Welcome to the seventy-second episode of Access On, the National Federation of the Blind's Technology podcast.
Episode
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Timestamps
This week on Access On:
- National Federation of the Blind expresses outrage at title 2 delay 0:00
- Join us for our Access On webinar on document formatting 3:51
- Smart security systems and doorbells 5:41
- Smart devices for the kitchen 16:59
- Media access 26:06
- Smart health 40:45
- Response to the Apple 50 episode 54:11
- A difficult, inaccessible Ray-Ban Meta repair experience 56:53
- Tech tip, the iOS Braille status cells 1:00:42
- Closing and contact info 1:03:44
Transcript
Speaker 1:
Live the life you want.
Speaker 2:
Access On.
Jonathan Mosen:
Welcome to Access On, the technology podcast of the National Federation of the Blind. On the show this week, we look ahead to our Access On webinar on document formatting. There's more on the smart home, including security and doorbells, the kitchen, health, and more.
Difficult tech support experience trying to get Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses repaired. And our tech tip this week is on the iOS Braille status cells, how to disable them and what they do. It's Jonathan Mosen at the Jernigan Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, welcoming you to episode 72 of the podcast.
We do have some important recently breaking news to bring you to start the podcast. Many of you will have seen reference to this on our social media channels, but it is so important that we want to circulate this as widely as possible. Here's President Riccobono.
Mark Riccobono:
I'm Mark Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind, and I'm here in our empty computer lab to talk about our outrage that the United States Department of Justice Office of Civil Rights has released an interim final rule related to ADA Title 2 Web Accessibility and digital regulations. Why am I here in this empty room?
Because the government has said it's okay for blind people to continue to wait to get equal access to state government education and other forms of digital access through Title 2 of the Americans with Disabilities Act. But wait. We have been waiting for two years since this rule was announced two years ago. So we've been waiting. Outrageous that we should wait longer. But it gets even worse because it hasn't just been two years. The original advanced rulemaking was 16 years ago in 2010.
Blind people have been waiting to get access to paying our taxes, to education, to so many government services. Waiting. But it's been even longer than that. The Americans with Disabilities Act. This promise was given to Americans with disabilities in 1990. 1990. America is celebrating this year, our 250th anniversary of the promise that this nation makes for equal access.
And we've been guaranteed this promise not just in the Constitution, but through the Americans with Disabilities act starting in 1990. Outrageous that the Department of Justice wants us to wait even longer. The National Federation of the Blind is prepared to continue to advocate and to continue to push forward to make sure that blind people no longer have to wait for the doors to be open for us to have equal access to the digital services provided by our state and local governments.
Jonathan Mosen: Through our various publications in the National Federation of the Blind. We will be keeping you informed as this issue develops and you will certainly hear more about this on access on
This is my final opportunity to remind you about our Access On webinar, and this is happening on April the 28th, which is a Tuesday from 2:00 until 3:30 Eastern. This one is all about document presentation, document formatting. It is important that we understand what makes an aesthetically pleasing document when we're putting documents out into the world and how you use your screen reader of choice to verify that what you think you have is actually what you do have.
Sometimes AI and visual interpreter services can come in handy for a task like that as well. So these are some of the things that we'll be exploring on our document presentation webinar. You can register for it now by going to nfb.org/cena. That's nfb.org/C-E-N-A. That happens on April 28th, so a time of publication that is not too far away at all. If you can't make it's still worth registering because you will get a full archive of the webinar and eventually we will give you highlights of that webinar here on Access On.
And speaking of Access On webinars and seminars, let's take you back to one that we put together in September of 2025 on the smart home. I will just say before we play you some of this archive today that I have deleted reference to the Brava. We did a section on the Brava smart oven back in September. And as you will know, if you're a regular Access On listener, unfortunately, Brava has been acquired by a group of equity investors who have chosen to shut down the product and not sell it anymore.
So it didn't seem appropriate to keep the Brava references in. But Kennedy Zimnik starts us off and Sir Paul McCartney might say, "Someone's knocking at the door, somebody's ringing the bell," let's have a look at home security and doorbells first.
Kennedy:
I have a few different options here that you can go with for your security systems. First, you want to figure out how involved do you want your security system and how enabled do you want it to be to talk to all the other security aspects of your house. So if you want a do-it-yourself alarm kit, go with something like Ring or Simplisafe or Abode, A-B-O-D-E.
If you just want a smart lock, there's something called August, Yale or Schlage. Those are three types of different smart locks. And then you also have the video doorbells like the Ring, Nest, Blink, or eufy, E-U-F-Y. I'm not sure how to pronounce that. And with some of these devices, you can mix and match. So you want to think about, when you're thinking about what you're wanting to purchase or what you want, you might want to create a simple alarm plan.
For example, front door contact, back door contact, motion sensor, and a keypad/phone app. That could be a very simple alarm plan that you have. Then you'd want to name the zones in plain language. So once you have these different sensors or doorbells, whatever is part of the security system, you want to name zones and plain language. So front door, back door, living room motion, for example. Then you're going to want to set an entry/exit delay.
So 30 seconds when you come in before the alarm goes off. And then 60 seconds, once you leave the house and no motion is detected, the alarm is armed. You can have, what we were talking about before, scenes when it comes to lighting. You can have scenes when it comes to security as well or automations. Arm away is an example. When you arm the security system and you're away, then you want all the doors locked.
And if you have any motion sensors in the house, you want those to be reading for motion. If you have another scene like arm night, so you're there, but you want your security system armed. You might just want the perimeter motion sensors on and you want the inside motion centers off 'cause you're going to be walking around in there. Some of these services allow you to have something called share access.
