Category: accessible Devices
Hi all!
I am thinking about buying a GPS system and I wanted to know any info from people who may already have one. I'm thinking about the trekker from humanware. Thanks in advanced!
Good choice. I use the Maestro/trecker with the bluetooth receiver and my only complaint is that it seems to take a whild to grab a signal. once I have it it's great. What i like about it is that I can pretty much use the unit invisibly so people aren't aware I have one. This is helpful in those questionable areas I am sent to by my company. I keep the BT receiver in my coat pocket and the Trecker on my belt and use a pair of earbuds which do not obstruct my hearing much. I have an extremely compitent Golden retriever from the SeeingEye in my left hand guiding me and it's a winning combination. My associates use the Braillenote GPS and like it and i have heard very good things about street talk and the Pacmate. Treckers gratest strength is that it is small and stays out of the way. If I can anser any questions about it please feel free to send me a message.
what is g p s? my friend says he has this thing that tells him where shops are when he goes into town. is that what it is?
GPS stands for global positioning system and is a way of knowing where you are. You cary a receiver and a device with software which has maps of a specific country to use as a reference for what the receiver is getting. This enables it to tell you where you are and even how to get someware.
I would get the braillenote gps if you have a bn. version 3.5 is do out any time now.
Where else can you get these GPS things other than Humanware? Does anyone know of anywhere in the UK which sells them?
just for your info, humanware 1s in the UK.
I've seen the BN's gps and it absolutely kicks ass. I actually dispise the braille note in general, but the gps hands down was the best I've seen. However, I think the trekker's a good choice. That's the one I'm thinking of purchasing as well.
blazy in the UK sell street talk for the pacmate. it'd be hard using that thing on a pm with brawille but without may be ok. gonna get mine next week.
Thanks for all the advice. I was trying to decide between street talk and the trekker since I heard they both work with pacmate.
Blindflash
Good day to you BlindFlash. Street talk is software installed on the Pacmate. Trecker is a PDA(usually a Dell X50) with specialized softwaer installed on it. You can get it with either trecker gps softwaer, Maestro software which allows a person to use contact, calendering and notes or Maestro with the trecker option which is what I use. It comes with a bouetooth receiver so yo you can hide it quite well. I usually keep the receiver in my pocket and the PDA on my belt with a pair of earbuds in my ears. No one sees the equipment and it works great. If I can be of further asistance post or send me a message. I am hoping to do a comparison with my associates. two of them have the Braille note GPS, one the pacmate with stree talk and of course myself with trecker. Have a great day.
my self having the pacmate, don't see the point in getting another pda but yep heared good things about all three of the pervious mentioned.
J G
I won't get another PDA, after all, the BN does pretty much the same as the PM.
I would get the Trecher because I've tried it before, and I think it's a good device.
One thing you need to be warned about it has valital memory, so please keep the battery charged as much as possible.
Yes your friend is correct.
Good afternoon all. I did do the comparison between pacmate, braillenote and trekker and found that as far as accuracy they report the same things. What makes them different is the ammount of detail they offer. BN offers the most features, Trekker in my opinion is the easiest to use and gives me what I need to get from here to there and Pacmate doesn't say much unless you use the keyboard. For a stand alone unit Trekker is in my opinion the best to go with.
where can i find the trakker
Trekker can be had from humanware.
Hello,
I'd like to buy a gps too. I also have found some info about "talk & walk". As far as I understand, it's a mobile phone with the talks software and also speaking gps-software. I have been told that it is a bit more difficult to give in your "points of interest". Anybody knows about this "talk & walk"? I have the idea that we are a bit behind in Belgium when it's about software like this, so sorry if this is very old news.
was thinking about getting one but was told unless you live in the big city it would not be much help, was told it does not know the area of the small towns which is where i live.
