Category: Geeks r Us
Hi all. I just had this cool idea, but don't know for sure if it can really be done. What I was thinking is to have a braille digital watch. It would have the braille display technology and would work just like a braille display. However, I'm not sure if it could be done 100 percent and just wanted to get some ideas. So what do you all think?
Troy
i like the idea. guess a simple sliding cover to protect the display pins would be necessary.
well... its good, but every single braille cell costs 10 bucks, so it would be quite expensive
nice idea.
I had this idea and suggested it in the topick braille or talking watches. I like the idea.
But i am wondering if there was a watch like that how big and how heavy it would be? Would it feel confortable on our hands?
But you never know. Somebody might develop one in the future.
And by the way it would be better this topick in accessible electronicks.
I had this idea before, but was told that's it'd be impractical. But I was thinking it would only really need 4 cells, if you didn't want an a.m. and p.m. And it would be refreshable, but you could press a button and the dots would raise, so that it didn't have to do that every minute on it's on, but it'd still keep the time internally. I hope that makes sense. <smile>
Jen
This is actually a very good idea. The dots only showing when we want them and the rest of the time to be hidden.
Very good.
Sounds cool, where would you get the braille cells you need to make it? how large of a battery would be needed to power it?
The idea is neat in theory, but there are some practical problems. I'm thinking that for even four cells, the space required would make the watch rather large by watch standards. Perhaps someone more familiar with the technology could discuss the weight of such a watch. In adition to the braille cells and circuitry, one would need to have a battery of sufficient weight to power the watch. The timekeeping circuitry would take little current, but the power to raise and lower the pins on demand might be something else again. Interesting topic.
Lou
great idea
I'll say this much, I would get one of those if they ever existed.
I do not like the ordinary braille watches.
I would design it so you could press a button and it displays the time, or you can have it displaying all the time, even though it would use up more battery.
Oh, and having an alarm feature would be good too.
This is an idea I have been interested in for quite some time and have put some thought in to. First of all, you wouldn't need six dots in each cell. only four would be necessary as all the numbers, 1 through 0 can be formed with these dots. I do like the idea of a sliding cover. Regarding power consumption, suprisingly, raising pins to form braille doesn't take all that much power. I've had several engineers tell me that in reality, producing synthetic speech actually consumes more power then a braille display. The chief problems I see at this time are bulk and cost. Even the smallest current refreshable braille display devices are thicker then one would want a watch to be. From what I know, braille cells take up a fair amount of space in micro-electronic terms. Also, whoever quoted ten bucks per braille cell is way off. More like $100 per cell is closer to the mark. Having a cell that only has four dots may eliminate some of this cost, but still, the current generation of refreshable braille technology is not cheap. Just my thoughts on this topic.
I think it's a neat idea, but impractical at the moment because of the size and cost, plus the amount of wear and tear on a braille cell worn on the arm would be tremendous, even if there were a cover to protect it when not in use.
Bob