So you can have household members, you can add them and give them each a pin or a neighbor, somebody you trust. And you can give access to these people, for example, in emergency situation and you want your neighbor to be able to get in and feed your dogs or cats, for example. Then you can give them access remotely. Some plain words that are used in security, arming is turning the system arm. Disarming is turning it off.
The perimeter or doors or windows. Entry delay, that's what we talked about before, the grace period to get inside and turn it off. Access control is how people actually unlock or enter through a keypad, an app, a key, or voice control. Unfortunately, some of these can get kind of expensive and have monthly costs associated with them. That's just, you're paying for security and peace of mind. So just quick warning. It's not the cheapest in the world, but if you're paying for, like I said, security and peace of mind, that can be priceless.
Some common alarm systems that I want to go over. Ring alarm, like your Ring doorbell, Ring also has security system. So they start at around 245 dollars, and then monitoring is 19.99 a month with video benefits bundled on higher tiers. If you want to have video cameras or security cameras installed throughout your house, you can do that, but it'll be a higher cost, of course.
Simplisafe, the range I found was 250 to 730 dollars, and the monthly cost comes in at around 21.99 dollars a month. And something I found interesting about Simplisafe is you can get some cell backup. So if your Wi-Fi completely goes down and everything else goes down, you can pay for cell service to be installed in the SimpliSafe system so you're not out of luck if the whole system goes down. Another company I found through my research is Abode, A-B-O-D-E.
These starter kits start at around 230 to 280 dollars. Optional monitoring at 7.99 a month, self monitor, or 199 dollars per year to 239.99 dollars a year for Pro. I haven't looked into the differences between the cheaper models and the more expensive models. I'm sure you unlock more features with the more expensive models. And Abode is interesting because it has strong Apple, Google, and Alexa support.
Some smart locks, like I mentioned before, there's something called August Wi-Fi. This is around 229 dollars. It's often on sale, I found. These work with Apple, Google, and Alexa. And smart locks, as you can guess, they're Wi-Fi enabled and you can control them with an app. And this allows you to unlock it remotely. You can set automation. You can set it so the key doesn't work if you want to completely lock it out, things like that.
Another smart lock option is the Yale Assure 2, A-S-S-U-R-E 2. This goes from 179 to 309 dollars, depending on keypad, fingerprint, or just a home key. So you can have a lot of different ways to access these smart locks. So like I mentioned here, you could have a fingerprint scanner, you could have a physical keypad, you could just have an app. Well, no, most of the time all of these come with a physical or you can have a physical key.
Some don't, but most do. And when you're looking to purchase this, you just want to think about the biggest use cases that you're going to use for these smart locks. So if you don't think you're going to need to remotely ... Well, no, you can do it remotely. But if you don't think you need fingerprint scanning, which is a more expensive option, then maybe you don't go with the fingerprint scanner. And then we have the Schlage Encode/Encode plus. Schlage is S-C-H-L-A-G-E, and then Encode is E-N-C-O-D-E.
These are also smart locks and it adds Apple Home. So you can tap with your iPhone or Apple Watch and get in. So this is cool because it directly communicates with your iPhone or an Apple Watch, maybe through NFC technology, I haven't really looked into how they actually communicate and you just tap the lock with your phone and it unlocks.
Video doorbells, Ring. The range goes from 49.99, 50 bucks to 229.99. And this depends on if you want wire doorbells or ones that act on battery or the pro version. You could also have a Google Nest doorbell, battery or wired, 179.99. You can also have Blink doorbells, B-L-I-N-K. This is the second generation. This is a budget option for around 59.99, which is standalone. And you can also have something called the sync module, which adds range and battery life.
Something else I mentioned earlier, the eufy FamiLock S3 Max. It's a lock plus doorbell all in one. eufy is E-U-F-Y. And then FamiLock is F-A-M-I-L-O-C-K, S3 Max. This is for around 339.99. It sometimes goes on sale. Some of these video doorbells offer AI enabled object detection. So it can tell you if a person is at the door or if a package has arrived, it's an animal in front of the door.
It can tell that as well. And a lot of these AI doorbells, you have to get the most expensive or the Pro version. For example, the Simplisafe Video Doorbell Pro distinguishes between people, animals, and vehicles. Some other ones that have this AI detection feature, the Google Nest doorbell. It can look for people, vehicles, packages, and you can also get something called Familiar Faces if you subscribe to Nest Aware. This is just another subscription service, meaning more money, but you can actually set it to recognize certain people and then it announces that person is here.
ADT, which I'll talk about in just a second, also has this AI video person detection or object detection. And then also the Blink video doorbell also has basic person detection. A couple more examples of how everything can talk to each other. If you're looking for an all in-one package that has smart locks and video monitoring and these AI doorbells, SimpliSafe has a really good all in-one package for all of these different security systems and security options.
And then Ring Alarm also has a very comprehensive line of security options. I didn't mention ADT. I found through my research that the ADT technology in the ADT ecosystem don't always connect with other devices like Apple HomePod or Google Home. And a lot of these other ones that I did mention can connect to your iPhone or to your Android device without having to go through something else. So they can talk directly to your iPhone or your Google phone.
And sometimes ADT is kind of its own ecosystem and it stays in its lane. Also, there's a lot more published information on the accessibility of the other ones I mentioned, and I found that they were pretty good in accessibility. And personally, I don't have any of the security systems I mentioned. If people do have accessibility experiences, please share that. But I couldn't find either way if ADT ... It's called ADT Plus.
If it works well with voiceover or talk back, not saying it doesn't, but I just couldn't find the resources that do say that it is accessible. Also, if you want something with professional monitoring, those old ADT commercials where it's like a command center and there's people actually watching the video feed, that's professional monitoring and some of these options do offer that.
