Steve Kelley
Sometimes the world of low vision seems like it's full of gadgets you need to keep handy to get the job done, whatever the job happens to be. You might need to carry a tablet or notebook computer, a handheld video magnifier for small print on paper, a monocular if you’re going to a lecture or need distance viewing. Whether you’re working, going to school, or just doing a little work at home, all those gadgets can add up. What if all that functionality came in one portable package—wouldn’t that be great?
The MATT Connect portable video magnifier is a solid contender for that all-in-one, truly portable, low vision device you’ve been dreaming about. The MATT Connect partners, HumanWare and the American Printing House for the Blind (APH), took the HumanWare Connect 12, and added some APH software in order to make it a portable video magnifier hybrid that combines productivity apps, video magnification with text-to- speech, and ready access to Android apps.
Out of the box, the MATT Connect is a 12- inch Android tablet paired with a very sturdy stand that folds flat with the tablet in it. The stand has a handle on it and is easily carried in the folded stand. A camera for distance viewing connects to the stand with a gooseneck arm so it can be moved wherever you need to point it for distance viewing. A sturdy carrying case, and the USB cables needed for the tablet and camera, complete the package.
The Android tablet that powers the MATT Connect is HumanWare’s model Prodigy Connect 12 running Android Marshmallow. The tablet offers 3.9 gigs of storage and weighs 1.4 pounds without the stand. When mounted in the stand, the right side of the tablet has, from back to front, a micro-SD card slot, a USB-C port, a recharge port, a micro-HDMI port, a headphone jack, and a speaker. A second speaker is located on the left side of the tablet near the front corner. On the front right corner are, left to right, the volume down and up rocker and the power button.
The docking stand unfolds to support the Connect 12 tablet to make a portable video magnifier. With the stand open, the tablet may be positioned parallel to the base of the stand or tilted for more comfortable viewing. The base of the stand is polished and provides a good surface for positioning any kind of reading material beneath the tablet’s camera.
Main Carousel
It takes the Connect 12 about 30 seconds to initialize the Prodigi software that runs over the Android operating system. Once initialized, the “Main Carousel,” or menu, opens on the screen with the “Magnifier” menu icon in the center of the screen. The Main Carousel is a series of nine icons with a large print label beneath each. Swiping a finger left or right on the screen centers the different menu items on the screen. Touching the icon opens the app it represents. Other top level icons include: Calculator; Books; Distance; Notes; APH; Magnifier; Gallery; Settings; and Help.
The Main Carousel with its large- print icons simplifies the standard Android applications and makes a great user interface for the newcomer to assistive technology, or someone intimidated by a greater number of menu options. Prodigi allows you to limit the features available, by choosing Basic, Standard, or Advanced. From the Settings icon, choose the first menu item, User Interface, and select one of the three settings. In the Basic interface, the MATT Connect functions as a video magnifier, with contrast, color modes, and magnification to enhance the image. The Standard mode includes video magnification and enables both optical character recognition (OCR) and saving images to the Gallery. At this interface level documents can be read with text to speech in one of two voices, the female voice Heather, or the male voice Ryan. It is only in the Advanced user interface that you can go back and forth between the Prodigi interface and the Android operating system.
The User Interface menu is also where adjustments can be made to the appearance of the Prodigi system. The sans serif font size throughout the Prodigi menus appears unchangeable at 5M. In the User Interface menu, other features may be changed, such as Screen Brightness, Colors, Locator Color, and System Language. The Colors selection offers 17 color combinations for text and background colors. The Locator is a single line rectangle that highlights a menu item, and can be changed to any one of seven high- contrast colors. It’s worth noting that the Locator seems to be positioned centrally across the screen. The Locator does not move, the menu items are moved by dragging a finger up or down across the screen into and out of the Locator. As these settings are changed, the display changes as well, so it is easy to select the appearance that works best for you.
Text-to-speech is off by default, but can be turned on from the Settings menu. Select the Audio menu to find the toggle. Speech Rate is also located in the Audio menu along with several other audio settings. There are four settings in Speech Rate, ranging from Slow to Very Fast. The two voices for text- to- speech are not listed in the Audio settings, but rather in About, the last item in the Settings menu. Both Ryan and Heather are listed in the Voices menu, but Ryan seems only available to read text from documents.
Magnifier
The Magnifier app, like the other Prodigi apps, is opened by touching or tapping the icon. A context- specific menu appears across the bottom of the display, called Banner Buttons. Unlike the Main Carousel, the context menu icons do not have large- print labels, but the button icons are intuitive. It’s worth noting that these buttons are not read by the Prodigi text-to-speech.
