This week's show features the last of our CSUNATC24 interviews. It also features JJ's return to his vocal stylizing of some famous songs. We apologize in advance for that. By the way, if you have been looking for us on what used to be Twitter, well, don't. Our official feed has moved to Mastodon, and you can experience the same content you know from us there.
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CSUNATC24 Interview: Jenny Axler And Earle Harrison With HIMS
Our last interview from Anaheim is a bit of a, 2 for 1, bonus. J.J. found a secluded spot for coffee while catching up with Jenny Axler, International Technical Manager HIMS International, and Earle Harrison, National Account Manager HIMS Inc. Both Jenny and Earle have spoken to us before, however, it has been a while since we've spoken to HIMS. So, there was a lot to learn from the pair. First up, we get the low down on the new Braille eMotion note taking device. For fans of HIMS's previous units, there are a lot of familiar designs here. Then, we get an overview of the SensePlayer and a deeper dive into the Smart Connect remote function for iOS and Android. Pre-orders for the Braille eMotion are already live. And you can find out more about various products, including Video Magnifiers, at the HIMS Inc. website.
Transcript
We strive to provide an accurate transcription, though errors may occur.
Hide transcriptJ.J. Meddaugh: Do, do do. Oh, okay. Sorry. Hey, everybody. J.J. back here. This is Blind Bargains Episode 229. As we get into the end of April, beginning of May 2024. A lot has happened in 2024 already in the AT arena, and we have a lot planned for you in the next several months. So definitely stay tuned. We'd love to hear your feedback. Feedback at blindbargains.com is how you can find us. We also now have an account on Mastodon. There we are blindbargains@mastodon.social. You can find us there as well. And of course the Blind Bargains podcast can be found on all of your podcast apps of choice. And if you find us there, feel free to rate and review us. We really do appreciate it. One more from CSUN 2024. Visited the HIMS booth and found a new Braille display called the Braille eMotion. It makes me want to sing Aerosmith. Braille eMotion. Oh man. Oh, I shouldn't have done that. Anyway, a new Braille display called the Braille eMotion, and it has some pretty unique features that you're going to hear about in just a bit as we connect with our friends at HIMS, longtime supporters of the Blind Bargains Qast. Well, before I start singing any more old karaoke tracks, let's go to CSUN 2024 right after this.
JM: Many of our podcast interviews are being recorded using new accessible voice recorders from Zoom. Zoom has released three new Essential voice recorders, the H1, H4, and H6Essential, all providing unparalleled audio quality and accessible features like a voice guide that helps you know what menu option you are on when you're moving through the menus. They're available now at ATGuys.com, ranging from the simple but powerful H1Essential for $99 up to the H6Essential for $299, which has the capability of recording up to six tracks at once. We love them. I used them for our podcast out in CSUN in Anaheim in 2024, and we think you will as well. Again, you can go to ATGuys.com to learn more about the Zoom accessible voice recorders or call 269-216-4798.
[interview sounder]
JM: We are here at the HIMS coffee bar. I just got an awesome espresso, so I'm just reeling off that. I love it. Thank you, Kelly. Here at CSUN 2024, here with Earle Harrison, the National Account Manager, and Jenny Axler, the International Technical Manager for the Korea region for HIMS. Good to be back on the podcast talking about new Braille displays and SensePlayers and all sorts of things. Both of you, welcome to the podcast.
Earle Harrison: Thanks. It's good to be back.
JM: That's Earl.
Jenny Axler: Always great to be here.
JM: There's Jenny. Awesome. So the brand new thing here, and I'm probably not the first person that wants to start singing Aerosmith, but a new Braille display called the Braille eMotion. Who wants to tell me about it? You all can fight over it.
EH: Oh, well.
JA: You can start.
EH: All right. The Braille eMotion is just being introduced here at CSUN, and we've been really kind of working on what exactly the Braille eMotion is. First of all, it's a 40-cell Braille display, so its primary job is to connect to other things. So you can connect up to six things at a time, one USB, five Bluetooth. And the interesting thing about the Braille eMotion is that it also has stereo speakers. We've got text-to-speech via the Nuance voices, and it's got a stereo microphone on board. So it has more in terms of hardware and software than you are used to on a typical Braille display, but less than what you would expect on a Braille notetaker like the BrailleSense 6. So it does have Wi-Fi. It does have Bluetooth. It does have, of course, an option called connectivity, and we do support the USB legacy protocol that is used by JAWS and the HID protocol that's used by other screen readers, and as well as we've got Bluetooth support, and that includes the audio that can be routed to the Braille eMotion as well. So I think this is where we've kind of made a little bit of a hybrid notetaker slash Braille display. You got anything to add to that?
