Braille Sol works by using a physical interface representing a single braille character which connects to your phone through bluetooth, using only cheap, basic electronic components. As the user scrolls through words braille characters are raised up one by one at the user’s speed, allowing them to go back, reread, and understand text at their own pace. The software and specifications for the Braille Sol will be open-sourced, allowing people all over the world to build their own with standard off-the-shelf electronics.
The challenge is that braille is the primary reading method for the almost 300 million people worldwide with visual impairments. Braille literacy is strongly correlated with higher employment rates for the visibly impaired, allowing them to read and understand text that would otherwise be inaccessible to them and limit their opportunities. Despite the importance of braille for the visually impaired, braille displays have lagged behind other feedback methods in being incorporated with technology. While there have been some attempts to create braille displays, the current solutions are bulky and overly expensive, making them inaccessible to the majority of blind users who must instead rely on screen readers which are slow and noisy. Blind users are still waiting for a fast, discreet way to read information from their phone and the web.
The need-knower, Frank, is blind, and would like to use a refreshable Braille display with his computer or smartphone. However, Braille displays are extremely expensive, costing an average of from $50.00 to $100.00 per Braille character. For example, one could spend from $2,000 to $4,000 for a Braille display that shows a single line of 40 Braille characters. There is a need to reduce that cost per character by a factor of from 5 to 10 ($200 to $400 for a 40 character display.) Many have tried to break the Braille display price barrier, but nobody has successfully brought a really affordable display to market.
The build files for Braille Sol are free to download from this page - open source, shared by TOM: Tikkun Olam Makers.
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