From the Magnifier menu, an up arrow button and down arrow button will increase or decrease the magnification of a document placed beneath the camera. At the highest magnification, a 7- letter word in newspaper print will fill the screen. At this level of magnification, however, there is some pixelation, although this doesn’t appear until the very highest magnification levels. Lower magnification levels are very sharp. Opening the Magnifier Settings button reveals color and contrast settings, brightness, focus, and more Magnification app settings. The contrast and color settings enable both positive and negative contrast with 17 different color combinations, so there is a wide range of viewing options. To read the document with text-to-speech, select the camera button from the Magnifier menu. A picture is taken of the document, and processed within seconds. The Banner Buttons at the bottom of the screen change with a Play/Pause button in the center of the menu options. Pressing Play starts text-to-speech reading with words highlighted on the screen as they are read. Text automatically scrolls from bottom to top as it is read. Magnification can be increased or decreased, color and contrast changed as need, and the voice settings can be changed by opening the Settings button.
When using the camera to process OCR, an 8.5-inch by 11-inch document can be completely processed by placing the document beneath the tablet sideways, or in landscape mode, with lowest magnification, or in “full page” mode. Taking a picture of the document magnified will process only that portion of the document being viewed, so it is important to reduce the magnification to process a full page of text.
Gallery
Once a picture is taken of a document, it can be saved in the Gallery, which is also found in the Main Carousel. Once the camera processes an image, the Banner Buttons include a Save icon, just to the left of the Play/Pause icon. The Save button looks like a floppy disk with a pen on it. Touch Save and the processed document is saved to the Gallery.
Saved documents can be opened by selecting the Gallery from the Main Carousel. Documents can be edited using the Edit menu, which appears as an icon of a pen with a squiggly line beneath it. The Edit submenu includes highlighting, drawing or text tools, and a color palette. Selecting the text icon, a “T,” will not immediately produce a keyboard. A long press on the screen brings up the on-screen keyboard. Some users may want to pair an external keyboard for text input, because the virtual keyboard letters are in high contrast, but small. There is also a microphone icon for speech dictation. Text-to-speech needs to be off when dictating because the speech playback of dictated words is added to the dictation! All edits are automatically saved to the Gallery when pressing the Back button.
Distance Viewing
One of the most innovative features of the MATT Connect is the WiFi wide-angle Kodak camera that comes with the unit. The camera is rechargeable via USB, and mounts on a sturdy flexible arm so it can be easily moved in nearly any direction. With the tablet’s WiFi turned on, the camera connects to the tablet’s WIFI as soon as the camera is turned on. Choosing Distance from the Main Carousel enables the view through this external camera. Like the Magnifier view, magnification may be increased or decreased as needed, positive or negative contrast added, and foreground and background colors changed. An image of the distance view can also be captured and saved to the Gallery. In Distance View, a carrot appears on the left side of the display, which enables a split-screen view, perfect for situations that require both a view of a distant lecture or whiteboard and a document in the Magnifier window at the same time. Touching either of the split-screen views opens that view to full screen, so it’s easy to alternate between views.
Notes
The Notes app is a convenient way to type a note or use a finger or stylus to write a note freehand on the screen. Select the Notes icon from the Main Carousel and a list of saved notes appears. Select the “+” button in the upper right corner of the screen to open a menu with “Create new note,” as the first menu item. The new note display opens with the same set of Banner Buttons that appears in the Gallery editing screen. Just press the button with the pen and squiggly line to open the editing tools: text, freehand, or highlight,
Notes can be managed and deleted from the list of notes by long-pressing a note to bring up an Action Menu. From this menu, notes can be shared by email, Dropbox, or Google Drive as PDF documents or JPG files, and can be renamed and organized into Categories.
Calculator
The Calculator app offers three modes: Standard, Scientific, and Graphing. Calculator Mode is the first menu item the list on the Calculator Setting menu. When the Scientific mode is selected, scientific features are displayed when the key showing a left and right arrow, beneath the “2” button, is pressed. This same key in the Graphing Mode appears beneath the “1” key and provides additional functions for graphing. Solutions are plotted on a graph with increased or decreased magnification available from the Banner Buttons below the graph.
Books
Books is a dedicated Bookshare app where books and periodicals can be downloaded and read. The Bookshare username and password are input in the Settings menu for the initial login. Books can be searched for by title or author, or browsed alphabetically or by category. Downloaded books and periodicals are stored in “My Library,” the first menu item in the Settings menu.
The reading interface is very much like that for reading from the Magnification menu described earlier. Once a title is selected, the Settings menu on the Banner Buttons includes Speech, Font Size, Color, and Contrast, and several other settings specifically for reading. The Font Size includes eight settings, from Small to Maximum, in either Bold, or Regular style. In addition to these settings, the Banner Buttons include the “+” or “-“ to increase or decrease magnification. With the font size set to Maximum, and the magnification at the highest level, the display shows two lines of 16M text, or about 12 letters per line. When Play/Pause is selected, the text scrolls from bottom to top and is highlighted as the words are read. For the visual reader with low vision, this is really a very versatile reading interface with lots of viewing options.
