A running theme throughout our CSUN 2020 coverage has been how strange the event has been due to restrictions on travel that were falling into place at the time of these recordings. Some Exhibitors were unable to attend and props to John Palmer, President of Patriot Vision Industries for showing some , of TrySight's products at their table as a friendly gesture. In this interview Shelly gets her hands on the Patriot Pro, mentioned during our ATIA 2020 coverage last month, and she gets a product overview of the newly announced Patriot Voice EZ. To learn more about the products mentioned in this interview, visit the Patriot Vision Industries website
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Transcript
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Hide transcriptTranscribed By Grecia Ramirez
Direct from Anaheim, it’s blindbargains.com coverage of CSUN 2020, 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 Shelly Brisbin.
SHELLY BRISBIN: Welcome back to Blind Bargains coverage of CSUN 2020. I’m on the exhibit show floor with Charles Palmer from Patriot Vision.
Hi, Charles.
CHARLES PALMER: Hi. Nice to see you.
SB: Good to see you too. Pretty quiet in the hall today. How have things been going? This is a really unusual CSUN for everyone, I’m sure.
CP: Yeah. Unfortunately, due to the virus scare that there is quite a few people that have canceled, as far as exhibitors, and the attendees are kind of low now as well.
SB: And you are -- in addition to exhibiting your own products, you have some products from TrySight, who we’ve talked to on the podcast before too. So I guess you guys work together, and you’re helping them out in their absence?
CP: Yeah. That is correct. Since they didn’t get a chance to make it -- they canceled their flights and everything, so we’re covering and having some of their stuff at our table just because of that.
SB: Okay. Well, let’s talk about what’s new with Patriot Vision. Last we spoke, I believe you were talking about the iPad pro-based magnifier. I’m not sure if it was shipping, but remind everybody what that product -- what that product is and what it does.
CP: So the product, the patriot Pro 12.9, is based all around an iPad 12.9 pro. What it does is it’s not only a fully unlocked iPad with app store, Safari, your Emails are all on there like a normal iPad, but it also has magnification software that you can magnify and change to different colors like a yellow on black like a CCTV would. And then, it also has text-to-speech to read out loud documents, and it folds flat into like, a little laptop case. It’s inside of a custom stand that’s looking down at a tray where you can place your documents underneath. So it’s like an all-in-one portable solution, perfect for students going from classroom to classroom and traveling around with.
SB: So can that stand be adjusted, or is it at a constant angle? I was fiddling with this one here, and I can’t really tell whether it’s designed to be just in a fixed position or whether you can move – change the angle.
CP: So that stand there is actually one of our other floor stands, and that actually is good for a couch or easy chair that you could get the iPad mounted right near their lap. That is adjustable in height. It has a few swivel points to get it right in front of them. And then we have a -- more of a desktop solution that sits at a table, and that one is the one that folds, like, into a laptop case they could take around from classroom to classroom. And they’re both adjustable to get the perfect angle for you to be able to read at.
SB: So the patriot Pro is intended, primarily, as a reading magnification device? It doesn’t have distance cameras in the way other devices do, although obviously, there’s a camera on the back of the iPad. Is it practical to use it as a distance magnifier too?
CP: Yeah. So there is two ways of doing distance. You could use the camera built in, and you could simply push the tablet against the back of the stand for the camera to look out through the back. Or there’s a Bluetooth camera you could connect to it and, almost like a flexible arm, you could connect – you could mount it to a table and then look across the room that way. So distance can be done with the device.
SB: And you mentioned that it’s an unlocked iPad, so anything you could do with an iOS device, you can do with this device. And the – what I – when I was looking at the iPad, I was commenting on how big the icons are. I just wanted –
CP: Yeah.
SB: -- for the audience to note that – so you’re using the accessibility features of the iPad, whether that be Zoom or VoiceOver. Your app itself has its own voicing. Can you talk about that?
CP: Yeah. That’s correct. So we do have it preloaded with a bunch of the accessibility software enabled from the iOS system itself, whether it be VoiceOver that’s readily available or magnification gestures. We do have the icons enlarged. Our software to read out loud is text-to-speech, so any physical documents like a newspaper, mail, or a letter or something, you could read out loud by taking a picture of it, and that’s kind of what our software does. But outside of that, you still have the accessibility needs within that iOS system. So it is a fully unlocked iPad, Bluetooth-enabled, Wi-Fi-enabled, everything that you pretty much can do on a regular iPad in addition to our CCTV software.
SB: And if you take the picture and have the text read aloud, can you also save that document or the text from it?
CP: You can save the documents to pull up at a later time. You could actually save it right to your photo album, and you’ll have them in there.
SB: But that’s not – does it preserve the OCR, you saving a text document, or are you saving a photograph?
CP: You are saving a photograph. To preserve the -- for the OCR, you cannot right now, but in a future software update, we’ll have it so you could save it and then read it out loud at a later time.
