ATU767 – Blindshell Classic 3 with Diane Ducharme and Kamila Tljašova Part 1

Hi, this is Diane from BlindShell, and I am the user experience tester and product trainer.

Hi, this is Kamila. I’m from BlindShell, and this is your assistive technology update.

Hello, and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology, designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson, with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 767 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on February 6th, 2026.

On today’s show, we are welcoming Diane and Kamila from BlindShell on to tell us all about the BlindShell Classic 3. And we’re also joined by our friends from BridgingApps with an app worth mentioning.

Also, I just want to let you folks know a few things that are coming up. First of all, this is the first week back from ATIA. Unfortunately, this year I was not able to go, but some members of our team were able to go, so I will work to get them here in the studio to talk all about their experiences, the coolest stuff they saw, and everything like that. So make sure you watch out for that episode coming out sometime soon.

Also, it sounds like the groundhog saw his shadow. So while I don’t understand much about meteorology or especially how groundhogs have anything to do with it, looks like we’re going to have about six more weeks of winter. So we hope wherever you are, you’re staying warm and safe.

And don’t forget, maybe while you’re stuck inside with some cold or bad weather, you can always reach out to us. You could call our listener line at 317-721-7124, or shoot us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. We always love hearing from you. If you’ve got a question, a comment, a way that we can improve, something that you’d really love to learn more about, or ideas for guests, please do not hesitate to reach out and let us know.

I also wanted to let everybody know that they have announced that National Assistive Technology Awareness Day here in the US will be on Wednesday, April 22nd this year. So I know that’s still quite a ways away, a little over two months, but usually we don’t get a lot of notice. Usually it seems like we find out sometime in March, or at very best the end of February, when AT Awareness Day will be. So I just wanted to make sure that I let everybody know that that was coming up. We’ll have some wonderful events here planned at Easterseals Crossroads in the INDATA project, and we’re going to do our best to maybe even try to do some remote things there for the day. So make sure to look out for that. But mark your calendars for April 22nd, 2026 for AT Awareness Day.

As always, listeners, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to give us a listen. Let’s go ahead and get on with the show.

You find yourself with a little bit more time on your hands, or maybe listening to this has you thinking. Well, what about this? Well, what about that? Well, if you have questions about assistive technology, we have other podcasts that might just fit your needs.

If you happen to have questions about assistive technology, we have Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions or ATFAQ. The show is hosted by Brian Norton and features yours truly along with Belva Smith as we all talk about assistive technology with questions that come in from email, phone calls, and other means. We also don’t always know the answer, so it’s very important that we have listeners that can help us out with some of those questions, because while we like to think every once in a while that we may know everything, we’re proven wrong almost daily on that one.

So if you’re looking for more podcasts to listen to, or if you have questions about assistive technology, make sure to check out Assistive Technology frequently asked questions wherever you get your podcasts.

Listeners, next up on the show, we’re very excited to welcome back Ale Gonzalez from BridgingApps with an app worth mentioning.

This is Ale Gonzalez with BridgingApps, and this is an app worth mentioning. This week’s featured app is called Meds and Pill Reminder My Therapy. My Therapy is a free medication and refill reminder app in which users are also able to record measurements, symptoms, and doctor visits in the integrated patient diary.

After downloading the app, users have the option to create an account or use the app as a guest user. Creating an account allows users to log into the app from other devices and see all their medications and entries. My Therapy would greatly benefit anyone who is looking for a way to manage their medications, whether it is just one or several.

The app is compatible with voiceover and spoken content. A favorite feature that truly sets My Therapy apart from other medication reminder apps is the critical alerts feature that allows medication reminders to come through, even when a device is muted or set to do not disturb.

My Therapy is extremely intuitive and pairs well with wearable devices like an Apple Watch. This is an app that is great at allowing users to independently manage their medication, but still have access to accountability and support if needed. It allows all family members and caregivers to become involved in an individual’s care by allowing users to share a copy of their medication information so that everyone knows what meds they are on.

Meds and Pill Reminder My Therapy is currently available for both Android and iOS devices and is free to download with optional in-app purchases. For more information on this app and others like it, visit www.bridgingapps.org.

Listeners, today we are excited to welcome Diane and Kamila to the show. They’re here to tell us about the BlindShell Classic 3 phone and how it’s making communication and cell phones more accessible for individuals who are blind or low vision, and we cannot wait to learn more. Now we had Diane on the show way back in 2023, and we’re looking forward to find out what’s new and improved with a new version of the BlindShell Classic 3. Diane, Kamila, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Glad to be back.

