[NFB-InTheKitchen] Accessibility of Acaia iPhone apps and scales

[Cristóbal Muñoz]

Hello list,

So I currently use the Smart Chef kitchen scale from Reflex for making
coffee as well as with my espresso machine. The app’s accessible and
everything, but the spoken announcement of the measurement as you pour is on
the laggy side. Therefore, I’m in search of a more responsive and accessible
alternative. 

Acaia has a series of coffee/espresso scales that are on the higher end of
Smart coffee scales. The Pearl S scale
<https://acaia.co/collections/coffee-scales/products/pearl-model-s?variant=4
3635168968932>  apparently speaks the measurement and time as you pour
independent of an app. If I had my choice, I’d probably opt for this one
straight away. Unfortunately though, it won’t fit in between the legs of my
espresso machine (Cafelat Robot). They also have two other scales. The Lunar
scale
<https://acaia.co/collections/coffee-scales/products/lunar_2021?variant=4305
9769606372>  that has the same dimensions of the Smart Chef scale as well as
the Pyxis scale
<https://acaia.co/collections/coffee-scales/products/pyxis?variant=420600487
28292>  which is super tiny, but will fit. These unfortunately do not have
voice prompts like the Pearl. 

Does anyone here use any of these scales? Are the Acaia apps at all
accessible and if so, how’s the latency with speaking the liquid as you
pour? Their scales have a bunch of other features like visual graphs where
you can compare different espresso shot profiles, but I’m mostly interested
in being able to know the pouring info as well as the timer.  I currently
use a separate interval timer app as well as the Smart Chef scale app to
measure out my shots and pour-overs and while that workflow is accessible
enough, the lagginess of the Smart Chef scale makes pulling a precise
espresso shot harder.

I did already reach out to Acaia with this same inquiry and this is their
response: “We have previously worked with visually impaired people to
develop technology to assist them with coffee brewing. This work and
research led to incorporating sound and voice into the new Pearl S scale we
released in November 2022. In addition to the Pearl S scale, we have made
some of our supplemental applications, such as Brewmaster, compatible with
native text-to-voice software on iOS and most Android mobile devices.”

While this is an encouraging response, we all know “accessible” can mean
different things to different people. I was hoping for some real world blind
user feedback since the prices for these scales aren’t for the faint of
heart. 

Thanks,

Cristóbal

 

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