With the goal of enabling the blind and visually impaired to fully utilize technological advancements such as smartphones, a South Korean-based startup called Dot has developed a smartwatch that uses braille to display information such as time and date, text messages, and more.
Called Dot Watch, the display is made up of 24 touch sensors and 36 magnetically actuated dots that enable the wearer to read information in braille. Utilizing the embedded sensors, the smartwatch is able to recognize when the wearer is finished reading the last letter on the display and refreshes to show new braille letters. This way, any length of information can be read on the 43mm (1.7 inch) radius circle display.
Including features found on any regular watch such as the time and date, stopwatch, timer and an alarm clock, the Dot watch can also be paired with a smartphone via Bluetooth so that wearers can receive notification from social media and text messages, get directions, receive reminders for upcoming appointments, get weather updates and more.
In order to convert information to braille, Dot has developed a text-to-braille engine. Currently, Korean and English is supported with plans for Chinese, German, Spanish and Vietnamese to be released in the near future.
Charged via USB, the Dot Watch is powered by a patented actuator technology based on magnetism that enables the smartwatch to last for 7 days on a single charge.
In addition, the Dot Watch is designed on an open system, allowing anyone to develop new functionalities and abilities for the smartwatch.
To learn more about Dot Watch, click the link below.