Good evening all. Rgarding Trekker I would like to mension somethinkg I had a chance to do. I attended a GPS workshop at the SeeingEye in Morristown NJ and had a chance to try trekker with a globalsat bt338. The receiver is incredible and puts a new face on how well Trekker does. I discussed this with the representative and he had stated that they did test it however they found taht there were times when it would provide false information when a person was standing still. I did see this happen however not enough to make a difference for me. I bought the globalsat and find that it hold signals much better then the one that is shipped with the unit. The global sat is sirfIII technology and the royaltech that is shhpeed presently is older technology. They are looking in to thippin a sirfiii receiver. So, when evaluating trekker if you find that it seems to drop signal allot or take a while acquiring a signal it is not the trekker unit itself but the presently shipped receiver. Also, the new update for the unit which includes new maps, points of interest and other features is a free update and should be out in the faul. I use trekker and find it to be the easiest to opperate especially while using a dog in the other hand.
Anyone use trekker with a cane?
Just a thought although I am a dog user. I traveled with someone walking rather slow and the one problem I saw is that GPS loves speed and the faster you can travel the better your results. NOw, with the newer sirf III technology this might do better at slow speeds so I am hoping that someone using a cane will shime in I would be interested as well.
I've been looking at trekker, but it's just so expensive, and yet another thing to lug around with you on your travels! My mobile supports Wayfinder software, but sadly that company does not appear to offer a software demo to try out. It also supports the Co-Pilot system, but I can't understand how that works because with Wayfinder you have to buy the product then pay a yearly subscription to their satalite system, but Co-Pilot does not appear to have a yearly price structure. Again, it's not possible to test Co-Pilot either.
The problem running such a system on your mobile phone, is that you would be buying a product that is not specifically designed for use by blinkies, but I have been told that Wayfinder on a Nokia handset running Talks or Mobile Speak is completely accessible and can do everything Trekker can.
Remember that Trekker itself does not offer any PDA functionality at all! If you want PDA funcionality, you have to buy the Maistro software as well which makes an already expensive product much much more expensive.
Wayfinder for the Mobile phone will cost something like $400.00 including the GPS receiver, but Trekker is upwards of $1500.00.
Matt
there is a scholarship that I found on scholarships.com that will pay half of the expense for any equiptment up to $6000 if the applicant has the other half. That's the way I'm planning to get the trekker, with this scholarship. As soon as I get more info for anyone else who's interested in something like this, I'll post.
I was wondering how well the trekker worked with the globalsat receiver. I tried mine out when I was temporarily with Singular and decided to try the lobestone gps software on my nokia 6682, and it grabbed a signal within seconds, but I couldn't figure out how to get the software to work after that. I currently use the StreetTalk software with the pacmate, but would like to try the trekker, partly because from the demo's I've heard on it I've found it gives a lot more detail thanStreetTalk, and I want something smaller so I don't have to keep lugging the pacmate all over the place.
Juliet: The globalsat 338 that you are using with street talk will work well although one of the things I have found when using that receiver is that it will report you as always being in mosion even though you are standing still. Also, as you are standind still sometimes it will report a change of street when you havn't moved. The RoyalTek RBT2001 in my opinion works much better andn this may be due to Waas being enabled by default. The reporting is more accurate and it will report 0 MPH when you have stopped. The battery life on the GS is much greater then the RBT2001 so you will mostlikiely have to charge the 2001 more often.
Hi Everyone,
In regards to this equipment, let me make a few suggestions/observations if I may.
I have been a trekkor user for some time now, as I frequently travel for work. I have really found the trekkor to be helpful when I am utilizing public transportation, never know when those bus drivers are going to announce the stops or not. As a dog guide handler, i find the audio feedback to be a bit distracting when I'm attempting to work my dog, even with ear buds in my ears. I really don't like putting ear buds in my ears either, as i feel that it masks the backround noise, making travel a bit less safe. The trekkor is fairly easy to use, I feel the buttons are a bit too small for rapid use, but the PDA is small, so they only have so much room to work with.
De Lorn also makes a software which can be purchased and installed on to a laptop, if you happen to have a USB GPS receiver and a microphone. That program is voice activated, and is actually really interesting, other than the fact that I don't want to lug my laptop around with me. smile
The same holds true for the braille note version--Mike May put out a great product, but I don't necessarily like taking the braille note with me everywhere I go. So for portability, the trekkor definitely wins out.
Personally, I wish i would have gotten the KNFB Reader with the money that I spent on the Trekkor, I feel that I would use that a great deal more than I do the GPS--and with GPS always changing, the product will also constantly be in transition.
