Deborah Kendrick
Thousands of iPhones are in the hands of blind and low vision consumers today, arguably one of the most popular products in the blind community since the arrival of the Perkins braille writer! Many of those blind iPhone users, however, struggle daily with the flat touch screen of the phone, longing for some good old-fashioned buttons or switches to enable one to move from app to app or to enter text for a message.
A number of products have come into the marketplace to address this problem – from the simplicity of dots strategically placed on a screen protector to costly braille displays – but a product introduced to the United States earlier this year by a couple of brilliant inventors from The Netherlands addresses the issue with dazzling success. The Hable One, as it is called, is smaller and lighter than my iPhone itself, took less than five minutes to set up, has battery life that is like no other product that comes to mind, and, best of all, does what it set out to do. And what it set out to do is to enable a blind person to navigate an iOS or android phone – all those apps and gestures – from a simulated Perkins-style keyboard. If you can learn all the commands – and there are plenty of them – you can operate all the apps in your phone, enter, read, and navigate text, and do all of it without ever touching the phone at all.
Out of the box
Unboxing the Hable One is every bit as user friendly as the device itself. You will find the Hable One itself, a small USBC charging cable, and a carry strap in case you want to wear it on your wrist or attach it to something. I found it easiest to use it without the strap, but that's just a personal preference. All user guides can be emailed to you or downloaded by you at any time from the Hable web site.
The Hable One is very simple in design. Roughly rectangular and weighing just 90 grams (3.2 ounces), it has a considerably smaller footprint than my iPhone 12 Pro. It has six buttons to represent the six braille dots, plus two larger keys for dots 7 and 8, which perform a multitude of functions. You hold it vertically, with your thumbs on its back and your brailling fingers on the front surface facing away from you. When holding it vertically, there is a single switch top center which is for powering it on and off. When you slide the switch to turn the Hable on, it vibrates to let you know it is on. When you switch it off, your phone's VoiceOver will announce "Keyboard visible."
The USBC charging port is on the bottom edge. Typing can be done in either uncontracted or contracted braille, with all braille translation being done on the Hable One. Although it can be used with either iOS or android devices, I have used it with an iPhone 12 Pro, so observations will reference that particular phone.
If you have ever tried using the Screenaway mode for braille input on the iPhone, the posture for using the Hable One is reminiscent of that typing method. Rather than placing the Hable One on a table with keys facing upward, you hold it vertically with keys facing away from you. With your thumbs on back and three fingers of each hand placed on the braille keys for dots 1 through 6, you are ready to go. The 1 through 6 keys are small and round, while the keys 7 and 8 are long and narrow. To space, press key 8. To backspace, press key 7. To double tap, press keys 7 and 8 together. You can type uncontracted or contracted braille. The translation is all onboard, performed by the Hable one.
Within just a few minutes of pairing the Hable One with my iPhone 12 Pro, I was typing a message in the Messages app, a note in the Notes app, and an experimental few paragraphs in Voice Dream Writer. The results were clean text, without errors, remarkably accurate fora first run with any keyboard. If you prefer dictating your text, you can still do that. Just navigate to the Dictate button, double tap it by pressing Hable's 7 and 8 keys together and begin speaking.
Navigating the phone screen
How, you are wondering, can you possibly navigate from app to app and screen to screen and execute commands with only eight keys? The answer is both simple and brilliant. To move through the apps on the Home screen for example, let's start at the top of the screen. If your first app there is Facetime, VoiceOver will speak Facetime. Now, hold down the 7 key and tap the 8 key. With each tap, you will move from icon to icon till you get to the Dock at the bottom. Continue holding 7 and tapping 8 to move across your Dock till you get to the last message which, in my case is Messages. If you want to move back to an app further up the screen, reverse the action. Hold down key 8 and continuously tap key 7. You will move icon by icon to the left corner of the Dock and then, one by one, through icons from bottom to top of screen. When you find the one you want, say Notes, press 7 and 8 simultaneously to simulate a double tap and open the app.
By using strategies like this one and others like "press and hold" technique, Hable One's inventors have covered all possible bases. To go to the Home screen, for instance, press and hold the letter H (dots 1-2-5). To hear notifications, press and hold the letter n (dots 1-3-4-5). TO move back to the previous screen, press and hold the braille letter b (dots 1-2).
Most commands are intuitive, and those that aren't are learned through repeated use. You can move from page to page, access and navigate the rotor, type and review text, read lengthy documents, and even answer and end a phone call. All of these functions can be performed exclusively by the Hable One without ever having to touch the phone's screen at all. The phone can, in fact, be inside a pocket or bag while you use the Hable to "drive" it through reading and writing email, listening to podcasts, checking the weather, or any other combination of the myriad things you might do with your iPhone. The phone could even be in the next room or in a drawer, as long as the Bluetooth signal reaches and you are able to hear the phone. If you use a Bluetooth headset with your phone, you don't even need to have the phone close for listening. I use Bluetooth hearing aids which stream the audio from my iPhone, so that I can perform all phone functions from the Hable One without the phone ever coming out of my pocket.
Additional Features
When you press the number sign (dots 3-4-5-6) to indicate the beginning of a number sequence or dot 6 to indicate an uppercase letter, the Hable One vibrates to confirm. Similarly, when many of the "press and hold" commands are issued, Hable One vibrates. It vibrates when powered on and does not vibrate when powered off, so it is easy to tell by touch when the unit is active.
The designers say that the battery life of the Hable One is about 50 hours. I'd say it might be even greater than that. It takes only three hours to charge fully, which I did upon first opening the box. A good two months went by before I ever charged it again.
At this point, the Hable One accepts input in either contracted or uncontracted UEB. Plans are for earlier codes, such as English Braille American edition to become available as well.
Again, although this review refers only to the iPhone, the Hable One is compatible with both iOS and android devices. Several languages are available including English, French, Spanish, Italian, and others, with plans to add more. It sells for $349.
If mastering the gestures needed to use the iPhone with VoiceOver effectively has presented more challenge than you care to manipulate or if you simply want one more alternative for efficiently and rapidly entering and reviewing text on your smartphone, the Hable One offers an efficient and ingenious solution.
For additional information, visit
www.iamhable.com or email info@iamhable.com.
This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.