JA: Well, it's almost even a hybrid. I was trying to describe this earlier to someone, and he happened to have some of our other products, and I kind of suggested that it's a bit of a hybrid between the Braille Edge, the BrailleSense, and the SensePlayer, because it does have some standalone applications. It has a notepad, a document reader, a DAISY player, a media player, voice recorder, calculator. These all parallel what the BrailleSense has, they're not the basic functions of the Braille Edge. It's an upgrade from that, but of course, it's not a notetaker. It doesn't have email, web browsing, podcast search, web radio, Google search, wiki search, any of that kind of thing, and of course, no installation of third-party apps. This one is a self-contained device, but interestingly enough, some of the keys on it, so you have at the top left above the Braille keys, you have these three keys that are labeled with Braille labels that have WBC, and they work like the top keys on the SensePlayer that have your connect key or Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. It's the same way. It's Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and connectivity, so you press them quickly to toggle these on or off, or in the case of connectivity, go to your last connection, but you press and hold them to open up the menus and settings related to these things. So it's very SensePlayer-ish in that respect. It also has the volume and voice control keys on the side like the SensePlayer, so you press the voice control key to cycle between the various things, whether it's media equalizer. If you're in text to speech, it could be voice rate, pitch, that kind of thing, and then you use the volume keys to adjust. So these are kind of very SensePlayer-ish functions. We also have the record button on the side that's sort of similar to the SensePlayer in that you can press and hold it to start recording. So, you know, the features, the applications themselves are very BrailleSense-ish. The functionality, I guess, you know, as far as a Braille display, it has a Braille keyboard with function keys, so it's more like the Braille Edge in that respect or, you know, an upgraded Braille Edge, but yet it's kind of got some of these media functions like the SensePlayer, so it's sort of a hybrid of kind of all of our best features in one little device.
JM: The greatest hits device.
EH: Yeah, hey, I like that.
JM: So let's, before we go further, you started to describe the physical description. How big is the thing, what does it weigh, and where are the rest of the buttons?
EH: So I don't have the exact dimensions, but it is a 40-cell Braille display, so imagine a, you know, 40-cell long device with scroll buttons on either end of the Braille array, the Perkins-style keyboard above that with a spacebar closest to you on the other side of the Braille display.
JM: Makes sense.
EH: And we've got a control key and a alt key on either side of that spacebar, and we've also got some keys on the front that have on either end the cursor for moving from element to element, left and right, and then we've got the same function keys that you would have on the BrailleSense, F1, 2, 3, and 4, cleverly named F1, 2, 3, and 4, and they do the same things, by the way, that the BrailleSense would do. In the upper left and right corner on the top panel, we've got the stereo speakers, and in the very front panel in the middle, there's a slightly recessed button, that's your home button, so press that and it brings you to your main menu. That first item in your main menu is going to, it's called My eMotion, and so that's a place where all your documents live by default, unless you tell it otherwise. So whenever you create a document or maybe a music file, a recording, they all go there, you can't go anywhere but in My eMotion. But if you go back to the main menu and go down to File Manager, then you have a little more flexibility as to how, you know, folders and things like that, yeah.
JA: So it also supports extra storage, so you can support, we have a USB-A port on the side with a record button that's on the left, and that supports keyboards, drives, and USB audio devices. He was talking about the home button, the stereo microphones are actually on either side of that, I don't remember if you mentioned that.
JM: Well, they're facing up?
EH: Yeah, actually they're facing
JA: No they're facing toward you.
JM: Oh, the home button is facing towards you too,
EH: okay. It's facing toward you, but, and when I saw it, I said, oh brother, you know this thing, what kind of stereo separation can you get? And I tested it, I was impressed.
JA: Yeah, it's surprising because they're very close together, and we were kind of like, why would they do that? But then when you, I don't know if there's some kind of additional directionality inside that we're not aware of, but it is a wider spread than you would assume. Than you would think, yeah. Yeah, but you can also support the USB devices as well,
EH: so. Yeah, with that, yeah, I was just going to say you can, it will support USB audio as well, so I plug in a microphone, like a Yeti, I've got a Blue Yeti at my house, and.
JM: That's one of those things that I, you know, noticed also coming from the SensePlayer, which we'll talk about in a minute, that there does seem to be a focus, and it's not just a basic voice recorder that can just take down notes, it's actually a pretty decent recording quality for what it is.
JA: You know, we're really kind of lucky because some of this comes along for the ride just because Android, and certainly on the eMotion, you know, that's really not the focus. This is, this is a Braille display, so media isn't really the focus of this device. We did, of course, want to do the voice recorder, but, and it's interesting too, because in Android 12, this is actually supported through the headset service. So the headset, it just came along that USB devices just work.