That's going to be a lot more expensive as a subscription service, but you can get professional monitoring. So I just wanted to quickly introduce Stephen Polacek from the Maryland Department of Disabilities here today to help us talk about home appliances and kitchen gadgets. Stephen?
Stephen:
Thank you, Kennedy. Hello, everyone. If you've been here to some of these before, you might've seen me a few months ago, but pleasure as always to work with the NFP. I will be covering kitchen appliances and then later on some entertainment areas. In general, a lot of these features across the board are built-in use or management with a system like Alexa or Google Assistant.
So a lot of the times we'll be talking about that instead, but some of them do have their own proprietary apps, so that's something to keep in mind. So starting with smart refrigerators, Samsung has the Family Hub set, and the Family Hub is there's about four or five, or there's actually more than that, several refrigerators with a built-in of different styles, French doors, top and bottom coverage, what have you. And most of them will have Bixby, which is Samsung's version, their assistant, built in, or they have Alexa capabilities.
They also have Wi-Fi and it works with SmartThings, which is an app for controlling these things. And some of them have features such as View Inside, which will tell you, kind of give you an idea of what's in there. AI Vision inside, which is the more, I guess, accessible version because it will try and break down and read labels to you and list them out rather than just giving you a screenshot and then tap view.
So giving you an idea of what do you have in there and what can you make with it? So find recipes and connecting to that kind of deal and help you plan your meals. So Samsung is one set up for that. Thermador is another company that kind of has the same thing.
Theirs is, again, working with Amazon Alexa in pretty much the same capacity. It does have Google Home as well though, so has both major platforms connecting to the app on your phone, working with that, using Google or Apple voice commands to control them.
They also have it available for ovens and other appliances in your kitchen, depending as long as they are all on the same system, and making sure that in that management Alexa or Google Home or whatever, that you're naming them properly and using the correct voice commands to tell it to check the oven's temperature versus check the inside temperature where it doesn't know which device to assign that to. So making sure to set all of that correctly.
Another option I came up across, which is more of a kind of, I guess, DIY setup is Smarter Cam, which is a camera and phone app that you can work with or put a camera inside the refrigerator and have it set up to essentially kind of turn a refrigerator into a smart refrigerator where it will look at products in there, list them out, give you an idea of what to do with them, integrate with Amazon Fresh to reorder stuff, that kind of thing.
I did look into its accessibility though a little bit, and there are some major concerns with it, mostly because the app itself, it's very visual and it's not terribly well-made. So I do want to caution that of don't just run out and look into this, but it is something to be aware of and look into options like it, where is there something that you can get to work with your refrigerator and your existing phone rather than go out and buy a whole new fridge, which could be a thousand to 2,000 plus dollars.
In terms of some smaller appliances and such, Hamilton Beach has a set of coffee makers that are smart that work with Alexa. There is the Smart 12 cup coffee maker. That is one I think we actually have at the MDTAP, but I'm not 100% sure about that. Whirlpool has a number of products as well in this capacity.
The nice thing about Whirlpool also is that they have an ADA compliant category on their website when you're searching through their stuff. Obviously, we all know that compliant doesn't always mean accessible, but at least gives us an option to start from rather than trying to make guesses about the accessibility of a product.
There's also the Hestan, an induction cooking top and pan set that is a separate kind of standalone induction top and a set of pans that work with it, and it has controllable Bluetooth enabled app. And that app helps control it, gives you reports, and it does work with all of the native accessibility features of it.
So that is an option that we actually have at demonstratable here. I also was looking at it at Keurig has some machines that are smart, the K-Supreme, a smart coffee maker, and they also have their own smart technology called BrewID.
So you can have a Keurig machine that has a smart functions enabled that works with, in this case, their particular app in order to control it. I haven't looked into the accessibility of that app in particular, but it is something to be aware of if you prefer the Keurig machine to a standard coffee maker.
Moving further on, there is also another way to control a number of devices either in your kitchen or honestly across your whole house is what are called smart plugs. These are just a standard outlet or a plug that goes into the standard outlet that connects with Alexa, Google Home, any of these other management systems, and enables you to essentially have an on/off switch for anything in your house.
So plug in lights, lamps, fans, other devices, charging outlets, what have you. You can plug these in and then have either use the app on your phone to control it, or in some cases, use voice control with using it.
There are a few of them. Amazon sells their own version, the Amazon smart plug. There is also the G Home smart plug that is Wi-Fi enabled as well, and that works with both Alexa and Google Home. Amazon obviously works with Alexa. There's also the SwitchBot Bot, which is the same idea. It is a plugin little box on its own, but it also works with Google Assistant and Siri and other such options.
That is a Wi-Fi one, does require the 2.4 gigahertz Wi-Fi network. It does work with Apple Home as well. So if you have Apple Home installed instead, you can use it there. And then finally, there's the Kasa, K-A-S-A smart Wi-Fi plug. Again, it works kind of the same way, connects to all these other devices. That's kind of the common theme here in most of these smart technologies. I do know Thermador and Whirlpool do have their own proprietary app as well that it works with.
I can't speak to those in terms of accessibility, but most of them come with the ability to work with the known accessible tools like Alexa and such. Outside of that, there's also the Instant Pot. And this is one actually Kennedy and Jonathan told me about. The Instant Pot is a mini multi-cooker. So works kind of like a pressure cooker, but it can also be a lot faster too.
And it is a smart system as well that you can set up to work with particular recipes, have it set to work with Alexa or Google Assistant and control it with voice controls as well there. Instant Pot also puts out a couple other devices as well. I believe some of those are smart enabled. So that is a pretty universal option for just standard recipes that you just want to throw in the cooker and let it go for a few hours.