Yeah. I am excited to get into talking about the tech, but before we do that, could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourselves?

So my name is Diane Ducharme and I am a user experience tester and product trainer. So you may say, what does all that mean? So basically, I am a user of BlindShell, and I am also a tester of BlindShell.

So I’m also a beta tester. So if something new is released, I get the chance to play with it first and say, “Oh wow, this is so cool. I cannot wait until our customers can get this on their phones.” But basically, when I explain something to one of our customers, it’s coming from the fact that I use the device. So I am very familiar with the device, I know the ins and outs of the device, I can make recommendations on, okay, yeah, this is how it’s supposed to work and it does work that way, but you know what? I found out something really cool. Let’s try doing this.

So, that’s what all that user, tester, product trainer stuff, comes down to.

Awesome. Awesome. And Kamila, what about you?

I’m glad to support Diane because we are… BlindShell 3 is the center. So my role is to coordinate. I’m an account manager and innovation manager. So I work with our users and testers through all the English-speaking countries, from New Zealand to Canada. So we have, with Diane, very funny working hours sometimes. And we are very excited to hear different feedback from all over the world and try to incorporate those.

Oh, that is awesome. So for our listeners who have never kind of heard anything about BlindShell before, I guess let’s just start with, what is the BlindShell Classic and when was it started?

BlindShell actually is turning 12 years this year. It was born out of a university project in the center of Europe. The creators of BlindShell were caring about accessibility, and they came out working together with Union for the Blind in the Czech Republic.

They came up with their first, very first model of BlindShell. Since then, the phone has went through many, many iterations. And the last model, BlindShell 3 with AI, finally has won the best product award at the largest European event called SightCity, which is happening in Frankfurt every year and attracting thousands of users and distributors from all the world.

So it did go a long way through. And the core of that is having an accessible product, having a very simple product, and just creating something which makes life more simple and fun.

Awesome. And congratulations on winning there, because I know that’s definitely an awesome award and a really good honor. Well, I guess, so let’s talk about the BlindShell Classic 3. And before we get into all the kind of new features and even the AI, I guess, since we are on a podcast, no one can really see or touch the device, can you describe the device and what really sets it apart from maybe an iPhone, an Android phone, or the other kinds of things we think of whenever we kind of think of cell phone?

Oh, sure. The BlindShell is about five and a half inches tall. It’s about two and a half inches across, and it’s a little less than half an inch thick. And, on the front of the phone, there is a screen. It takes up about half of the length of the phone, half of the height of the phone.

Now, the screen is 99% of the time for display only, meaning I can touch it, I can tap it, I could pick it up. I’m not going to accidentally activate something, delete something, any of that stuff. It’s for display only. However, you do not need to see to be able to use the BlindShell, because it is voice activated and it has voice output.

It also has tactile buttons. If you can kind of hear that, I’m scratching them. They kind of remind me of a calculator button, or if you are old enough to remember a Chiclet, that’s kind of the shape that they are with the very pronounced dot on the number “5.”

So on the top of the phone, the tippy-top, there is a standard headphone jack with a flashlight protrusion. And on the bottom is a standard USB-C charging port. On the left skinny side of the phone, there’s only one bar over there. That’s your volume. It’s a rocker switch. And on the right skinny side of the phone, that is the gold button. That’s probably the button that people use the most. We call it the dictation button. So that’s the one that lets you into the AI, allows you to do apps, dictate, messages, anything like that.

On the back of the phone, there’s a recessed button, and that’s a designated SOS button that you could program anybody you want back there. So it could be 911, it could be a family member. Above the SOS button, there’s a camera, and also on the back of the phone is where you would hold it if you wanted to read your script talk labels or your NFC tags.

If you peel off the back of the phone, you’re going to find an external battery. And why that is important is because, especially when we have a weather situation, if you purchase an extra battery and keep it charged, when everybody else’s standard phone is dying, you have an extra battery to pop into your BlindShell to keep you going.

Also, it has a micro SD card slot, so you could put a very large SD card in there if you want to expand your storage. And it has two SIM card slots as well.

That is basically what it looks like and feels like. It’s very sturdy. It’s not a flimsy thing. I don’t recommend dropping it, but if you do, it can withstand pretty much. We do sell cases if that’s… If you feel more comfortable with the case on your phone, you can connect a lanyard to it as well. There’s a little lanyard slot on the bottom of the phone. But it has a nice form factor. It’s got a nice feel to it.