Over all though, it's a great product, if anyone has any questions, feel free to say hi! smile
I use Loadstone on my Nokia phone with a Globalsat bluetooth GPS receiver. I like this solution because I always have my phone, and the GPS receiver is small enough to clip on my belt and remain unnoticed. I haven't used it extensively but it is pretty cool.
Does anyone have any tips about which gps receiver will work the best. Any tips about using trekker in general would be helpful.
Well, from what I've heard a bout the trekker is that it crashes a lot, and I'm sorry but 1800 dollars is way too much money to be spending on any GPS product that crashes. I think I might buy a phone that supports mobilespeak and Geo. To me, it seems to be the smallest device and one of the least expensive. There is a twelve month program which a person can buy mobilespeak and mobile Geo and just of course make payments which I think is good. Just my thoughts
That is definitely a valid reason not to buy the trekker. if any trekker users can share or pm me their experiences, that would be great.
hey to faithful angel, if you are actually trying to save money and avoid an crashing system, then you may want to go with talks and way finder access instead .. considerably less money and i heard way finder seems to run a little better than mobile geo. however you would require a nokia or other symbian based phone for that instead of windows mobile which i s what mobile geo runs on
Yep, and my company, which is verizon, just has windows mobile devices I believe. Actually, I have several friends who have geo and they say it works fine.
Yeah CDMA carriers, i.e verizon and sprint, has very limited symbian compatible phones and i don't think there is any current model that works with talks. Geo works fine just in the comparison i saw Way Finder seemed to work a bit quicker but in the end both will get you from point A to point B.
There's also the Trecker Breeze, which is about a thousand dollars less than the regular Trekker and comes with a speaker that's small enough to wear clipped to your shirt collar or coat lapel. That way if you don't feel comfortable walking with earbuds, which I certainly wouldn't, you can still take your Breeze with you because it also has a carrying case which can be worn over your shoulder and, if I remember rightly, also clipped to your belt. I'm actually considering getting one myself. Only concern I really have is the part about being able to use it in a small town.
The only thing I don't like about the breeze is that you have to record all of your routes with sighted assistance. I like the fact that with the trekker, I can type in addresses and it has more extensive route preview features.
I wouldn't fool with the breeze myself. Not worth the bucks you put out for it.
At least it isn't more expensive than it is. It still sounds more like what I'd be looking for than the original Trecker.
ok may I ask aquestion here? If my math is correct, a phone with talks or mobile speak with way finder access is considerablely less expensive than stand alone gps solutions. So i am just curious what are the reasons that people still consider these stand alone solutions? Not trying to be mean or a wise ass .. genuinely curious as to why ?
I have that same question myself. Actually, the trekker does way more than the breeze. The breeze basically tells you what's around you which for 900 dollars is shitty. I'm sorry, but it is. Just go ahead and by the MSs/geo from the Atguys. It's only 100 dollars more.
If you lose a stand-alone gps you don't lose your phone as well. Battayr life may also be better on a stand-alone gps then on a phone although I don't know that for sure. If ease of use is something you care about a stand alone gps is probably easier then a phone with gps software and a screen reader.
I'm sure I can learn mobile geo. I just don't care for the trekker or the breeze because the trekker crashes a lot, and the breeze isn't worth nine hundred bucks for what little it does.
chances are since i am gonna have my phone on me all the time anyways along the gps unit .. i can't think of a senario where i would loose one and not the other .. and your phone with gps and screen reader and a couple back up batteries are still considerably cheaper and its one thing in your pocket.
I totally agree with you.
I personally use wayfinder on my mobile wich is a nokia n95, my standard external gps reciever is enough to get me around from place to place.
it costs much less than trecker or the trecker breeze, and standard gps recievers are cheap enough to buy.
their is also a 10 day demo of wayfinder access or way finder navagater available to try before you buy.
whats the difference between way finder access and navigator?
If I've done my research right, Access is the one that works with accessible software. Navigator doesn't.
Am I missing something here? Wayfinder doesn't work with the E71X. When you go to the page to download a trial, it just says "this phone is not supported."
I've actually seen the BT's GPS in action, and it is pretty aaaaaaaaaaaawesome! Besides, didn't someone say it gives the most information, which is a great thing, because the more information you have available, the better off orientated you are.
What about the iphones gps app? anyone know if that works with voice over?