Braille Smartphone

Smartphones are wonderful devices...except if your blind. But that's about to change....

Smartphones are wonderful devices...but what if your blind?

Think about how smartphones might feel if you were blind. You could still possibly reap the benefits  but interaction with the device would be impractical, if not impossible. Now you may think, "Oh well, there are only a few blind people." But  according to the World Health Organization, 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide. 39 million are blind and 246 million have low vision.

Those are big numbers, a massive market of consumers who are unable to use smartphones and thus won't buy them. But what if you were able to make a smartphone for the blind?

One new startup may have come a step closer to creating a more sensory driven experience to devices that could change the game for blind users. India-based startup, Kriyate, announced it has created a Braille-enabled smartphone that it will unleash upon the unseeing public next year. The product’s innovator, Sumit Dagar, developed the new phone with the help of IIT-Delhi and LV Prasad Eye Institute, in Hyderabad.

“This phone has repressible Braille display,” explained Dagar. “The grid has pins which go up and down, so that visually impaired user can touch them and read the info.”

Whereas other solutions for mobile users with bad eyes have relied solely on voice commands, vibrations, beeps and squeaks; Kriyate’s potential breakthrough uses pins that form words and letters for the user to “read” through touch. Novel indeed. The device, which is expected to sell for about $184, also makes sounds and vibrates as it goes through certain functions. Watch below as Sumit Dagar talks about the innovative features of his new braille phone.

Dagar was the recipient of a $53,000 award in 2012 through the Rolex Award for Enterprise, which recognizes and rewards ideas that have wide impact in applied technology, cultural heritage, environment, exploration and discovery, and science and health. That money has gone towards developing phone prototypes and designing the final version of the product, he said.