SB: And, of course, there are other OCR packages out there, so you could potentially do that. You could take an existing image and OCR it again if you wanted to save the contents from it.
CP: That’s correct. As long as it’s on the app store, so – then you would be able to download other apps that can do that. That’s true.
SB: So tell me about pricing and availability for the patriot Pro.
CP: So brand new, the whole entire system, which is kind of like a bundle including the custom stand, the – a brand new iPad’s included, the software all configured with some other accessories starts off at three thousand nine ninety-five. However, do keep in mind, depending on what state you reside in, you might be eligible to have the equipment purchased through the State. If you’re working or going to school, there’s some other outlets that might be able to purchase it for you.
SB: Is that a – and I don’t know much about the Rehab purchasing system and the like, but is that a challenge getting those agencies to purchase iOS devices, or is that pretty much now – they understand that this is just another iOS device as well as providing magnification, so it could – it gets funding?
CP: It does get funding. It’s kind of standardized as – depending on what state they’re living in. Like, for example, I live in Florida. So it’s called Division of Blind Services, and it’s really neat that if they’re working or going to school, they kind of get assigned a -- they open up a case is what they say. And they assign them a counselor. A lot of the times, the counselor is either visually impaired or blind themselves, and they kind of walk them through their options of what they’re eligible, what they’re not eligible for. But a lot of times, so long as they can kind of provide an argument, if you will, saying that this helps me keeping my job or accomplishing what I’m doing at my job or with my studies or something, a lot of the times, they’ll buy it entirely. They’ll even pay us – they’ll even go as far as paying someone to come out and training them on it, delivering it, and kind of doing all that for them. So I definitely am an advocate of looking at your options if you are working or going to school.
SB: Let’s talk about a different product. Tell me the name of this. This is not a magnifier. It is not a visual device.
CP: Yeah. This –
SB: It's for a senior or for a blind person or –
CP: That’s correct. So this is a strictly audible device.
SB: What’s it called --
CP: It’s call –
SB: -- first of all?
CP: It’s called the Patriot Voice EZ.
SB: Okay.
CP: So how it works is there’s a tray underneath where you place documents on. It takes the picture automatically. In about eight seconds or so, it’ll start reading out loud that document. So someone could sit back and listen to the document being read out to them. Any print, as far as a newspaper, a letter in the mail. It took the picture already, and it’s going to start reading out loud here momentarily. Give it another second.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Volume: 90 percent. Minus 1. The Patriot Pro -- speed: 70 percent.
CP: I’m going to slow it down a little bit.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Speed: 60 –perfect solution for students.
CP: There we go.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: -- workforce and retirees. The Patriot Pro --
CP: So I’m going to pause it. It’s very simplified. There’s three knobs along the front. One of them adjusts the volume, one of them adjusts the speed, and one of them adjusts rewinding forward or backward. And it sits at a table. It’s about the size of a coffee maker, to kind of put it in perspective.
SB: It looks kind of like an appliance, actually. It sort of looks like a kitchen gadget.
CP: Yeah.
SB: And again, it doesn’t have a screen. It’s got a little handle on top.
CP: Yeah.
SB: That’s a pretty loud speaker. A lot of times, devices like that have kind of underpowered speakers, and that one sounds pretty good.
CP: Yeah.
SB: Acapela voices?
CP: You got it.
SB: How many –
CP: So right –
SB: How many languages and voices do you have?
CP: So there’s quite a few languages. Right now, we’re on Daniel, which is like a British English, but there’s also Tom and Samantha, which is just like a standardized American English. And then there’s also different languages such as Spanish, French, German, Russian, so depending at what language they’re trying to read, we probably – we have quite a few on there.
SB: And am I right? This is primarily for seniors, or what other markets or –
CP: It is extremely easy to use. So when you place your documents underneath, it takes the picture automatically and everything. It’s almost all automated, so it is geared toward someone that is very – that is someone maybe in the retirement age that just wants to sit back and relax and listen to their mail. It’s not very cumbersome at all. However, we do have younger people using them. It’s mostly, though, people that are either totally blind, or the vision’s to the point where we can’t utilize something with, like, a desktop CCTV screen or something in that nature.
SB: And what’s the pricing of this device?
CP: Brand new, it’s two thousand three hundred ninety-five.
SB: Great.
CP: Yeah. That’s a stand-alone reading machine for them.
SB: All right. Well, so you have these products and a few other things here at the Patriot Vision booth. If people want to know more about what Patriot Vision does, what should they do?
CP: So they could visit our website if they like. Our website’s called patriotvisionindustries.com. Or they could, of course -- welcome to call our office as well. Our office number’s 1800-364-1612, and we could either get them connected with their local vocational rehab, which is where the State would possibly fund it for them, or we could answer any questions they have if they want to call us.
SB: Great. Charles, thanks so much for being on Blind Bargains again.
CP: No problem. Thank you for having me, Shelly.
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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.