There you go. And then finally, the safety features for a lot of these come into a lot of this remote control capability. I think I saw in the chat someone asking about or mentioning how they're trying to get their ... Yep, here it is. Trying to use Alexa for turning it on off often and telling the current temperature. A lot of the times, from my understanding after some Google searching is you have to set out routines, and so essentially a trigger.
So you need to find the device in your app and have it set to automatically report at certain points, such as completed preheating and such. So that would be something to look into in that regard. A lot of the times automatic shutoff features are built into that app control, so you'll have to check settings and features for that purpose. Moving on to entertainment and media access, we'll start with the smart TVs.
So first off would be Apple TV, which has a built-in voiceover and works again with their particular app on the iPhone. I believe that they have options in other places too, but Apple TVs do have those features built in. And there's kind of the starting point for this kind of question. It's the Samsung Neo series also have some of these options built in with voice assistance and working with Android controls, or in some cases, the Bixby, because Bixby is again their system, so they built it into all of their products.
But Samsung has built in a lot of capacity to work with Android features, so that is an option there. LG has the OLEDs and QNED models that have audio guidance built in. So in cases of where you don't have an app or something else to control it with, it does have a feature for getting menu readings read aloud and such as well.
And then the Sony Bravia with Google TV uses talk back and Google Assistant. Those are built into it. So you can use voice controls and they talk back Google screen reader in order to control the TV directly. Streaming devices is another popular area in this capacity as well. Apple TV, Roku TV, and Fire TV are all three major options here that have built-in accessibility features.
Again, kind of working off of the same capacity as TVs. Apple has all the built-in iOS features, voiceover, Zoom, text display settings, audio descriptions, all that's built in. So if you're using Apple TV, Apple TV Plus, those features should already be available to you. In the case of Fire TV, you have what's called VoiceView.
So same kind of idea, built-in screen reader that helps you navigate menu options and such. You might need some assistance to turn it on because you need to go into the settings and accessibility features to turn it on.
Doesn't seem like they've put in a shortcut to get to it quick first. They also have the Explore Your Remote feature that speaks allow the function of the buttons when you press them on the thing. And then they do have either their own closed caption system or Alexa captions.
And they do have audio descriptions with if you're using Prime, they have a number of settings available where you can go into the video playback. It has to be a compatible title, but you can then go in there and select audio options and it should be listed there to turn it on.
And then finally, they do have a screen magnifier built in again under the accessibility features, and you can go to Amazon's help article to get all the commands for that. And then Roku. Roku has a built-in screen reader as well. I am not as familiar with it.
Don't think we have that product in our library here, so I just only know that it exists and that it is installed on all Roku models. So if you're purchasing Roku, you should have it enabled and should just be able to turn it on from settings.
They also have voice search available on the app. So if you get the free app for iOS or Android, you can tap the voice button that should be there to speak aloud what the title you're looking for is and get some search results and then select it. Voice search is available on certain remote controls though.
To use that, you have to be running the Roku OS 9.4 or higher. Ooh, we're getting a review for the Roku TV here. "So the voice or screen reader feature is okay, does work. I believe you can change the speed. Other than that, I prefer the other options mentioned."
Okay, good to know. I mean, that's to be expected. A lot of these built-in text-to-speech readers that are native aren't always as robust as full-on screen readers like voiceover or talk back. So it is something to be aware of. If you want full functionality, compatibility with these existing systems is usually a better option.
Kennedy:
Yeah. Stephen, I was going to mention we do have a Roku here at the NFB and it is accessible in general, so just want to mention that. And then I don't know if you were going to mention sticks versus the actual TVs. So the Amazon Fire TV itself is a TV that has all the accessibility features. And you can also get a Fire TV stick that's just a USB stick that has a lot of the features of the smart TV for a lot lower of a cost that you can just plug in to a regular TV if it has a USB input.
Stephen:
Great. Yeah. Thank you, Kennedy, for that information. Finally, talking a little bit about cable alternatives 'cause streaming services are all the rage right now, depending on what you're looking for. Easiest thing to do, honestly, is go for the help article, but Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+ all have settings for it. A lot of the times though, they're making their stuff compatible with already existing things.
So like Netflix, their article mentions how you can use many type of assistive listening devices. If you need audio descriptions or need to control brightness or font size for captions or just the screen in general, or if you need navigation with a screen reader, Netflix points out that you can control it with many of the common uses such as voiceover and talk back. So if you're using the app on your phone, it should work with all your features on there.
If you're on a TV with that installed, it should work with those features on there, but Netflix itself doesn't have its own built-in system. I can't pull up because I'm right now in the office, so my office is blocking the Hulu articles and Disney+ articles. I should have checked that before coming on today, but those did also mention the same idea. Their apps, they've been working on making their apps work with existing software.
So if you have a compatible device, computer that has a screen reader and you're using it there, it and you're using the app or if you're using the app on your phone or device should work the same way. And work with all of those features, not just the talk back or voiceover, but with Zoom, magnification, Zoom text, any of those technologies. And it should be able to accept those settings as well.
If you change settings in your computer and Windows and the accessibility settings, you can change your font size, your magnification level, should accept all of those settings into the app as well. Finally, just some things outside of that for audio description systems and voice navigation.
A couple of options just for controlling other things outside of Alexa or Google Nest, the OrCam or Ray-Ban Meta glasses. Have these features built into them with voice commands now and some audio description services. You can ask OrCam or Ray-Ban to describe what's in front of you and it should give you a short description, you can expand on it, have it focus in on a particular thing or area.
