[Home-on-the-range] interesting article

Milton Ota mota1252 at samobile.net
Sat May 18 18:12:34 UTC 2019 

I must have missed something, I didn't see how much memmory the phone has.

Irie-AT has been in the past at the NFB National Convention and I don't 
see why they wouldn't be there this year as the company is based in Oregon.

Original message:
> Did you see how much memory it has? That is not a bad price at all.


> Cindy Lou
> Sent from my iPad
> On May 18, 2019, at 12:08 PM, Rob Tabor via Home-on-the-Range 
> <home-on-the-range at nfbnet.org <mailto:home-on-the-range at nfbnet.org>> wrote:



> I visited the website from the link in the article and the SmartVision2 
> is priced at $599, probably with shipping costs added. The price 
> doesn’t seem too terrible, considering I was prepared to hear at least 
> $800, and taking into account the phone was designed with front end 
> accessibility.

> If Aire-AT has company reps in the convention exhibit arena, it may be 
> worth our while to get a hands-on look at it to gain our own first-hand 
> impressions.

> Best regards,

> Rob

> From: Home-on-the-Range [mailto:home-on-the-range-bounces at nfbnet.org 
> <mailto:home-on-the-range-bounces at nfbnet.org>] On Behalf Of Cindy Ray 
> via Home-on-the-Range
> Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2019 9:59 AM
> To: NFB of Kansas Internet Mailing List
> Cc: Cindy Ray
> Subject: Re: [Home-on-the-range] interesting article

> I can’t imagine what this phone would cost. I am not sure I see where 
> that phone would be less intimidating than any other smart phone except 
> it does have keys. However, with the size stated, the buttons would 
> likely all be small and close together. If you were a person with big 
> fingers or calloused fingers, it would probably be some hard to use it 
> I think. Of course I haven’t seen it, so I could be just being negative.

> Cindy Lou Ray

> Sent from my iPhone

> On May 18, 2019, at 9:43 AM, Susie Stanzel via Home-on-the-Range 
> <home-on-the-range at nfbnet.org <mailto:home-on-the-range at nfbnet.org>> wrote:

> Hi Everyone,

> I know all of us know people who need a simpler phone. The President of 
> the Kansas City chapter forwarded this article from our Voice of the 
> nation’s blind blog.

> Susie

> Feed: Voice of the Nation's Blind Blog
> Posted on: Thursday, May 16, 2019 9:26 AM
> Author: avetro
> Subject: The SmartVision2: A Smartphone Made Easy

> The SmartVision2: A Smartphone Made Easy

> <image001.jpg>

> avetro May 16, 2019

> Matt Hackert

> Thursday, May 16, 2019

> The SmartVision2 from Irie-AT is a smartphone built from the ground up 
> with accessibility in mind. Its key feature is its simplification of 
> many smartphone tasks, designed to reduce the learning curve of 
> smartphone technology for those intimidated by mainstream iPhones and 
> Android phones. Overall, I think that the SmartVision2 
> <https://irie-at.com/product/smartvision2/> accomplishes this goal.

> General Overview

> There are two versions of the SmartVision2, differentiated only by the 
> software features offered. Irie-AT allows you to purchase the basic 
> model but gives you a fifteen-day trial to test-drive the features only 
> available in the premium model. Should you decide to upgrade, special 
> pricing is available to make the upgrade a little more affordable.

> The phone itself is nearly identical in size and weight to the iPhone 
> 7. The front face of the phone has a four-inch touch screen with the 
> tactile keypad comprising the bottom portion. The tactile interface is 
> further broken out into two sections—the navigation section that 
> includes call pick up and hang up buttons on the outer edges, home, 
> return, menu, and delete keys closer to the center, and a four-way 
> navigation button and OK button in the center; and a standard numeric 
> telephone keypad. The number “five” is marked tactually.

> Three Interface Options

> The SmartVision2 offers three ways to interact with the phone:


>    * Tactile keypad

>    * Touch screen and gestures

>    * Voice command

> All three interface options work fairly well, and most users will 
> likely use a combination of them in daily operation of the phone. I 
> personally enjoyed the ability to use a physical keypad for inputting 
> phone numbers but preferred to use the on-screen keyboard to type 
> text-based information such as names and email messages. You can, in 
> fact, use the old-school method of typing alphabetic characters using 
> the phone’s numeric keypad, pressing a number one, two, or three times 
> to access the corresponding letter.

> Tactile Keypad

> The tactile keypad on the lower portion of the phone appears to be a 
> good option, especially for those new to smartphones or who have 
> difficulty with using gestures on a touch screen. In particular, the 
> numeric pad is fast and easy, even if you are comfortable with 
> touch-screen keyboards.

