At ACB 2018 we caught up with Jenny Axler to learn about the debut of the QBraille XL. The hybrid device is now shipping and on display at ATIA19. J.J. caught up with Damion Pickering and Earl Harrison of HIMS, to talk about how the QWERTY keyboard Braille display has changed since its summer splash onto the A.T. scene. If you would like to find out more about the unit s features, or discover what else is happening at HIMS, visit their website
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Transcript
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Hide transcriptTranscribed by Grecia Ramirez
From beautiful Orlando, Florida, it’s blindbargains.com coverage of ATIA 2019, brought to you by AFB AccessWorld.
For the latest news and accessibility information on mainstream and access technology; Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon offerings; access technology; book reviews; and mobile apps and how they can enhance entertainment, education, and employment, log onto AccessWorld, the American Foundation for the Blind's free monthly online technology magazine. www.AFB.org/AW.
Now, here’s J.J. Meddaugh.
J.J. Meddaugh: ATIA in beautiful Orlando. I’ve found Damian Pickering, Earle Harrison, both from HIMS. Hey. We’ve been talking a lot about the QBraille XL, and we have some updates to share. Guys, welcome back to the podcast.
EARLE HARRISON: Hey, thanks, JJ. Always --
DAMIAN PICKERING: Hey. Thank you.
EH: Always happy to catch up with you. And especially –
DP: Howdy, everybody out there too.
EH: I came here yesterday when the actual air temperature in Minnesota was 26 below 0, and I think it’s like, 60 out there today in Florida so –
DP: Yeah. I can –
EH: -- above 0.
JM: That’s ridiculous.
DP: I came here from California where the weather was about exactly the same. I didn’t even realize I left.
JM: So for the benefit of your listeners and our awesome transcriptionist. California is Damian, and Minnesota is Earle. So now we have that straightened out –
EH: You can probably tell by our accents, don’t you know?
JM: Yeah. I’m sure.
DP: Do I have to say “totally”?
JM: So the QBraille XL. We talked about this last summer. It is now shipping and released. Go ahead and tell us the latest.
DP: Yeah. Well, we are – this has been a really thrilling project for us. We started shipping in September after introducing our prototypes at the summer shows. It’s been doing very well for us, and for those of you who need a quick definition of the QBraille, it’s capital Q, capital B. It introduces a unique hybrid keyboard concept.
So imagine a Perkins-style Braille keypad surrounded by all the QWERTY function keys and modifier keys in the place that you would intuitively expect to find them. So what you have is Braille input, QWERTY control, which is an easy concept to grasp, but can take a little while to unpack the benefits of it. It’s really about work flow productivity. Because if you imagine doing your input if you’re a Braille guy or gal, and you’re typing a document, and then you want to go close out Word, for example. Well, the command would be Alt+F4. On every other Braille display out there, basically, you’re faced with do I remember what that finger-twisting Braille key equivalent –
JM: Right. Dot 1-3-7-8.
DP: -- is? Most people don’t. There are the geeks among us who do, and you get a prize. The rest of the people take their hands off the Braille display and reach for a QWERTY keyboard. And if you’re taking advantage of Bluetooth, which -- the QBraille XL connects to six different Bluetooth devices -- your keyboard might be across the room, and that’s especially annoying. So the benefit here is you Braille your document, and you use Alt+F4, your Alt key is right next to your spacebar, on either side, of course, and F4 is exactly where F4 should be. So this -- kind of -- the time savings just multiply throughout a day as you, you know, do command by command and project by project.
JM: Is that –
EH: It’s interesting to me that when people walk up to the booth here and they see the QBraille XL, it’s like, wow. That’s really a lot of keys on there. And it’s just like, well, we explain what’s going on, you got an eight-dot Braille keyboard, where you would usually have the letters and the numbers on a regular keyboard. And all of a sudden, a lightbulb goes off, and they know exactly what keys are remaining on the keyboard besides the eight-dot Braille keyboard, and they’re all –
JM: And they’re all in the same spot.
DP: Yeah.
EH: They’re all in the same spot. Arrow keys, your six-pack, your function keys, Shift, Tab, caps-lock, all that stuff. And in fact, if you start on the lower left corner, from left to right, it’s Control, FN, Windows, Alt -- and then you start going through these things where they start reciting the keys back to you. So they’ve already – in presentations, they haven’t even laid hands on the device, and they already know how it’s laid out.
