iSee - Using various technologies from a blind persons perspective.

In this demo, I show you how easy it is now to change to your favorite VoiceOver Language on the Fly via the VoiceOver Rotor on your Apple Watch.

Orbit Writer Review/Podcasting notes

Product Name:

Orbit Writer.

Manufacturer:

Orbit Research.

Website:

https://www.orbitresearch.com/product/orbit-writer/

Email:

[email protected].

Brief Product Description:

The Orbit Writer is a compact and portable Braille input Perkins style keypad that can access a range of mobile and desktop operating systems as an actual keyboard or with their associated screen readers supports up to 5 Bluetooth devices and one UsB device.

Haptic feedback for settings, and features.

If you know the layout of the Orbit Reader 20 Braille notetaker and Braille display, then you know the layout of the Orbit Writer keyboard.

NB - Braille input keyboard, no Braille display or speech output.

Documentation:

Extremely well written.

Documentation in brf, doc, pdf, and html formats.

Website for documentation - https://www.orbitresearch.com/support/orbit-writer-support/

Dimensions:

16.0x 6.5 x 0.8 CM.

90 Grams.

In the Box:

Orbit Writer,

micro UsB cable,

And getting started in print and Braille.

Physical Description:

6 Braille input Perkins style keys top back face. 

Cursor pad inbetween and slightly below dot 1 and dot 4 keys with up, down, left and right in a circle, and select key in middle.

Dot 7, Space and dot 8 keys at top front middle face.

Lanyard port front middle edge.

Micro UsB port middle left edge.

4 round rubber feet on bottom corners.

Main Features:

Works with all smart phones and computers out of the box.

Light weight, and  Compact design to fit in a pocket or purse.

Quiet operation with positive tactile feedback.

Perkins style keyboard with cursor pad.

Replaces need to use touch screen.

Fast charging (less than 2 hours), 3 days of use.

Check battery strength.

Supports up to 5 Bluetooth devices, and 1 UsB device.

Adjust strength of Haptic feedback.

Adjust auto shut down time.

Attachment points for strap or lanyard.

Support for all languages on phones or tablets.

Battery/Charging:

3 days of operation.

Fully charge under 2 hours.

Charge from USB adapter (not supplied) or computer.

When power plugged in, short vibration,  when removed long vibration (whether unit is on or off).

Can be used whilst charging.

Rechargeable and non replaceable batteries.

When unit  gets down to 20% charge, 3 short pulses every 3 minutes.

If battery too low when turning on, unit will automatically shut down.

Confirm battery charge: press and hold Space+Up Arrow for 1 second.

1 short pulse if battery level between 0 and 20%.

2 short pulses if battery level between 20% and 40%.

3 short pulses if battery level between 40% and 60%.

4 short pulses if battery between 60% and 80%.

Long pulse if battery level is grater than 80%.

Auto shut down to save battery can be adjusted, default is 10 minutes.

Tips  for Initial Orbit Writer Operation:

Turn on/off - hold Down/Up for 1 second, short pulse for on, long pulse for off.

Pair to 5 Bluetooth and 1 USB channel.

Channel 1 (default) - Space+Left+1.

Channel 2 - Space+Left+2.

Channel 3 - Space+Left+3.

Channel 4 - Space+Right+4.

Channel 5 - Space+Right+5.

Channel 6 (UsB) - Space+Right+6.

If channel not previously paired, 3 short pulses

If channel paired: 2 short pulses

Pair channel: hold down command (Space+Left+ChannelNumber) for 1 second to feel short pulse (now in paring mode plus overwrite previous pairing if present).

In some situations, reconnecting via Bluetooth may take up to 10 seconds.

Connecting to a Mobile Device Example -

iOS VoiceOver:

Turn on Orbit Writer - Down+Up for 1 second (short pulse).

Place Orbit Writer in pairing mode (channel 1 is default if used for first time). Otherwise, press Space+Left+2 (3 4 or 5) for 1 second, short pulse.

Goto Settings, VoiceOver, Braille, and select Orbit Writer xx (were XX is the serial number of the Orbit Writer).

When paired, short pulse.

When iOS device is locked, Orbit Writer disconnects, 2 short pulses.

When iOS device unlocked, Orbit Writer will reconnect, 2 short pulses.

To turn Orbit Writer off, Down/Up for 1 second, 1 long pulse.

Basic iOS/VoiceOver  commands

The cursor navigation pad, Left or Right Arrows move VoiceOver cursor to previous or next item (1 finger flick left or right).  Select /perform  action command (1 finger double tap). Up or Down Arrow (1 finger flick up or down) move or select current VoiceOver rotor item.  Adding Space to the navigation keys performs Orbit Writer functions such as pairing mode or checking the battery.