Nice. And thanks for starting with kind of the description. I mean, I do want to get into the tech, the new features and all those things. But I know at least from folks and users I’ve kind of talked to just being able to change the battery and having tactile buttons. So if we really think it’s the stuff that the first cell phones, or you know what I mean? Stuff that used to be taken for granted, but most cell phones, you can’t do that now. You don’t have tactile buttons. You can’t change the battery on your own or anything like that. So I love that those features are in there and able to make it more accessible.

And Diane is also our product trainer, so she could definitely share her experience of teaching someone using a BlindShell phone, and their learning time.

So obviously it depends on the person, but the learning curve on the BlindShell is pretty… I mean, you can do a lot in a short period of time. Kamila and I did a demonstration for a lady and her counselor, she’s, I say about 85. She never used any kind of technology before in her life. And in one hour, we had her making phone calls, sending a text message, going on YouTube and watching her favorite political personality.

So it’s pretty… I don’t want to say simple because I don’t want to… No pun intended. I don’t want to simplify that, but it’s intuitive. So once you learn how to use it with the buttons, the arrows, think of them as the bars, think of them as arrows. The top one takes you up a menu. The bottom one takes you down the menu.

You slide your finger to the left. That’s your okay button. That’s how you choose something. Or you slide your finger to the right, that’s how you back out of something. And every app will generally work the same way. So once you learn that, you could pretty much start and explore on your own. And it’s actually, it’s surprising to the new person when you put a BlindShell in their hand, how quickly they can learn how to do something, versus having to teach them gestures, and do I double tap, do I triple tap, how do I do that rotor thing? I picked up the phone and I lost what I was doing.

So it’s definitely a easier device to learn. And if you’re already a BlindShell two user, there’s really no learning curve to switch to a BlindShell 3. You get many more features, but you don’t have to worry about, “How do I use this,” because you already know.

Yeah. It’s very hard to swipe and tap when it’s snowing or raining, for example, or the weather is very cold. A lot of the screens would freeze. Well, BlindShell… I know Diane, you could use it even in your pocket, right? I mean, sometimes-

Yep. I can have my cane in one hand and the BlindShell on my pocket in the other hand and I’m just able to feel the button so I can maneuver it any way that I need to.

Oh, that’s awesome. And I’m sure for a lot of folks, it just probably… I don’t even know the right way to say it, but I know a lot of folks are not, I don’t want to say scared of technology, but just worried about that learning curve. And I’m sure that just having something a little more intuitive, their confidence probably grows a whole lot faster as well.

Oh, absolutely. Yes. Yeah. One of our customers actually said that her family did not allow her to have a cell phone because she was blind, and she purchased one off, on her own. She heard that some of her friends had it, purchased it on her own, sent a family member a text message and they were just like floored like, “Whose phone are you using?” And she goes, “It’s mine.”

And they’re like, “You’re blind. You can’t use a phone.” And it’s just breaking through barriers like that that just really excite me.

Thank you so much, Diane, for describing that. Well, let’s dig into some of the new kind of features. So I guess, as you said, the BlindShell Classic 3 does have artificial intelligence features and capabilities. Let’s talk about those. How does that help the user with access?

So BlindShell’s version of AI is called Luna and Luna is a way that you can, you can ask Luna all kinds of questions. She could do math problems, she could spell things for you. You also use Luna to open applications, to take a note, to do all kinds of things. But what I really like about Luna that I think is unique with BlindShell… So I’m turning up my volume so you can hear it. I can ask Luna to add a contact, so I could do that just by my voice. So I could quickly just do a demo of that.

I listen after the beep.

Add a contact. So Luna is opening up into the contact section.

Luna, sure. Please provide the following. First name, last name, phone number, include country code if needed.

Edward Baker, 257-876-2187.

First name, Edward, one of nine.

So it opens up into a contact page, but everything is already filled in for us. So, I forgot to mention in the very beginning that the BlindShell is menu-driven. There’s no swiping, there’s no tapping. So there’s tactile bars that allow me to go up and down through the menus. So I’m going to use my lower bar to go down.

Surname, Baker.

It’s already filled in there.

Mobile. 257-87 [inaudible 00:19:25]-

Phone number’s already in there. And you can add other things, but this is generally what people add.

Save contact.

So the important thing to go down to save your contact by hitting the tactile okay button.

One new notification. 10 [inaudible 00:19:40].

And there it is. So now I have a contact in my phone.

Nice. And so basically I can kind of have, I don’t know, conversation’s not always the right kind of word, but almost a conversation with Luna and just ask it to do whatever it is I might need to do, be that make a call, send a message, make a contact, do all those kind of pieces.

Yeah, sure. Would you like me to show you a conversation that I have with Luna?