And so there have plenty of options there. Then in terms of labeling for objects and such, there's PENfriend or ScripTalk. Scriptalk is intended for prescriptions and what have you, but PENfriend is another option that can also create labels.
These are kind of more low cost options for just specific objects, but we did want to mention them and such. And finally, I did want to mention here in Maryland, we have the Assisted Technology Program, MDTAP, that I am part of. And this is a library for assisted technology where you can come out, try devices and take them out on loan for a period up to a month, try them out, see if they work for you, and we can help direct you to where you can purchase your own.
So you can try out some of these options or see how they work, especially for cases like the smart plugs or the apps. We can help you work through how to set those up and how they would behave and such. You can give it an option.
We don't have something like a refrigerator. Sorry, those are too expensive for us, but we also don't really have space for that, but we can help you or we can help explain how they work and how some of the functions are available too.
If you are not in Maryland, don't fret. Other states have their own. So if you go to the assisted technology center or program across the board, you can find your state's program and contact them. They should have roughly the same features as us.
Some people have different things in their library or focused on different needs, but all of them will have people on hand who can help point you in the right direction for some of these things that we're talking about today, or even be able to try them out before you purchase them.
Jonathan Mosen:
If I could take us back to the doorbell and security discussion, let's not forget to meld technologies together. So sometimes you will be able to go through a timeline of a security camera or doorbell footage, and you'll be able to find where motion was detected, and you might be interested in learning about what that motion was.
You can find those video clips. They're usually saved, particularly if you subscribe to the service that saves them. And you could send those to an app like PiccyBot that describes videos. You can also use Google Gemini or any number of other apps now that will describe videos to you.
So if you're curious about what the motion was, you can often get quite entertaining descriptions of what went on. If it was some sort of animal frolicking around by your front door or whatever. And obviously if it's something a little bit more sinister, it's useful to know that as well.
So remember to integrate all this different technology that we have. Another useful tip is that if you employ people to come to your house like cleaners on a regular basis, you can often assign specific codes and security system to those contractors.
The advantage of that is that you can revoke them if they no longer work for you, but you can also find out when they disarmed the system and when they left. So you can have some peace of mind about the fact that when you pay the bill, you really are paying for work that you think you're paying for in terms of the amount of hours that they were there.
On some of the things that Stephen was talking about, just a couple of comments. I did want to comment on a really dodgy experience I had with this a few years ago. So it's slightly outmoded knowledge now possibly.
I hope this is the case, but you might just want to check on this because it's a really big deal for blind people buying these smart TVs. I specifically upgraded to a particular model of Sony Bravia because it supported a standard called automatic return channel on the HDMI port, and that was necessary for the sound bar that I was buying.
What I found when I got the TV home and I tried to set it up was that there was a conflict which meant you couldn't have the screen reader and the automatic return channel enabled at the same time, which made it completely useless for my purposes.
I was very fortunate that the store I bought it from knew me well, was willing to take the TV back and replace it with a Samsung model that worked just fine, but these are the little fishhooks that we have to be mindful of sometimes.
The Brava TVs at least used to ... There you go. The Bravia TVs at least used to have two screen readers. They had a dedicated Sony one, which tended to work well with the program guides that you sometimes find in freezer air digital options. And then you had talk back, which worked well in other situations. So it was a little bit fiddly because sometimes you found yourself changing screen readers depending on the task that you wanted to do.
Speaker 3:
Walking Alone and Marching Together is a podcast series that brings to life the history of the National Federation of the Blind from 1940 to 1990, based on the comprehensive book of the same name. This podcast is designed to make the rich and complex story of our movement more accessible, engaging, and immediate.
Speaker 4:
The book Walking Alone and Marching Together has been available in nearly every format imaginable, but its sheer size and depth can make it daunting to approach. That's why we're bringing it to you in a multi-episode podcast, breaking it down into manageable, compelling chapters that allow you to experience the history in a way that fits into your life. Instead of simply looking back on events that happened decades ago, our goal is to immerse you in the times, challenges, and triumphs of the organized blind movement as they unfolded.
Speaker 5:
Episodes are coming out fall of 2025. Subscribe and follow now.
Speaker 6:
National Federation of the Blind, live the life you want.
Speaker 7:
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Jonathan Mosen:
My interest in health is basically that I am a data geek. Whether it's in my professional life or my personal life, I always think if you can't measure it, you can't improve it. And there are several smart options I want to talk about briefly before I hand over to Anil. Obviously, smartwatch is a great option for measuring an increasing range of health data. The Apple Watch is one that I use, it is totally accessible.
If you're in the Apple ecosystem, it works well with your iPhone, and it's constantly measuring data like heart rate monitoring. Blood oxygen was not available on some new models in the United States, but for now they have resolved that issue.
So blood oxygen measuring is back. As of watchOS 26, if you have a relatively new watch, it's also measuring hypertension. And of course, the one that many people are holding out for is glucose levels.
And I understand that Apple are working on that and that they're just as anxious to deliver it as many people are to receive it. You can manage workouts and all of this integrates with your health app on your iPhone if you're in that ecosystem. The nice thing about the health app is that there are all sorts of accessories that talk to it. So not just the Apple Watch. For example, I have a RENPHO Health Smart Scale.
It's a sad story actually. When I was doing Living Blindfully, I really talked up and demonstrated a company called Qardio with a Q, and they had a deep commitment to accessibility. It was really commendable. They had a page on their site that talked about their accessible offerings, their scale was absolutely tremendous, and then they went out of business. And this is the thing. Suddenly the app stopped working and we wondered why.
We started doing some investigation and found that they had fallen on financial hard times and the company was closing. Somebody brought the app back briefly, but then eventually the bill didn't get paid for their cloud service and all the data was lost.
