Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Refreshable Braille Displays (self.Blind)
submitted by aggravatedbackpack
Can anyone explain to me why refreshable Braille displays are so costly? It's a terribly important tool for those who need to read/write in Braille, and I would love to design something that is more economical. Cheers!
chinakow 5 points 1y ago
I can speculate. :-)
First is that the devices use piezo-electric actuators(in most cases). I have a brailliant BI 20X that has 20 cells. Each cell has 8 moving pins in it. So that is at least 160 moving parts in a device that needs to be reliable. So part of the price is that there is just a lot in ther and not many other ways to actuate them. Magnets might seem to work but I tried a BrailleMe and if you have your finger on the cells when changing then there is not enough force to push even a light touch out of the way. The BrailleMe cells lock after being actuated but the piezo cells on the Brailliant(and most braille displays) are squishy. So I assume that means they are being continuously actuated into their positions. If they are not, then that means there is a spring in each cell for each dot and that immediately increases the parts count. People have also suggested electric motors for braille displays but that would require 160 motors packed into a device that runs on battery in most cases.
The other major arguement I have heard for the price of refreshable braille displays is that they are low volume devices and people gotta eat. Given the serial numbers I have seen on devices, I buy the low volume part. I've seen multi-year old devices with serial numbers in the low thousands so the cost of development is probably a large portion of those prices.
If you wanted to design some sort of open-source design and let the buyer foot the bills, it would probably still require you to have a few prototypes to validate your design before release.
The best I could see is the Canute 360 which sells for _only_ something like $3,000. It has 360 cells so it has at lest 2800 parts and actuates the cells individually.. and I'd love to have one but it took years of development and does not seem like it has been a hit in general because of some of its limitations.
To sum up:
1. Its hard
2. *no one reads braille
*for certain values of "no one" :-)
First is that the devices use piezo-electric actuators(in most cases). I have a brailliant BI 20X that has 20 cells. Each cell has 8 moving pins in it. So that is at least 160 moving parts in a device that needs to be reliable. So part of the price is that there is just a lot in ther and not many other ways to actuate them. Magnets might seem to work but I tried a BrailleMe and if you have your finger on the cells when changing then there is not enough force to push even a light touch out of the way. The BrailleMe cells lock after being actuated but the piezo cells on the Brailliant(and most braille displays) are squishy. So I assume that means they are being continuously actuated into their positions. If they are not, then that means there is a spring in each cell for each dot and that immediately increases the parts count. People have also suggested electric motors for braille displays but that would require 160 motors packed into a device that runs on battery in most cases.
The other major arguement I have heard for the price of refreshable braille displays is that they are low volume devices and people gotta eat. Given the serial numbers I have seen on devices, I buy the low volume part. I've seen multi-year old devices with serial numbers in the low thousands so the cost of development is probably a large portion of those prices.
If you wanted to design some sort of open-source design and let the buyer foot the bills, it would probably still require you to have a few prototypes to validate your design before release.
The best I could see is the Canute 360 which sells for _only_ something like $3,000. It has 360 cells so it has at lest 2800 parts and actuates the cells individually.. and I'd love to have one but it took years of development and does not seem like it has been a hit in general because of some of its limitations.
To sum up:
1. Its hard
2. *no one reads braille
*for certain values of "no one" :-)
aggravatedbackpack [OP] 1 points 1y ago
Thank you for such a detailed answer! I'm familiar with piezoelectric actuators, and it makes sense that they are the primary choices for these displays. I have noticed that BrailleMe is trying to try the low-cost approach, which, as you said, almost eliminates the possibility of using piezoelectric actuators. I could see how it is "clunky" to users. Thank you for that insight. I think you're right about refreshable Braille displays being used infrequently. With around 10% of blind people in the United States knowing Braille, the need for devices like these are low. Plus, an iPhone/iPad can support Braille entry, which I think is really practical. However, I think Braille education would increase if someone could find a way to make a display as user-friendly as they already are and less expensive. I think the tech could be embraced more if that were to happen. I'm not claiming that I have the answer, but after watching a friend spend egregious amounts of money for her monitor, I was curious about the idea.
chinakow 1 points 1y ago
They are crazy expensive for sure. If The braille entry keyboard on iOS stays good or gets better, I could see that leading some blind people to learn braille since it is far better than the other text entry methods. Otherwise, I do not see any way for the prices to come down in a significant fashion without there being some sort of mass-market devices being introduced to drive down the prices of piezo braille cells down. That or some other micro actuator that is cheap..
Also I hear that Android has a braille entry keyboard too but have not tried it. No one is really raving about it so maybe that could be improved and could help more people learn and want braille and that could help with prices too.
Also I hear that Android has a braille entry keyboard too but have not tried it. No one is really raving about it so maybe that could be improved and could help more people learn and want braille and that could help with prices too.
DHamlinMusic 2 points 1y ago
Android BSI works just fine. Using it to type this.
CosmicBunny97 3 points 1y ago
As someone who is planning to get a refreshable Braille display, I disagree. Sure, you can only read line by line, but that’s fine enough for me. I like the idea of having one to write ideas and notes, to check spelling, and to type and edit documents. I’m fine with technology, but have always learnt best by reading and screen readers don’t do that for me. They’re discreet, far more discreet and portable than a Perkins, and quicker than a slate and stylus, so I’m not sure what you mean by something more ergonomic.
aggravatedbackpack [OP] 1 points 1y ago
Makes sense! I was thinking about making something more economical, as in low-cost or inexpensive. I really like the newer refreshable Braille displays that are lightweight and discreet, like you said.
Shadowwynd 1 points 1y ago
There has been research into making braille by heating tiny bumps of plastic or using magnetic ferrofluid, but I haven't seen any of these technologies make it into braille displays. Research on refreshable braille has been going on since the 60's - some of the early models were the size of a washing machine.
There are *lots* of tiny parts in a Braille display that have to work *just right* or it doesn't work at all. The other part of is that currently only ~10% of the 1 million blind in the US even read braille (not familiar with statistics in other countries, but I assume similar percentages) - this means you are targeting around 100,000 people (again, US only) and not all of those want electronic braille (or they already have one and aren't going to buy another, or they can't afford a $3000-$6000 tool).
This means you have a very complex-to-manufacture niche market product - so all the R&D /support / tooling/setup costs are spread out over a few thousand units, so the cost per unit is going to be very high.
As a counterpoint, the Nintendo switch handheld game system has very few moving parts and a wide market. It's R&D / tooling cost is spread out over the 86 million units sold @ $300 each.
There are *lots* of tiny parts in a Braille display that have to work *just right* or it doesn't work at all. The other part of is that currently only ~10% of the 1 million blind in the US even read braille (not familiar with statistics in other countries, but I assume similar percentages) - this means you are targeting around 100,000 people (again, US only) and not all of those want electronic braille (or they already have one and aren't going to buy another, or they can't afford a $3000-$6000 tool).
This means you have a very complex-to-manufacture niche market product - so all the R&D /support / tooling/setup costs are spread out over a few thousand units, so the cost per unit is going to be very high.
As a counterpoint, the Nintendo switch handheld game system has very few moving parts and a wide market. It's R&D / tooling cost is spread out over the 86 million units sold @ $300 each.
BenandGracie 1 points 1y ago
I will just add, that I have a Canute, and I use it almost every day. I do wish it was a little more portable. I also have a couple of braille displays for my computers and phone. I totally agree braille displays are a very small market. For one thing, you have a device marketed towards blind folks, and on top of that, you are marketing to blind people who read braille. Basically you have a subset inside a subset.
[deleted] 1 points 1y ago
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