Most definitely.

Okay. So, I also want to mention… I’m sorry, that the BlindShell has a tactile, dedicated Answer The Phone button, which is also your okay button. So it’s funny because that is something that people with a standard smartphone can struggle with is, do I one tap to answer? Do I double dab the answer?

We have this nice designated Answer The Phone button and we also have ta-da, a designated Hang Up The Call button, which anybody has had a hard time with that on a smartphone, you thought you hung up the call and you found out you didn’t. You will definitely be able to do that easily with the BlindShell because we have a designated Hang Up The Call button.

So now I am going to talk to Luna about one of my favorite subjects, which are beagles. So I’m going to ask her, “How much do beagles weigh?” So she’s processing.

Beagles are a medium-sized breed. Most adult beagles weigh about 20 to 25 pounds, nine eleven kilogram. Some larger individuals can be up to around 30 pounds, 14 kilogram. If you’re tracking a puppy’s growth, a vet can give you a good growth chart.

How tall are they?

Luna. Beagles are about 13 to 15 inches tall at the shoulder, roughly 33 to 38 cm. Males and females are similar in height. There can be slight variations.

Do they like to play?

Luna, yes. Beagles are usually very playful, social, and full of energy. They especially enjoy those base games, sniffing adventures, fetch, and gentle tug of war. Quick ideas. Send hunts or treat finding games, short fetch sessions.

So I’ll turn this down, but what I wanted to demonstrate is how I could carry on a conversation with Luna. I didn’t have to keep repeating the subject of the conversation.

And then I’m able to also save this and share it. So if it’s something that I think somebody else would find interesting, it could be a recipe, or I could ask Luna to create a story about my friend, Cindy, and her guide dog. And Luna would make this story, and then I could save that and I could share it with Cindy through email or messages or Tandem, or WhatsApp as well.

Nice. Nice. No, that’s super cool. And I love, like you said, you can just continue the conversation. I feel like the learning curve of technology is so much lower, for maybe folks who aren’t used to using technology or things like that. Just because you were just having a conversation, you weren’t completely restating the question. You started off with asking about beagles and then, well, how tall are they? Do they like to play? And it wasn’t asking you just what like to play. You know, it wasn’t…

Exactly.

It wasn’t making you go all the way back there. Diane, you mentioned Tandem. And in looking at the BlindShell Classic 3, I saw the Tandem app. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Oh, so Tandem is amazing, because Tandem allows a BlindShell user. Now it’s only available on the BlindShell Classic 3, the newest version, and it allows the user to connect with someone, either they could either use an iPhone, they can use an Android phone, or they could be using another BlindShell Classic 3. As long as that other person has the Tandem app, the BlindShell user can request that that person takes remote control over their phone.

So this is great for trainers. If somebody has an issue, they don’t know how to do something, or they need help with their email, you can remotely take over their device, only though if they send you the invite. So then once they do that, you accept it, you have control over their BlindShell. So you can fix their issue or add a contact or set an alarm for somebody.

Whatever it is they need help with through Tandem, somebody can now remotely assist them without having to be in the same room.

So you can only request help from people you trust and you have previously invited them before. So this way it’s a very secure connection, because you’re giving remote access, complete remote access of your phone to complete, to help you with your settings, only to someone you know. I mean, that’s quite important. So I was just making sure it was clear.

Basically, the blind person would either choose somebody from their contacts list, or they can add somebody themselves. So, I understand what Kamila is saying. It’s somebody who’s trusted, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be a social worker or a family member. It could be anybody that they choose, but they are the ones who are initiating the contact.

No random person’s going to end up getting control of their phone or anything like that.

No, no, no.

Oh, that’s awesome. And I bet even if it’s not used, that’s got to be great peace of mind.

Listeners, unfortunately, that is all the time we have for today’s show. Our conversation went a little long and there’s nothing wrong with that, but that means we just have to split it over into two shows.

So make sure to join us back here next week for episode 768, so that we can get into the exciting conclusion of our interview with Diane and Kamila about the BlindShell Classic 3. We’ll dig a little deeper into the apps available, different ways to use it as well as some user stories and other really great information. So do make sure that you come on back and give us a listen next week for the exciting conclusion of our interview on the BlindShell Classic 3. Thanks for listening. Bye-bye.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on an assistive technology update? If so, call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org, or shoot us a note on Twitter @indataproject.

Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or INTRAC. You can find out more about INTRAC at relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nicole Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule.

Today’s show was produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project. Easterseals Crossroads, or supporting partners or this host. This was your assistive technology update.

I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.