But the nice thing is that even if you've got something that's slightly inaccessible, if it can talk to the Apple Health app, which is fully accessible, as long as you can get the data set up to transfer to Apple Health, you've got one repository to look at.
So in the morning I can check how well I've slept and the different phases of sleep. I have an app called Water Minder. Every time I drink a glass of water, I log that and I log other things like coffee and kombucha and different things that I drink. So I log that, I have that data in there, workout data.
There are some treadmills and other appliances that work with the Apple Health app, although that is less common than I would like. The smart scales do a lot more than just measure your weight. So you can get talking scales and you step on the scale. One of my favorite smart scales was one that I had when I was a young adult and you'd step on this thing and it was quite loud too. And it would say, "Your weight is whatever pounds."
And it would say, "You have gained five pounds. Have a nice day." I'm like, "Yeah, thanks." Now you get a lot more data from the scales. It will measure body fat percentage. It will measure your hydration level, which is really great because if you know how to interpret the numbers, you can get a real feel for whether you're drinking enough water or not.
Water is so critical to keeping healthy, keeping your system in good shape. So the RENPHO Health scale that I have will give you access to that. The app is okay, but the health app from Apple is fantastic. But I was able to set up the RENPHO Health Scale independently and get it talking to the health app.
It measures a whole lot of other things as well, like, I think bone mass and muscle mass and different things like that, just by stepping on the scale and waiting there for a few seconds and it collects that data. There are so many gadgets that do things like this.
And the one that I will mention, 'cause it gives you an example of how niche these things can be, I try to adhere to a keto diet. It works for me personally, and I feel really optimal when I'm adhering to it.
I have been a little bit off the wagon at times since I came to the United States, 'cause we've all got to try The Cheesecake Factory and TGI Fridays, and goodness knows what else, at least once, right. So I'm working through them all. But when I stick to a keto diet, I feel great. There are various ways where you can measure whether you're in ketosis. And what ketosis is, is where your body is essentially burning fat for fuel rather than carbs.
Your body's a duel fuel system, and if you don't feed it with enough carbs, it will switch to burning fat for fuel, which is a good thing 'cause it helps you lose weight and it actually makes you feel fantastic. But in the past, measuring whether you're in ketosis or not has been difficult for a blind person because some of the measurement systems require strips that require a urine sample and the cutter isn't easily accessible, you can't see the color changing.
And then somebody told me about a little device called Keyto, spelled K-E-Y-T-O. And all you do is you run this Keyto app. Unfortunately, it doesn't talk to Apple Health, but you run the app and you tap the button that says log a keto level and it takes about two minutes to warm up.
It's a kind of a tiny thing like a flashlight with a single button on it. And after you push the log a keto level button on the app, you then push the button on the hardware and it takes a couple of minutes to warm up.
And the app shows you that it's warming up and then it just tells you to blow into the device like you've been stopped on the roadside or something. And you blow into this app until you've got no breath to give and it goes away for a few seconds and it comes back with a score.
It's actually quite similar to the way that Apple in watchOS 26 has implemented a sleep score, which is a really simple number that just aggregates the data and tells you how well you've slept. So this gives you a keto reading from one to, I think, eight. If you're at keto level one, you're not burning fat for fuel at all, you've been eating lots of carbs, and then it goes up. So normally if I'm behaving myself food-wise, I can get a keto level of about five or six pretty consistently, and it just gives me reassurance. I can generally tell by the way
I'm feeling whether I'm in ketosis or not, but having that data has been great because if I have one weakness on the keto diet, it's potatoes. I really find it hard to give up a jacket potato or something like that. And I've learned that if I'm really careful, I can do that once in a while and not knock myself out of ketosis.
And having that data tells me that, that I'm in ketosis. So there are all sorts of gadgets, depending on the lifestyle that you want to live, what is healthy for you, there are lots of smart options. So that's a brief overview for me about some of the technology that I'm using to monitor my health. And I will now hand over to Anil who's going to look at this from a diabetes perspective.
Anil Lewis:
Thanks, Jonathan. I appreciate it. I have the RENPHO app as well. I wasn't able to set it up, but I do like the fact that it pairs with that Apple Health and it's really great. You said you had the scale that tells you that you gained five pounds. The sound that you can enable on the RENPHO app is if you gain weight over a certain amount, it'll just give you a *broken spring sound* which it's motivating.
I'm pleased to talk about this. I, a few years ago was diagnosed with diabetes and up until then I didn't really monitor my health other than going to my annual physicals. But once my doctor gave me the diagnosis, I went out and I tried to find accessible devices. So the scale with all of those particular features, great. Once it's set up and it imports that information into the Apple Health app, it is awesome.
And then I also have a Bluetooth blood pressure monitor. I have one of those that's just the cuff. So it doesn't have that long cord that goes to the box. It's all just one piece. I put it on my arm and that also feeds into the Apple Health app. And it was very helpful to have all of that information.
Like you said, the data does make a difference because when I'm not monitoring it, I make the assumption that everything's fine. When I'm monitoring it, I can look at it and see, well, you need to change some behavior here to get the weight down or keep your blood pressure low.
But I'm, I guess, lucky enough to receive the diabetes type two diagnosis before I became insulin dependent. And when I first started, I was using the accessible glucose monitor where you still had to prick your finger and put the blood on the strip and still put it into the machine.
So it will talk and tell you your glucose levels. But that's fine if you have to do it once a day, but my doctor wanted me to monitor it throughout the day. And it's not a matter of the machine being able to talk. It's just that whole problem of it's the end of the day. I'm trying to remember the device that you use to prick yourself.
