Tell time haptically with the braille watch

David Chavez's conceptual braille watch is a simple solution to time-reading for the blind. Instead of tracing the hands on a crystal-less watch face, the visually impaired simply trace the bumps (raised by rotating discs) with their fingers. I actually wouldn't be too averse to owning a watch like this: it would be excellent for covertly checking the time during a terrible movie or a tedious blind date.

Haptica Braille Watch Concept [Tuvie]

[#1 posted by Anonymous , May 26, 2008 7:56 AM]

Blind date. Unintended allusion?

[#2 posted by mdhatter , May 26, 2008 10:46 AM]

How has this not been built before? Really.

[#3 posted by Jerril , May 26, 2008 11:26 AM]

MDHatter - I'm not blind, but I work in the support industry for visually impaired people, or at least the bare outline that passes for one. They're a small enough demographic that they get overlooked completely, or they get under-engineered solutions - just enough so that it works (barely) and no more.

There's still a lot of companies that don't offer accessible billing options - braille or large font or audio-recording versions of bills and bank statements. Of those that do, a surprisingly large group create "large font" statements by taking a regular statement, slapping it on a photocopier, and telling it to enlarge by 100%.

This works about as poorly as formatting a webpage for a cellphone by making all the fonts tiny - plus you add photocopier static, which reduces contrast and makes the whole thing harder to read if you have vision problems.

Arg. Sorry, ranting.

tl;dr: It's about freeking time someone thought about this. I hope it gets built.

[#4 posted by chef , May 27, 2008 2:53 AM]

Though not as elegant, I thought you could use those talking watches for this purpose.

[#5 posted by hohum , June 14, 2008 8:40 PM]

I'm -really- late to this party, but Tissot makes some nice watches, readable by the blind via haptic feedback as one runs their fingers along the rim of the face. Touch sensitive time/alarm (vibe) set as well. Nifty and styling.