DP: It’s really a context thing. Because if you don’t have the context, you think a lot of keys. As soon as you know what it is, it becomes a singular. It’s a keyboard. And in fact, that’s part of the – you know, what’s going on under the hood, the hybrid nature of the device. It is both a Braille display and a standard Bluetooth QWERTY keyboard. And in fact, if you just want the input keyboard function, you don’t need a screen reader on your –
EH: That’s right.
DP: -- peripheral device because it, you know, you do the standard Bluetooth connection, and it perceives it as that. And then if you do want the Braille output and the Braille device functionality, you do need a screen reader, we are screen reader agnostic so –
JM: And now, you’ve added Mac support as well; right?
DP: Yeah. Absolutely. Our recent release patch did add improved Mac support, and you can actually go into Options and select, now, Microsoft keyboard layout or Apple keyboard layout.
We got some great press from the NFB blog. We really want to thank them for doing a thorough – putting it through its paces and really helping to define this concept. I mean, The Best of Both Worlds was, sort of, their tagline, and we appreciated that. And, you know, we were able to take some of the -- the minor critique points that they put, like not being able to review your list of pairings, we were able to address those in that recent patch so –
EH: Uh-huh.
DP: -- not only thanks for a thorough positive review, but for giving us some things that made the product even better.
JM: Earle, you’ve been using this a lot, you said, since the early betas of –
EH: Right.
JM: -- various iterations.
EH: Uh-huh.
JM: What has jumped out at you? And, you know, just compared to other Braille displays. You’ve been using Braille displays for many years. How does –
EH: Yeah.
JM: -- this differ for you?
EH: Well, I mean, it’s funny because we’ve got some of our competitors coming up to the booth and saying, what took somebody so long to do this? Because if you think about it, you’ve got the Braille keyboard and you’ve got the QWERTY function keys surrounding it. And it’s just so obvious that, you know, it’s intended to be used with a computer, whether it’s a Mac or Windows computer. But what we haven’t mentioned is that it also functions as a stand-alone note taker as well, just like the Braille EDGE. So really, what we’ve got is a culmination of the Braille EDGE and the Smart Beetle. You know, Smart Beetle being able to connect with up to six different devices simultaneously. I mean, who does that, but you can, if you wanted to.
I really -- you know, about a month ago, my Lenovo died. I mean, the first thing to die was the screen. And I’d call Aira, and -- what’s on the screen? You have no screen, dude. Yeah. Okay. I tried pressing the keys on the keyboard, and it wouldn’t work. Or -- I plugged in a USBC cable into the QBraille and the other end into the computer, and boom. I had a keyboard. And that’s the way I functioned for the next couple of weeks exclusively. And I just remember thinking, this does not suck. This is really, really cool that I can do this. I mean, my computer was on its last leg, and I was able to use the QBraille to get everything off of it that I needed. And then – I use it all the time now. It’s become my new favorite Braille display.
JM: What’s the battery life and the weight again? About
EH: What is it? I think it’s –
DP: 1.8 pounds and 20 hours.
EH: 20 hours? Yeah.
JM: That’s quite good. Of course, you compare it with computers or mobile devices and –
EH: Exactly.
JM: -- you can do that all at the same time. And it’s now shipping; right? How much is it.
DP: It is shipping. Retail price is thirty-one ninety-five. And –
JM: For 40 cells.
DP: 40 cells. And it really is this thing, you know, for all blind tech. I mean, you got to have that first hands-on impression. We have dealers throughout the country that have really stepped up and are on board. So if you’ve only heard about it and you haven’t had hands on, you know, that’s something that you really should do. There is no one-size-fits-all product, but it’s been a long time since there’s been something completely new in a Braille display. So if you’re in the market, if you’re a Braille person, we would love to have you check it out, and we would love your feedback. Tell us what you think.
JM: And you can go to hims-inc.com to contact you guys. You have Emails as well, or what’s the best way to contact you?
DP: Yeah. Absolutely. And this is Damian. I can be reached at Damian@hims-inc.com. And Earle?
EH: Yeah. E-a-r-l-e is the spelling of my name. You use the same format, first name, at hims-inc.com.
JM: And to be sure, H-i-m-s is how you spell HIMS. Thank you both. Enjoy Florida, a little bit warmer weather.
DP: Yeah. Thanks so much.
EH: Thank you.
JM: We’ll see you in Anaheim.
EH: Night everybody.
DP: Bye.
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Joe Steinkamp is no stranger to the world of technology, having been a user of video magnification and blindness related electronic devices since 1979. Joe has worked in radio, retail management and Vocational Rehabilitation for blind and low vision individuals in Texas. He has been writing about the A.T. Industry for 15 years and podcasting about it for almost a decade.
