Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Laptop for blind 90 year old (self.Blind)
submitted by making_pans4nigel
Hi all.. my Dad has been blind for about ten years. I am trying to find a good technical solution to enable him to send and receive emails. We previously used something called Guide Handsfree, which sat on his Windows 7 desktop PC. When the PC was booted it opened a menu screen (instead of the windows desktop) which he could cursor through to get simple options like "Read Emails", and "Send an Email". The system was trained to his voice so he could dictate both to navigate the menu system but also as voice to text for the content of emails. The product is no longer supported (they shifted more to VI, removing the dictation element) and his desktop PC is old and pretty flakey, so I want to buy him a new system that is more portable.
He tried an iphone with accessibility and voice over but really struggled to get to grips with it (never having seen an iphone).
He is in a different country from most of his family, and is pretty cut off due to COVID, being able to send and receive emails again would be great.
Does this community have any advice? Many thanks everyone.
He tried an iphone with accessibility and voice over but really struggled to get to grips with it (never having seen an iphone).
He is in a different country from most of his family, and is pretty cut off due to COVID, being able to send and receive emails again would be great.
Does this community have any advice? Many thanks everyone.
retrolental_morose 5 points 2y ago
have you considered Alexa? It links into GMail or Microsoft I lieve.
Were he younger by far the best option would be to learn Windows properly - NVAccess have several good books at low prices to start with NVDA. But this sounds like it may be a bit too much.
Were he younger by far the best option would be to learn Windows properly - NVAccess have several good books at low prices to start with NVDA. But this sounds like it may be a bit too much.
retrolental_morose 4 points 2y ago
The show line has also introduced "what am I holding?"
to ID foodstufs etc. I don't find it as accurate, fast or reliable as iPhone apps, but it's better than nothing.
Alexa's also great for calendar, reminders, podcasts, music, news, audiobooks and communicating with family.
to ID foodstufs etc. I don't find it as accurate, fast or reliable as iPhone apps, but it's better than nothing.
Alexa's also great for calendar, reminders, podcasts, music, news, audiobooks and communicating with family.
making_pans4nigel [OP] 1 points 2y ago
Thank you
80percentaccurate 4 points 2y ago
A second vote for an echo dot. You don’t want to try to teach him so much that it overwhelms him, but the echo is designed to work using voice only so he might like it.
making_pans4nigel [OP] 1 points 2y ago
Thanks
siriuslylupin6 1 points 2y ago
But any laptop he got he would have to be trained on it and that may be a long while but if he’s willing maybe worth the investment but he’s also very old.
CosmicBunny97 1 points 2y ago
Maybe something like an iPad with a keyboard?
rumster 1 points 2y ago
As others suggested here. Alexa/Google can read emails. Windows 10 has accessibility reading options for the cursor still as well.
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