Chord Commands (note - best way to remember these chord commands is there positioning in the 6 dot Braille cell in their relation to each other.

Space+1 or 4 - previous or next item.

Space+36 - select/perform action command.

Space+125 (h) - perform Home function).  When pressed twice, App Menu.

Space+23 or 56 - move to previous or next VoiceOver rotor item.

Space+3 or 6 - select or move current rotor item.

Space+235 (s) - Status menu -

Space+25 - Control Centre.

Space+46 - Notifications Centre.

Space+135 (o) - Scroll right).

Space+246 (ow) - scroll left.

Space+156 (gh) - VoiceOver Magic double tap to start/stop media or answer.hang up a call.

Space+124 (f) - find text command.

Benefits

Works with iOS, Android/Samsung, Fire OS, Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Supports up to 5 simultaneous and 1 USB connection.

Can be used as either an input keyboard (HID) or screen reader (SR) device..

Rapid switching between connected devices.

Supported screen readers include

iOS/Mac VoiceOver,

Android/Samsung/Amazon Talkback and Voice Assistant via Brailleback, and

Windows NVDA, JAWS, and Narrator (via BRLTTY).

Haptic feedback easily identified.

Particularly on iOs/VoiceOver, if user knows how to navigate with other Braille Input keyboards as found on a number of Braille displays, standard VoiceOver navigation can be considered the same.

Apple Watch OS 7 beta can use the Orbit Writer to navigate.

Screen readers that do not directly support the Orbit Writer as such, will still see it as an Orbit Reader 20 which will still enable the Orbit Writer to function.

Very light weight and quiet key operation.

To minimise sound of haptic feedback, 3 settings are available, soft, medium and hard pulse.

Space+Right to check current setting.  Space+Right held down for 1 second to change to next pulse setting which can be felt. 1 pulse soft, 2 pulses medium, and 3 pulses hard.

This is of particular importance if you don’t want the haptic sound being heard by others or coming through in a recording.

To adjust auto shout down of unit, 4 settings are available, 5, 10, 20, and 30 minutes.

Space+Left to check current setting. Space+Left for 1 second to switch to next time out setting. 1 pulse 5, 2 pulses 10, 3 pulses 20, and 4 pulses 30 minutes.

Note - if iOS device goes to sleep, within the auto shut down period, it will reconnect when iOS device is awake.  If Orbit Writer being used for note taking, a possible suggestion to is to have the lock idle time of the iOS device greater than the Orbit Writer, then no need to reconnect.

Works well when using Orbit Writer with lanyard.

Mac VoiceOver detects Orbit Writer directly when plugged in as a USB device.  For Braille support, VoiceOver Utility, Braille, and Add Bluetooth Braille display and choose Orbit Writer.

Points to Consider:

Requires a Windows Pc to update the Orbit Writer.

Do not press down on the arrow keys, these keys are designed to push out from the edges. Pressing down fills quite hard whilst pushing out feels easy.

Be careful when holding down Space+Left+channel number to select desired channel for too long as after 1 second will put Orbit Writer in paring mode and previous pairing lost.

Testing remaining:

Android/Samsung, and Windows in particular with NVDA, JAWS, and Narrator.

Cost:

$99 US plus shipping.

Other Accessories:

Orbit Writer Carrying case: $14.95 US.

Leather Orbit Writer carrying case: $29.00 US.

Orbit Writer Lanyard: $3.95 US.

Extended warranty: $25.00 US.

Similar Products on the Market:

As far as Braille input keyboards are concerned with no Braille Display, there is not any similar product on the market.  However, a similar concept keyboard for navigating with VoiceOver does exist, the RIVO keyboard, which works with mobile devices, but is 4 times the price, and is harder to learn as it has no relationship to any other devices on the market.

Warranty:

Unknown.

Recommendations:

Vision Store should sell this product.

Initial Evaluation: September 3 2020.

David Woodbridge

In this demo, I show you two ways on how to adjust the Taptic Time Speed on your Apple Watch either using the iPhone or Apple Watch itself.

You can find Taptic Time in the Accessibility panel either within the Watch app on the iPhone or within Settings in the Apple Watch.

In this demo, I take you through what is in the box, main features, physical description, and various things you can do with the iPad and how.

The reason why I use Apple Products, is that it is all well integrated with everything that I use. for both home and work: the Mac, the Apple Watch, the Apple TV, the iPad, the iPod touch, and of course the iPhone.

I have been using a Mac now for 15 years and iOS for 11 years.  One thing that has always stood out for me with the Mac is that as a person who is blind, I can completely trouble shoot or re-install the OS completely independently without sighted assistance.  My interaction with a Windows machine over these years when something has failed, has always meant I have needed someone with sight to let me know what was happening on screen or to assist me getting the screen reader up and going again.  I know that with the latest Windows 10 that you can now kick in Narrator which is a great thing.

