so simple.

Just slide them in, slide them out. It automatically recognizes it, and you’re good to go. Well, hey, I would love to open this up to our listeners. If you guys have any feedback on a piece of outdated retro assistive technology that you’ve used and want to see come back, let us know. Love to hear from you, you can give us a call on our listener line, that’s (317) 721-7124, or send us an email at tech@Eastersealscrossroads.org. Again, we’d love to hear from you. Thanks so much.

Well, hey, let me also, before we jump off here, just take a moment to thank Josh and Belva for being here, give them a chance to say goodbye. So first I’ll start with Belva.

Thanks everybody, and we’ll see you the next time.

Excellent. And Josh?

Thanks so much, everybody. Keep the feedback coming, we always need your input as well.

Yeah, please do. Feedback, questions, we need those. And thank you guys so much for taking the time to listen to us today. Have a great month, and we’ll talk to you next month.

Information provided on Assistive Technology FAQ does not constitute a product endorsement. Our comments are not intended as recommendations, nor is our show evaluative in nature. Assistive Technology FAQ is hosted and produced by Brian Norton. It’s editorial help from Josh Anderson, Belva Smith, and Tracy Castillo. Receives support from Easterseals Crossroads in the INDATA project. The show transcript is sponsored by InTRAC, the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation. To learn more about InTRAC, go to Indianarelay.com. Assistive Technology FAQ is also a proud member of the Accessibility Channel. To find more of our shows, go to accessibilitychannel.com.