For many people around the world, braille is their primary language for reading books and articles, and digital braille readers are an important part of that. The newest and most elegant so far is the Monarcha multipurpose device that uses touchscreen technology from startup Dot.
The Monarch is a collaboration between HumanWare and the American Printing House for the Blind. APH is an advocacy, education, and development organization focused on the needs of the visually impaired. This isn’t his first braille device, but it’s definitely his most capable by far.
Called the Dynamic Touch Device until it received its actual nickname at the CSUN Assistive Technology Conference this week in Anaheim. I’ve been waiting for this device for a few months, having heard about it from APH’s Greg Stilson when I interviewed him for Sight Tech Global.
The device began development as a way to adapt the new braille pin (i.e., the raised dots that make up your letters) mechanism created by Dot, a startup I covered last year. Updateable braille displays have been around for many years, but have been plagued by high cost, poor durability, and slow update rates. Dot’s new mechanism allowed for closely positioned, individually replaceable pins that were quick and easy to lift at reasonable cost.
APH partnered with HumanWare to adopt this new technology in a large-scale braille reader and writer codenamed the Dynamic Tactile Device, now known as the Monarch.
One of the biggest hurdles in the braille reading community these days is the length and complexity of the publishing process. A new book, particularly a long textbook, may take weeks or months after publication to sighted readers before it is available in braille, if at all. And of course, once it’s printed, it’s many times larger than the original, because braille has a lower information density than regular type.
A woman holds a Monarch braille reader next to a stack of folders that make up an “Algebra 1” textbook. Image Credits: APH/Humanware
“To achieve digital delivery of textbook files, we have partnered with more than 30 international organizations and the DAISY Consortium to create a new electronic braille standard, called eBRF,” an APH representative explained in an email. “This will bring additional functionality to Monarch users, including the ability to jump from one page to another (with page numbers matching the page numbers in the printed book) and the ability to tactile graphics directly in the book file. , allowing text and graphics to display seamlessly on the page.”
Graphics capability is a huge leap forward. Many of the earlier braille readers had only one or two lines, so the Monarch, which has 10 lines of 32 cells each, allows the device to be read more like a person would with a page of printed (or rather in) braille. relief). And because the pin grid is continuous, it can also, as Dot’s reference device showed, display simple graphics.
Sure, the fidelity is limited, but being able to get an image on demand of a graphic, an animal, or, especially in early learning, a letter or number shape is huge.
Now, you can look at the Monarch and think, “wow, that thing is big!” And it’s pretty big, but vision-impaired tools need to be used and navigated without the benefit of sight, and in this case also by people of many ages, abilities, and needs. If you think of it more as a rugged laptop than an e-reader, the size makes a lot more sense.
There are a few other devices out there with continuous pin grids (one reader pointed out the Graffiti), but it’s as much about the formats and software as it is about the hardware, so let’s hope everyone gets in on this big step towards accessibility.
