An estimated 285 million people in the world are visually impaired; this includes legally blind and visually limited persons. For the past two decades there have been no new innovations regarding visually impaired technology. Available technology for visually impaired people (VIP) is expensive, bulky and often limited and only around 5% of visually-impaired people worldwide have the privilege of owning Braille devices. Educational and day to day life for VIPs has remained severely limited.
We were successful in mass-producing our core technology: the electro-magnetic actuator. These actuators are what you see in the Dot Watch. Our feat was drastically minimizing the size and the cost of the current market standard – the piezo-electric cell, which is still used by today through many electronic braille devices. Dot cell is the smallest, most cost-efficient, and the most mobile technology for electronic braille displaying. The Dot cell is the first mass producible, scalable, and affordable actuator technology. It offers an excellent performance at 1/10 of the price, when compared with the existing braille cell technologies.
We attempt to be the very bridge for the visually impaired people to the information world with a cost-effective, easy-to-carry, braille assistive device using the multi-active actuator technique along with additional technical and educational content. Such features will help the visually impaired people to self-learn.
Simultaneously, we are on the forefront of creating awareness about the importance of braille literacy in order to gain support for education and affordable alternatives for the visually impaired market. These efforts were recognized in startup competitions such as Slush Tokyo 2017 and Get in the Ring 2016 as well as 20+ design awards from all over the world including Cannes Lions Golden Lion award, Good Design 100 award, and Wallpaper’s “Life-enhancer of the Year” Design award which all eventually helped bring together successful attention to this subject.