As I mainly use my Mac when creating content rather than navigating/reading content (which is more my iPhone), the Mac forms the basis of most of my work flows as it were.

As a poor speller, Siri comes to the rescue with “Spell Yogurt” which is a particular word that I always forget to spell when doing a shopping list, and yes, I used Siri to spell it just now.

Being able to ask Siri for directions when using my Mac to a location, then within Maps, share to my iPhone: ready to follow the directions when I leave the house.

I know that I can use Siri to cary out calculations, but having the Calculator app on the Mac also speak out its results is very handy for me as a screen reader user.

Quickly looking up a word within the Mac Dictionary app is always helpful, and then there is always Siri to get a definition of a word.

Siri on the Mac works well for launching apps, finding documents, and checking my Calendar.

Being able to dash off a quick email or Message on my Mac with voice dictation is a great benefit.

With FaceTime on the Mac, I can make and answer calls via my iPhone, and since I’m already on the Mac, can use Textedit or Pages to take notes whilst I’m chatting on the phone as it were.

I still appreciate the fact that when I plug power in to the Mac, a chime plays to let me know that power is on and my Mac is charging: no need to check the charging status.

My family and friends all use iOs devices, so rather than having to pick up my iPhone to send a Message, I use Message on the Mac to send and receive messages.

Our family uses Find My Friends to keep track of each other.  Rather than having to get out my iPhone, I can check in the Find My Mac app to see where folks are.

As the Mac comes with the Mac App Store, most of the apps that I use on the Mac are from this source.  I feel better protected, and the apps work reasonably well such as Twitter.

As I am a big fan of using iBooks on my iPhone, being able to read these same books on the Mac with VoiceOver is a huge plus.

The iWork suite works well with VoiceOver on the Mac, but what is great as well particularly for work is the fact that Microsoft Office works well: I Particularly use Microsoft Word and Microsoft Outlook on the Mac all the time these days.

My main source for social media is Twitter, I use Twitterific, most of the time live it running it in the background and pop over to it to check incoming tweets.

Universal copy between the Mac and my iPhone comes in very handy for copying phone numbers or URLS in either direction, and nothing could be easier than selecting copy on one device, and paste on the other.

Airdrop between my Mac and my iPhone or family’s devices and my Mac works very nicely as well.

As I produce a fair number of instructional documents, some of which folks want in an audio format, using Add To iTunes (now Music)As A Spoken Track, comes in very handy for quickly converting a text document in to an audio file.

As I where away the hours when working on the Mac, rather than having to check the time manually, I have the Mac system clock tell me the time every 15 minutes so I can automatically keep track of time passing, and don’t miss an appointment.

Speaking of appointments, I use Reminders and Calendar appointments on my iPhone which of course come across to the Mac as well.

When shopping, I use the Notes app on the Mac to make a check list of items to check off when I pick up the Note on my iPhone when shopping.

Adjusting the sound of the Mac with audio feedback I’ve always found handy for both VoiceOver and general sound output on the Mac.  As well I find changing the sound source for VoiceOver itself via the VoiceOver Utility very straight forward.

I tend to use both Google Chrome and Safari on the Mac for slightly different purposes.  I use Chrome for the client management system at work and Safari for reading articles on the web via the Reader mode which strips out the html code just leaving the text of the article to read.

As iTunes and now Music originally was developed for the Mac, I seem to have less issues with it from an accessibility point of view that I do when using iTunes on Windows.  Consequently when there is an update to Music, I don’t get as nervous that something may have broken from the screen reader point of view.

Speaking of Music, I have a number of Airplay speakers including a number of Apple TVs and HomePods around the house, depending on what I am doing and where I am, I just pipe the music to the appropriate speaker or Apple TV.

I certainly enjoy listening to Audio Described movies from the iTunes Store now TV app Store since Apple is making a considerable effort in making these available.

When  my family goes and stays over night if we are visiting, I always take our family MacBook Pro which has my boys favourite movies on it plus the Apple TV so I can stream them from the Mac on to the TV via the Apple TV.

I seem to be given iTunes cards from family and friends on a regular basis.  Like the iPhone, I can use the camera in the Mac to input the iTunes gift card straight in to iTunes.

Using my AirPods across all devices: particularly Apple Watch, iPhone and the Mac: means I can just use one bluetooth head phone for all my devices.

