Dot Is The World’s First Braille Smartwatch

Wearable devices are set to become one of the most inclusive forms of technology following the release of the world’s first smartwatch for blind people.

Named Dot, the South Korean device looks to help blind people interact with their friends and relatives using braille technology included in a wrist-mounted device.

Current figures from the World Health Organisation estimate that there are over 285m blind people in the world today.

Flexible

Looking like a cross between a slimline Apple Watch and a fitness tracker, Dot uses a grid of tiny physical dots that can lower and raise themselves to form braille letters in the process.

Able to display four braille characters at once, it can display notifications, text messages or emails, as well as being able to translate text from a webpage or ebook, and it can act just as a standard watch too.

Dot claims that many of the current braille input devices available today, which connect to computers via USB, cost thousands of dollars, and aren’t easy to carry around, forcing many people to give up learning braille.

However it looks to counter this by selling its device for around $300 (£192) when it becomes available in December, although there’s no news on a UK release yet.

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