[Electronics-talk] Miniguide

[Ashley Bramlett]

Sarah,
Your question was very clear IMO; you stated you wanted opinions from users 
of the device.
It was another poster who asked what it was.
Thanks for the explanation; a good educational piece for those who knew 
little or nothing about it.

I'm glad you provided more info. I've learned  that the bibrations or pitch 
changes as you get nearer objects.
Sounds  like a neat device! I wish I could answer your question.
I'd suggest checking Access world on AFB site; they review both products 
made for the blind and those products for general use with some accessible 
features. Great electronic magazine.

Good luck with your decision on what to purchase!
Ashley

-----Original Message----- 
From: Sarah Clark
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2013 1:39 PM
To: electronics-talk at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] Miniguide


"It's probably a good practice to provide this type of information when
posting a question about a device or an application that may not be
familiar to everyone. It'll help get better answers more quickly, and
it'll cut down on list traffic.
If I see something mentioned I don't recognize, I'll either look it up
in Google, as Jim suggests, or I'll just hit the delete key. I think the
original poster has some responsibility here, see my previous point, and
I don't always have the time to decipher a poorly thought out post."

I apologize, I thought my message was directed to those who have a 
Miniguide, so I suppose I naively assumed that they would know what it was.

But for those of you who didn't know, I would be happy to explain. It is a 
device that uses vibrations (and/or audio cues) to help you to detect items 
you might need to find. For instance, it can help you find mailboxes, trash 
cans, doorways, when the person ahead of you in line moves forward, etc etc. 
You can also use it simply to count landmarks, such as the number of trees, 
until you have to turn right or left. The closer you are to the object in 
its beam, the faster the vibrations are, and then the vibrations slow down 
as the object gets farther away. (Or in the case of the audio cues, the 
pitch of the tone gets higher or lower depending on the distance of the 
object.). This can be helpful either with a cane where you are kind of 
limited by the length of the cane, or with a guide dog who is ordinarily 
trained to keep you away from obstacles.

There used to be a similar product back in the 70's and 80's called the 
Mowat. My husband had one and he has told me all about it. Unfortunately it 
hasn't been manufactured in years, but the Miniguide is pretty much the same 
thing, and from what I understand of it, its an amazing little device that 
would be extremely beneficial to me.

Sarah
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