As I use an Apple watch, having my Mac simply unlock when I sit down to use my Mac is fantastic and much more convenient and faster than waiting for the screen VoiceOver to speak out the security prompt, and for me to type inn my password.  There have been times when I have got a bit impatient and have started typing in my password before VoiceOver has started talking, only do find that I have sent the last person in Messages my password smile.

Of course, using one of my MacBook Pros with Touch ID to also unlock the Mac is a great benefit as well, if I’m not using my Apple Watch.

As I still enjoy the occasional game of chess, having the default Chess application in the Mac speak out its moves lets me enjoy a good game of chess, even though I mostly loose to the Mac.

One of the dreaded things I absolutely hate on Windows is that sometimes sound is muted, and there is no keyboard short-cut to get it back.  On the Mac there is a short-cut and I’ve never not been able to get sound back on the Mac and consequently keep using VoiceOver.

I use preview on the Mac for quickly listening to audio files or checking a document, rather than having to launch an application to access the file.

Being able to check the status of what accessibility options I have turned on is quite useful, particularly when using other accessibility options other than VoiceOver.

Having the Mac speak out system messages or read what is on the screen through a keyboard command is again extremely handy.

Since I use some different bits of hardware in the house to control lights, lamps, check the indoor and outdoor temperature, and check who is at my door: rather than me having to pick up my iPhone to access these different systems, I can use my Mac as well.  In particular, having the Home app on my Mac as well as my iPhone makes things a lot easier.

Besides having the Home, Maps, Messages, Notes, Reminders, and  TV App on my Mac which I also use on my iPhone, the News and Voice Memo apps are also extremely useful.  News for keeping up with the latest news, and Voice Memo when I want to quickly record a note or customers training session.

Having my documents on the cloud, means that all my documents are on all my other Macs etc when I need to access a particular device.

The inbuilt Mac keyboard commands to jump quickly to the Applications, Documents, Home, Utilities, and Downloads folders makes jumping around the Mac a breeze.

VoiceOver on iOS and Mac OS have similar gestures and keyboard commands which makes transferring from one to the other a breeze, plus from a training point of view, very consistent and easy to explain and re-enforce ways of navigating.  In some ways, you are using one screen reader for mobile or desktop.

I forget sometimes how many different ways VoiceOver allows me to navigate: main keyboard commands, Lock VoiceOver keys, Quick Nav, numeric keypad, and of course the trackpad.

The sounds that VoiceOver on the Mac users to let you know what is going on is one of those things that when you don’t have it, you really miss it when I use Windows.

Using screen curtain to blank the screen so that people can’t see what I am doing when I’m reading a report on the train or reading a confidential document at work is extremely valuable.

Having a training mode in a screen reader to teach you how to use its basic functions is very important for new users.

When I am not using my MacBook Air Or MacBook Pro with the inbuilt trackpad, I can still use my Magic Trackpad with my iMac.

AS far as I know, VoiceOver is still the only screen reader that allows the launching of applications from its own Keyboard commander.  All the applications that I use regularly on the Mac have their own VoiceOver Keyboard Commander short-cut such as K for Skype, G for Google Chrome, A for Amadeus Pro, M for MarsEdit etc.

Speaking of the only thing that Voiceover does, Alex (found on iOS as well), is still the only speech synthesizer that breaths (up to 200 types of breaths) when it is speaking: particularly useful when converting a document to audio using the Alex voice.

I still find VoiceOver on the Mac the easiest screen reader to install a Braille display.  For UsB, plug it in and VoiceOver will detect it.  With a Bluetooth Braille display, choose the Braille display you want to use and off I go.

As the cursor movement on both the Mac and iPhone are the same with VoiceOver when navigating: cursor is to the left or right of the character when moving: I don’t have to double check myself when switching between mobile and desktop.

No matter if I am typing in Messages, Notes, Mail, Pages, Safari etc, it its always nice to know that my typing is being spelled checked: did I mention I was a poor speller.

The strong integration between the Mac OS and VoiceOver, means that I never have an issue with the screen reader not working, hanging, not working with the video card, loosing its authorisation etc: it just keeps working.

In this demo, I give you a physical description of the Arkon Smart Phone Stand.

As I mention in the demo, this smart phone stand is for cooks, crafters, podcasters, live stramers etc: anyone who wants a very adjustable stand for their smart phone.

For me, this stand is great for product demos via Zoom, video demos, OCR, live stream chatting etc.

  https://arkon.com.au/hd8rv29-arkon-kitchen-desk-table-stand-for-periartists-cooking-baking-crafting-scopes.html

In this demo, I show you both the System and VoiceOver BackTap functionality in iOS 14 beta 3 on my iPhone SE 2020.

Explanation and demo of this smart thermometer which works with voiceOver o iOS, and should work with the same Thermo app on Android.

https://www.withings.com/au/en/thermo