At Seeing Hands, we’re often asked what Braille equipment best suits a certain use case. It’s a natural question, as there are many devices out there, they’re all expensive, and it isn’t easy to compare between them. While we can’t fix all of those problems, we can provide a central source of information about what devices exist, what features they possess, and a method of comparing and filtering them. Today, we’re finally unveiling that tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The BrailleDB database<\/a> contains features and specifications of, to our knowledge, every Braille display, notetaker, Braille keyboard, and similar device available for purchase today. We also include many devices which have been announced but can’t be purchased yet and some historical devices that may still appear in the used device market. With BrailleDB, you can find a full list of features for any device, see a side-by-side comparison between any set of devices, and filter devices by the features you are looking for. Because there are a lot of things to consider about any access technology, we also have a full glossary of terms explaining what each feature is and why you might consider them important in making your decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Devices can be filtered by many attributes and as few or as many as you desire. Whether you want to see all multiline displays<\/a>, all 40-cell displays that are available for purchase today<\/a> with the ability to edit text files, or all displays shorter than 20 centimeters in length that have onboard translation for Spanish and Japanese<\/a>, BrailleDB can do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This initial version of the database is only the beginning. We have a few ideas for things to do. The used Braille display market is strong, given the high price of new equipment, so there is a benefit in adding more historical display information here. We already have 12 discontinued devices listed, but there are far more that we should consider adding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mostly, though, what’s next is to see what we never thought of. As you use the database, if there’s anything you think would be useful, use the contact link on the top of any page to let us know. The same goes for anything that doesn’t work right or where something could be made easier to use. We know a database can never answer all the questions that come up when choosing between options, but if you have one that would fit, we are going to try to find a way that it can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Would you like to help improve this system with us? We would appreciate anyone interested in joining our team of volunteers. You don’t need any particular skills, just an interest in what we’re doing. If you’re interested in testing new features and letting us know where we’ve gotten it wrong, describing devices as we add them to the database, discussing how to implement new suggested features, or any idea you have for how you could help, we would be delighted to welcome you to the team. If this sounds interesting, fill out this quick volunteer survey<\/a>, and we’ll soon be in touch to discuss what you would like to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At Seeing Hands, we’re often asked what Braille equipment best suits a certain use case. It’s a natural question, as there are many devices out there, they’re all expensive, and it isn’t easy to compare […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcement","category-brailledb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seeinghands.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seeinghands.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seeinghands.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seeinghands.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seeinghands.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/seeinghands.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":467,"href":"https:\/\/seeinghands.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions\/467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seeinghands.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seeinghands.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seeinghands.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What’s coming next?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Get involved<\/h2>\n\n\n\n