That's great. You get used to that a while, but if you don't get just enough blood on that strip in just the right way, then you could be picking your finger quite a few times. So luckily a friend of mine told me about the FreeStyle Libre glucose sensor and Dexcom, another company makes something very similar.
I don't know if it can ... It's pretty high on my arm, so I can't ... I'll take this shirt off to show you, but it's already like a little quarter-sized device.
For those of you who can't see, I'm touching the back of my left arm. It's about a quarter-sized device that I apply and it's very accessible. It's easy to do non-visually, and it lasts now for 15 days. So what happens is this constantly monitors my glucose levels and it puts the information on my iPhone into the FreeStyle Libre app.
That's been a game changer because again, not monitoring it, you just fool yourself into thinking, "Yeah, I can have this custard. I can have this cake." What I found out through the constant monitoring is that some of the food items that I thought would not impact my sugar, my glucose levels really did, and some that I thought would didn't at all.
So it helped me make better choices on what to eat and what not to eat. But again, I'm luckily not insulin dependent, but being a member of the National Federation of the Blind Diabetes Action Network, I run into other blind individuals who are insulin dependent.
And there's some creative ways that people are doing insulin delivery. So we come from the clicker device that would tell you the appropriate amount of insulin you'd insert yourself. But the thing that's going on now is insulin pumps, which I think is moving toward what people are referring to as a bionic pancreas.
We're not quite there yet, but we're getting very close. At our national convention, we passed the resolution commending tandem diabetes care for the development of the Mobi insulin pump, which is an accessible insulin pump.
And insulin pumps are great because they have insulin on board and they have interaction through the constant glucose monitoring, like my FreeStyle Libre to show where your sugar levels are. And it administers insulin in a way as though your body would, your natural body to deal with maintaining good sugar levels. This has been tremendous for us.
As an organization, we've been advocating and working with a lot of the insulin pump manufacturers. There was a time, just like most of the technology you've seen when it was possible for a blind person to use it independently because it had buttons or whatever.
But as the technology evolves to be more touchscreen and all of that, the commitment to accessibility, well, really there wasn't a commitment to accessibility. That was just the resilience of blind people learning how to use these devices in a way that allowed us to use them independently.
But as the technology changed without the buttons, then we had to find new ways of doing it. So there was a window there where all of the devices had touchscreens, which were inaccessible.
But now that everybody's moving toward making sure they have an app component to it, that opens up the window for a lot of opportunities for us to be on the cutting edge of this technology.
We're also working with a gentleman who's building a insulin pump delivery system that actually gets put into a person's arm that lasts for an extended period of time, and it works through an app. And it was very interesting talking with him and he was saying, "Well, I don't know if I'm going to be able to make this successful.
We'd use an iPhone app." I said, "Well, that's probably going to make it easier for us to make it accessible." He says, "Well, I don't know because we use these pictures." And, like, "Well, they're icons and we can make some accessible."
So a lot of it is really about educating them that what they're doing already is moving into a space where it can be made accessible, but they still have to pay attention to how they develop the code for the apps to make sure that it's successful.
So I think this is really a hotbed of opportunity for us to receive some pretty significant medical care 'cause again, blindness is not the factor that defines the quality of life that we live, but we're just like everybody else subject to other health concerns.
And if we're not able to efficiently and independently monitor our health conditions, then we can't take the proper steps to remain healthy. And I'm just glad that we're being committed to this particular effort. So that's what I have to offer. I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of this discussion, listening to some of this information. It's been really enlightening.
Jonathan Mosen:
Anil Lewis joining us on our smart home webinar, and we will have more from this next week here on Access On, but we do have time for a few listener contributions, and we're starting with Robert Jacques, who wrote in response to our Apple 50th anniversary special.
He says, "For your information in the early '80s, I used an Apple IIe analyze traffic on a large mainframe computer. At that time, I used a Triformation LED-120 embosser to write programs. The LED-120 and later, the Teal Beta X3 could run in terminal mode like an ASR 33 teletype.
It was possible to connect the LED-120 to the Apple IIe. In this way, I could control the Apple and read the responses. In later years after the LED-120 was replaced by the Teal Beta X3, I was also able to control an IBM PC in console mode. This arrangement did not require any access software since both computers could be controlled in console mode."
And also in response to that episode, Francisco says, "Hello, Jonathan. I very much appreciated your podcast on Apple's 50th anniversary. It is critical that all blind people understand what we had to go through to gain what we take for granted today.
Just wanted to point out something I think you missed in your closing remarks, but that you are very aware of and even wrote in the past. Apple has made incredible progress in these years, but the Mac is left behind.
We can't rest until blind Mac users can achieve the same levels of efficiency that we get with JAWS on Windows, and there is a lot left to do to achieve that goal, but we need to get Apple to understand how important it is to allocate all the needed resources to get the job done on the Mac."
Thank you, Francisco. I do acknowledge there is mounting feeling on the subject, and we have had a series of requests from different users over the last few months, asking us to devote an episode to how accessible the Mac really is in terms of getting the job done in a productive way every day on the job.
And that is something on my list of topics to cover, so we will get to it in a future edition of Access On because it is an important subject, especially given how attractive the hardware is. You look at the MacBook Neo now coming in at a very attractive 599 dollars.
It's a pretty capable computer for the price, but people are saying, "Well, voiceover still needs quite a bit of work in order for it to be viable in quite a few use cases." So as we like to do, we will cover this objectively.
We'll find people who are working with the Mac daily who are getting on really well with it, and some others who also wish that the rougher edges were smoothed out a little bit, so I appreciate that. On a different subject, Dan Tevalder's writing in and says, "I always enjoy the podcast. I am a member of the Chicago chapter of the National Federation of the Blind."