APH Toolbox
Books is not the only reading app on the MATT Connect. Open the APH icon from the Main Carousel to find fourteen additional apps, including BARD Mobile, Learning Ally, and Amazon Kindle. All of the applications in this menu appear to open from the Android operating system. Several of the apps, including BARD, open in portrait mode, which requires turning the whole device to a portrait orientation, or using the app sideways! If the tablet is being used alone, without the stand, this is not a problem, but if it is secured in the stand, this is clumsy. Note that there is a rotation control app detailed in the Manufacturer Comments that will allow a user to rotate the orientation of an app. Apps preloaded in the APH menu, include:
- Nearby Explorer Online
- Lockdown Pro
- Dropbox
- Word
- Excel
- Powerpoint
- Interpreter
- Snap Type
- Splashtop Classroom
- WordWall
- Ball Tapper
Fortunately, the productivity apps all opened in landscape orientation. In the Settings menu for the APH Toolbox app, other apps may be included (such as Chrome and Sound Recorder among others). To simplify, you can remove the default apps from the menu list, to keep it simpler, if desired. For the user accustomed to the Prodigi system navigation used elsewhere from the Main Carousel, opening and closing apps from the Android Home and Back buttons on the bottom of the display may be a bit confusing at first. Before magnification or text-to-speech can be used on the apps that open from the APH menu, these accessibility options need to be turned on from the Android Settings menu.
Help
The last menu item from the Main Carousel is the Help icon. Two menu items are available from Help, YouTube Tutorials, and Feedback. Feedback is a contact form asking users about their experience with the MATT Connect. YouTube Tutorials contains two menu items, MATT Connect, and Webinars. Both menu items open a channel of APH YouTube from the Android system. The tutorials are comprehensive, but navigating into the Android operating system to find help may not be the intuitive for the new user. It’s a disappointment not to find, at the very least, a digital copy of the Getting Started Guide, or the MATT Connect User Guide. A large-print copy comes with the MATT Connect, and it seems an oversight not to include this in either the Help menu, or as one of the Notes files. The MATT Connect User Guide is available to download from the APH website.
The Bottom Line
The MATT Connect is an innovative all-in-one portable device that combines great video magnifier flexibility with serious productivity features. Although APH clearly developed the MATT Connect with students in mind, it’s easy to see that these same features are just as useful in a work or leisure setting. The Distance View camera, for example, is certainly perfect for a classroom, and just as great for identifying birds at an outdoor feeder, or for working on a craft project that requires magnification from a flexible camera. Moving in and out of the Prodigi and Android operating systems may be challenging for the newcomer, but Prodigi menus are stable and pretty consistent throughout, so this is something the new user can learn quickly. At $2,995.00, the MATT Connect has the features of a desktop video magnifier, plus many more productivity features, in a more portable unit. The MATT Connect is certainly near the top of the list for that portable all-in-one that many of us have been looking for.
Manufacturer’s Comments
The American Printing House for the Blind (APH) would like to thank AccessWorld for reviewing the MAT Connect and providing the article for our comments.
We would like AccessWorld readers to know that in the APH Toolbox there is a Screen Rotation Control app that can be added to the list of apps in the toolbox that rotates the app’s screen orientation. For example, BARD mobile opens in portrait view. Select the Screen Rotation Control app, press the landscape option, then open the BARD application again and it will open in landscape view. This allows the option of keeping the tablet in the stand. To help prevent damage to the tablet, there is an option to lock the tablet in place securely to the stand. Using the included screw and mini screwdriver, you have the option to screw the tablet in place or simply do not assemble the screw, to have the option of removing the tablet as needed. APH offers a skills checklist on our website. This checklist is available for instructors to use with students learning to use the MATT Connect. It is updated when new features and updates are released, to help teachers show student progress as they learn new features of the device.
The smart tablet magnifier is a tool we feel particularly excited about watching evolve at APH, because we know how important it is for employability that the technology skills of students grow. While they are using the MATT Connect as a tool to magnify schoolwork, students are also learning valuable tech skills, and improving on them every day. We’ve seen even 5- and 6-year old’s work in the advanced mode of the device.
APH recently conducted a multi-month study of how students are using MATT Connect in their schoolwork and teachers in their classroom and shared that with teachers and access technologists in a workshop, to think through the design of the next generation smart tablet magnifier. APH is thinking ahead to the needs of the student and user of the future, and until that new device is developed, the MATT Connect will continue to receive software upgrades about twice a year to stay relevant and useful.
This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.
Related articles:
- Indoor Wayfinding with Access Explorer from American Printing House for the Blind: One Step Forward by Bill Holton
- IPEVO VZ-X Doc Cam: A Stealth Video Magnifier by Steve Kelley
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