hi barry,
i haven't physically tried it myself but have watched orcams videos and read
their manual for it.
probably the best guide on how usable it is for low vision and blind people is
done by the Florida Vision Technology Center in a youtube demonstration which
is done by a blind person.
i also spoke to the UK orcam representative yesterday about the Read and he
told me of a couple more features that will be added to the device via over the
air updates in the future.
the cost of the orcam read is £1800
personally because of other devices that are coming out like the Envision
glasses which can be pre-ordered for less than this i think it would be more
atractive if priced around £1500.
it certainly is quite impressive in how quick and accurate it does the
recognition and this is all done off line.
the 2 things that prevented me buying one at the moment is as i already said i
think it should be priced a little lower, plus i needed it to have the ability
to connect directly to an iphone via bluetooth so the speech would be
transmitted to my wifes hearing aids via the iphone instead of making a direct
conection between the orcam read and her hearing aids.
for some people this wouldn't be a problem, but the way my wifes hearing aids
work is that they connect to the iphone via a specific app and not the standard
bluetooth connection and she is limited to 3 connected devices with the iphone
being one of them by default.
this would mean because the orcam read can't conect directly to the iphone she
would have to keep disconnecting her aids from one device to use the orcam read
and then pair that device again when she had finished using the orcam read.
here is the link to the demo on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1TMfJ2CIwY
pete.
