A Smartphone Phone for the Visually Impaired

The lives of the average citizen of any country in the world are now revolving around smartphones. In addition to taking telephone calls most of them use smartphones from checking the emails, latest news to listening to music. But visually disabled never had the chance to experience the usage of a smartphone. But now for the first time in the work a team of researchers in India has come up with a  prototype for a smartphone for the visually impaired.

It was reported that it took more than three years to create this wonderful invention. It is said to be converting all the text received to the phone into the Braille patterns. This will enable any blind person to read SMSes, e-mails.

The company that invented the device announced that they were very happy about the success of their invention and had said that the product is based on an innovative touch screen. This special screen is capable of lifting and depressing the elements on the screen according to the signals received. Hence the screen can convert into touchable patterns that can be recognised by a visually impaired person. Hence even though it  was called as a smart phone the screen will be totally different to the smooth glass panel of an ordinary smartphone.

This innovative phone uses the Shape Memory Alloy Technology. This technology is based on a particular concept which is where metal should retain it is original shape after expansion and contraction. There is a Braille display on the phone making the screen of the phone to have grid pins which represent a character or a letter. Hence when a text is sent to this special phone, the little pins on the screen will lift up or pressed down automatically translating the text into Braille.

Before this innovative invention the closest possibility for the visually impaired to use a smart phone was certain apps that read the received the text and reading the currency denominations etc. But then the phone had to be operated by someone else to enable and operate the app. So this the first time a mobile phone specially invented to be fully operated by a visually impaired individual. Still it is not declared the operating system that would be used for this new phone. The inventors are considering several possibilities at the moment.

The new phone will not be just a phone for a  visually impaired person. It will be considered as a companion too. So there will be quite a few features that will help the user to manage certain day to day activities without relying on anyone’s help. While the average smartphone is more used as a device for entertainment, this new phone will be an extremely useful device for the users that will immensely help them to be as independent as possible.

The inventor of this very useful device Mr. Sumit Dagar had started the project three years ago while studying interaction designing at the National Institute of Design (NID) in India. After being employed at several companies he had resigned to give his full attention to his new invention. He started his venture with a team of six people .