Doug lives in Northern California. He and his wife have retired from a successful water gardening business. He had to learn to use power tools and appliances without vision. Now he is an authoritative commentator on choosing and marking appliances for vision rehab professionals.
Doug: “I have been visually impaired totally blind since a child. I enjoy hands on work and like evaluating technology. Too often we have to purchase technology without knowing some of the important details.”
What Does Accessibility Mean?
During your journey of adjusting to vision loss you will hear about accessibility. What does it mean?
Household appliances may range from fully accessible to part way accessible to not accessible at all.
When you read about accessible devices it means can you use the appliance independently like you did before your vision loss? Take for example, your microwave oven. When you could see you would look at the control panel, find the label button you wanted and press it to command the oven and read any messages on its display panel. Now that you do not have the vision to choose the controls and read the display this oven is very inaccessible to you. How can you make it more accessible?
First you can glue raised markings onto a few buttons. You learn which raised mark means which button. A beep tells you that you did press a button. This somewhat makes the oven accessible. But you are still guessing because you can’t confirm you pressed the right button.
Second, wouldn’t it be helpful if the button spoke its name and any messages on the display? This is what a talking microwave oven does.
Third, between the inaccessible oven and the fully talking accessible oven are devices being designed to work with smart speakers such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home. These provide some accessibility with voice control. The downside is that you need a wireless connection, a smart speaker and the expertise to set up the system.
(Some people use smartphone apps such as SeeingAI (iPhones only) and KNFB Reader, which read aloud what’s on a screen using the phone’s camera. Distant human eyes can do the same: Be My Eyes and AIRA apps offer this. But the appliance is still inaccessible!)
Access to Appliances
Access to our appliances is a crucial discussion. Hadley and other organizations continually discuss the topic. Amazon has their basic microwave (check end of post) which is Echo compatible. Be advised this model is a 700 watt 0.7 cubic foot unit. It is not designed to cook for the average family’s requirements. Most microwave cooking instructions are based on 1000 watt output. Choosing this oven will limit the size of what you can cook. The cost is attractive coming in at $60 or below. Amazon reminds customers you must have an Echo device to operate it by voice.
Other appliances may be listed as Amazon Echo or Google Home compatible. Meaning the appliance will need to be setup to work with a smart speaker, and you must have wifi.
While some people think a smart speaker will solve all the problems for a visually impaired relative, this is not necessarily straightforward. Read the excellent discussion “Making Voice Assistants Smart for Seniors: Tips for Optimizing the Amazon Echo or Google Home” from AccessWorld
https://www.afb.org/aw/20/2/14982
You can’t just plug in a smart speaker. It has to be set up correctly. After that smart speakers and connected appliances can be helpful.
Many have been drawn to the Amazon Basic microwave because it will respond to voice commands and because of its price. Sometimes spending more might be the better choice. For example, the Magic Chef talking microwave speaks its functions. It is the more standard 1000 watt cooking output and the oven volume is 1.1 cubic foot. This would be a much more accessible appliance, will not require a wireless network, smart speaker and configuration. It retails for about $370 which is definitely pricey. Likewise, there is a talking Black and Decker toaster oven to meet many cooking needs, also retailing at $380.
Experts say we are in the infancy of smart homes and eventually all appliances will be fully smart controlled. This is called the Internet of Things.
Our Right to Privacy
It will be commonplace to have smart home devices connected to the Internet of Things. Anything from Dish washers, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, entertainment centers, lights, to lawn sprinklers and home security will be part of connected devices. The obvious marketing point is that these devices will make it easier for us consumers. This will be true in terms of partial access for those of us with visual impairments.
There is an underlying environment of data collection which we consumers do not know much about. So there is a cost for using smart appliances for all consumers.
These devices are equipped with sensors that gather data about our lives and send it to businesses for their profit. This is also true for our use of social media sites. to find out more about privacy listen to a CBC podcast series on Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/reset-reclaiming-the-internet-for-civil-society-1.5795345#content
Best Access for Blind Consumers
It remains to be seen if this means better access for visually impaired consumers. It would be ideal if there was a consumer affairs type organization that would do nothing but evaluate home appliances for accessibility and also advocate with engineers on making their new versions more accessible. Accessible appliances can be created, Sharp Electronics in the 80’s made a talking alarm clock, not sure why or if they had consulted a blind person, but this alarm clock still remains one of the most accessible devices. Did you ever use one of the Sharp Talking Time’s? If so you know what I mean. It is a widely sought after clock. Luckily I still have one that works.
From past experiences my best guess is that while having a home with smart appliances will give us visually impaired consumers some access it will always fall short of what we need. It is important that we give input on our access needs in the design of smart home devices. It is great to have a smart clothes washer you can speak to and instruct it to do a half load of laundry on delicate but if the only confirmation is a printed message on a display it falls short of what we need. For example, on my talking blood pressure monitor it speaks your current readings, but it doesn’t speak the memory entries so you can hear your last few readings. I wouldn’t throw away your adaptive skills just yet like bump dots. So as you can tell the discussion is ongoing as technology changes.
The Amazon basics microwave.https://www.afb.org/aw/20/12/16848
An older article AccessWorld from 2016 did a good job on reviewing different appliances and giving ideas on what to look for, and even though it is 5 years old it still holds some good shopping ideas.