> The one caveat I would point out is that the navigation buttons are 
> small and closely packed. The down arrow in particular butts right up 
> against the number two and can be tricky to press, especially if your 
> finger dexterity is less than optimal. One handy feature, though, is 
> the OK button in the middle of the navigation keys—you can flick to an 
> element, then press the OK button, rather than try to double-tap on the 
> screen, risk moving focus to something else, having to find the right 
> object again, and double-tapping.

> Touch Screen

> As an iPhone user, I found moving to an Android-based, touch-screen 
> interface easy and intuitive. Flicking left and right and 
> double-tapping work as you might expect. Some symbols on the on-screen 
> keyboard are located in different places, but touching and sliding your 
> finger works easily enough to find what you need. On the downside, the 
> responsiveness is a bit slow. In particular, exploring the screen (with 
> the exception of the on-screen keyboard) feels sluggish.

> I discovered, with both the keyboard navigation and touch-screen 
> navigation, one unique feature is that in most menus and settings 
> screens, navigation will cycle continuously, meaning that there is no 
> “bottom” or “top” to a screen. If you flick right again past the last 
> element, or press the down arrow again, focus will cycle back to the 
> top. Likewise, if you try to navigate up from the topmost element, you 
> will be brought back to the last element on the screen.

> Voice Command

> The SmartVision2 has a voice command button on the right-hand side, 
> just above the two volume buttons. Press this button to “wake” the 
> device, and you will hear a tone prompting you to speak a command to 
> the device. One annoyance I found was that there was a delay, 
> frequently in excess of ten seconds, between pressing the button and 
> hearing the prompt that the device was ready to listen. One possible 
> explanation is that I also noticed a tendency for the device to lose 
> Wi-Fi connectivity, despite high signal strength. Once you get that 
> far, however, response is quick and accurate. You can issue almost any 
> command you would expect to be able to give on a standard Android or 
> Apple phone. In addition, all edit fields allow you to dictate text, 
> which works well. Note that you do need a network connection as the 
> SmartVision2 sends your dictation off to Google for interpretation, as 
> is the case for other smartphones.

> Software

> The built-in software of the SmartVision2 is pretty comprehensive. It 
> includes phone, email, text messaging, and web browsing, as well as a 
> calendar, contact management, camera, and photo management, as well as 
> other apps found on other mainstream devices. One unique feature I did 
> not have a way to test is the ability for friends or family to “remote 
> in” to help troubleshoot problems. If this feature works as advertised, 
> it would be a nice feature for those not technically inclined when they 
> run into problems.

> Further, if there’s something you need that doesn’t come automatically 
> installed, the SmartVision2 includes the Google Play Store, and will 
> allow you to install third-party apps. The home screen is highly 
> customizable, and you can assign shortcuts to keypad numbers.

> The SmartVision2 also includes several specialized apps such as a color 
> detector, lighting detector, and video magnifier. For OCR and GPS 
> navigation, you will need to purchase the premium model, which also 
> gives you an eBook and DAISY reader/creator.

> The native apps generally work well. The color detector and light 
> detector are not great, but I have not found any that are very reliable 
> on other devices. For color detection in particular, the ambient 
> lighting of the room strongly influences what color is detected and how 
> true to life the detected color really is.

> In terms of the premium apps, while they seem to work fine, I feel that 
> there are other free or less expensive alternatives that perform as 
> well or better. Google Maps does as well as the Kapten GPS app. KNFB 
> Reader does as well or better than the premium OCR app. And there are 
> alternative DAISY readers such as Voice Dream Reader and Writer that cost less.

> Conclusion

> To conclude, Irie-AT does a really good job delivering a solid phone 
> that has the potential to open up access to many smartphone features to 
> people who might otherwise be intimidated by mainstream phones and 
> their many complexities. It is not a cheap solution, though. I do feel 
> that the basic model will work quite well for most users.

> —Matt Hackert

> The National Federation of the Blind is proud to offer this smartphone 
> review as part of our celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day 
> <https://globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org/>, Thursday, May 16, 2019. 
> Our accessibility resources 
> <https://www.nfb.org/programs-services/center-excellence-nonvisual-access>—which 
> center on consumer involvement, meaningful partnerships, and technical 
> assistance—continually help inform and improve technology for all of 
> us. Join us in our commitment to build a more accessible world.

> Access Technology <https://www.nfb.org/blog-categories/access-technology>

> Read this blog post

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