Well, I'm looking forward to getting back to Chicago, Dan in 2028, 'cause Chicago was my first NFB convention, so I have a soft spot for the city all the way back in 1995 when we stayed at the Hilton Chicago, and that was an amazing convention.
Dan says, "I appreciate the facts that Meta is working constructively with the blind community. I am concerned about technical support issues with manufacturers of mainstream smart glasses. My first generation Ray-Ban glasses broke over the weekend. When I tried to repair them with my phone, I saw an error in the Meta app saying, 'There was a problem with the speaker.' I called Ray-Ban Technical Support and the person I spoke with kept referring to the lights on the case, even after I explained that I can't see.
Fortunately, my husband was able to talk with a technical support agent and determine the problem might be the case. I thought the process of submitting a claim would be easy. I couldn't use the Ray-Ban website after checking all the required options. I kept getting errors about an invalid password.
I couldn't get an Aira agent to complete the process using a mouse. I called Ray-Ban Technical Support, explained the problem, and had the technical support agent look at the website.
He determined it was down and suggested I try in a day. I bought the glasses at Target and went through the process of trying to use their website and app to figure out how I could get a receipt. I ended up calling their customer service, going to the store where I got the glasses and getting a physical receipt. My husband took a picture of it, so I now have an electronic copy.
On the following day, I got an email from Ray Ban with instructions on how to submit a request. I used Aira to take pictures of the glasses and then tried using the Ray-Ban website again. I got the same result I did the first time I used it. I called Ray-Ban customer service and thoroughly explained the situation to the agent I spoke with.
I stressed the fact that I needed her to help me create a return request over the phone since I had exhausted all other options. After I put pressure on the agent by making a compelling case, she relented and created a case once I had emailed her the pictures and product receipt.
I am supposed to hear from Ray-Ban with instructions about how to return the glasses. My biggest concern is the lack of an alternative to blinking lights on the case. If I had been alone, I might have needed to have a three-way call with Aira or Be My Eyes and Ray-Ban.
You would think developers could have an accessible alternative to blinking lights by using haptics. This would not only help blind people, but those with hearing loss. I think some advocacy is in order."
That does not sound like a great experience, Dan. Thank you very much for documenting it so clearly, and we will pass that feedback on. As we have said before, and will no doubt say again, many mainstream companies have now become access technology companies.
We're paying the same money as everybody else. We're worthy of quality customer service and quality customer service means accessible customer service. So thanks for bringing that to our attention. If others have had similar experiences, of course, please let us know that.
Drop us an email, accesson@nfb.org, that's Access On all joined together @nfb.org. You can attach an audio clip so we can let your voice be heard or you can just write the email down like Dan did.
We've got a few tech tips banking up. Let's get to one. This one comes from prolific tech tipper Rich Yamamoto. He says, "Here is a tech tip for those using Braille displays with iOS. If you notice that the text isn't at the very left of the display, you may wish to disable your status cells. I'm not really sure what those do, so there might be a need for them that I'm not considering.
Anyway, if you go to settings, accessibility, voiceover, and Braille, you'll want to scroll down to status cells. Then in this section, make sure that general status as well as text status are toggled off. You will find then that the text should start at the leftmost cell." Thank you, Rich.
I also turned these off, but for those interested in what they do, they can provide some useful information. So let's take a quick look at this. First of all, you have the option to enable the general status cell, and that monitors system-wide conditions. Each dot in the six dot cell represents a specific status.
If the dot's raised, then that status is active or enabled. And if it's flat, the status is inactive or disabled. So let's go through them. If dot one is up, that indicates that there are unread notifications or announcements. Dot two being up means the current item is unread at this point. Dot three being up indicates that voiceover speech is muted. If dot four is up, then that's your battery low indicator.
Normally, you'd see dot four up if your battery is lower than 20%. If dot five is up, you are in landscape mode. And if dot six is up, your screen curtain is on. If dot seven is up, then you've got content that will be available to you if you pan your Braille display to the left. And if dot eight is up, there is content which you can get to if you pan your Braille display to the right. Multiple dots can be raised simultaneously, of course.
Then you also have the option to enable the text status cell, and that gives you information about formatting and attributes of the text where the voiceover cursor is. So let's decode that one. If dot one is up, caps lock is on. Dot two being up means the text is bold. Dot three, italics. Dot four is a miss Spelled word. Dot five, the text is underlined. Dot six means color. Dot seven, it's a heading, and dot eight means a block quote. How do I know all this?
Well, actually there's nothing to it, really. All you have to do is tap a cursor routing key above one of the status cells, and then a little display pops up showing you what all of the dots do in the given status cell, whose cursor routing key you have tapped.
So now you know what they do. You may or may not want to have your status cell enabled, but you can certainly choose to do that or not based on your preference. If you have a tech tip to share, send it into accesson@nfb.org and put Tech Tip in the subject. We appreciate receiving them.
That concludes this episode of Access On, the Technology Podcast of the National Federation of the Blind. To send in a contribution for a future episode, email us, attach an audio clip or just write it down and send it to accesson@nfb.org. That's accesson@nfb.org.
To keep up to date with Access On, follow us on Mastodon, accesson@nfb.social. That's accesson@nfb.social on Mastodon. To subscribe to an announcement only email list about upcoming episodes, send a blank message to accesson-announce-subscribe@nfbnet.org. That's accesson-announce-subscribe@nfbnet.org.
To learn more about the National Federation of the Blind, visit our website, NFB.org or phone us, 410-659-9314. That's 410-659-9314, and be sure to check out the Nation's Blind Podcast right from where you heard this podcast.