EH: Happen to work,
JM: right. You weren't really trying to, but it just happened to.
JA: Yeah, it just happens.
JM: Just happened to be there. Yeah, that line is blending so much. You kind of started it way back with the SmartBeatle that, you know, supporting six devices at once, but it was still basically a Braille display. And then companies started adding little features here and there, and now we can take notes, and now we can do a couple other things. And this seems like this even goes a step further than some of the other ones that are out there.
JA: Yeah, we've had actually, especially internationally, people asking us, well, how is this different from the BrailleSense 6? So I made an entire list of about 25 things that are different on the Braille. So there really are a lot of differences between this and the BrailleSense 6, especially when you're talking about advanced productivity. I mean, there's no organizer, there's no web tools, there's no Play Store. And, you know, there's no advanced word processor, math input, no web radio, no podcasts, you know, all kinds. So there are a lot of things that it doesn't do as far as the notetaker space. But I think there is actually a market for people who actually don't want all of that. All they really want is the basic set of notetaker features. And I think the media adds a little bit of something that the other devices don't have that I think sometimes people still want. And especially in a reader capacity, because it supports DAISY text and audio, and of course, books that also have both. You're able to have the Braille and the audio. So I don't know, you know, again, MP3, audiobooks, as well as music and things like that. And if you're in a lecture, and you're wanting to take notes, but you're also wanting to record. So it just sort of adds that little bit of something to it. But it's still, I think there are a lot of people that have notetakers, that want notetakers, but don't necessarily want the serious, robust, full on Android device.
EH: They don't want the Play Store. You know, they just want to use what the thing comes with. And a lot of people buy BrailleSense 6 with that idea. I just want to use it to take notes. So, you know, with that said, I mean, the eMotion is about $2,500 less expensive than the BrailleSense 6.
JM: That makes a lot of sense. And you mentioned a couple of the formats, but does it do a lot of the same formats as a SensePlayer for reading or writing documents?
JA: Yes, pretty much exactly so. So that's like DOCX and...
JA: So again, it's going to parallel the BrailleSense notepad and the BrailleSense document reader, even more than the SensePlayer. These are the applications that are in it, even though it doesn't include all of the BrailleSense applications, the ones that are in it actually do parallel the BrailleSense exactly. They are ported directly, except for certain things like embossing and printing, or in this case of the file manager, we don't support the cloud drives. So there are some things because this is a self-contained device and doesn't have, you know, basic internet access. So there are some obvious things. But as far as like supported formats, the way that it operates, you know, the shortcuts and the menus and things like that, they're going to parallel mostly the BrailleSense.
JM: So you mentioned cloud source. I would assume there is some sort of shortcut or easy way to go between your local mode and then like a terminal. That would be one of the buttons at the top.
EH: Super easy. Yeah, spacebar with the center key, right?
JA: Wait, because you said cloud storage. No, there is no cloud storage.
JM: No, I'm saying, but I would want to switch over to my iPhone or Android.
JA: I apologize.
JM: You're fine.
JA: OK, so you mean in the case of multitasking between your internal tasks and terminal mode. And yes, you can press there's the center key that we have. So center space will switch you between your standalone mode and terminal mode.
JM: Have you come up with a way? I know some of the note takers have a way to send files between your mobile device and this.
JA: We don't have a wireless way to do that at this time. It's not that it wouldn't necessarily be doable ever. It's not something because we do have USB access, micro SD access. You can connect it to your PC in storage mode. There are really a lot of ways to get what you need on the device.
JM: And I guess even new iPhones would show up as a device if you plug it in with USB-C since they now support more external storage options.
JA: Sure. And Android for sure. You can see it.
JM: Absolutely. Now, you mentioned the appeal to people and as far as some of the features that are in this. Of course, one of the big developments, at least in this country, is people getting free braille displays from the library. 20 cells. They don't have all the features that something like this does. But how does that affect how you approach something like this in the U.S.?
JA: Well, I'm in the international office, so that may be a better question for Earle to answer.
EH: Really, what it comes down to is how do you compete with free? You don't. So when they came to me and said, hey Earl, do you think we should do a 20 cell version of this? I said, probably not. Because not only can you get the free e-book reader, which I have one of and I love. It's free. And of course, if you're in school, you've got the Chameleon from APH. So that's available on federal quota. So you can't compete with free. So what you try to do is give people something else above and beyond what those devices are able to do. In the case of NLS reader, of course, it's just a reader. But yet, you can still connect it to your phone and navigate your phone using it. So what we're doing is we're giving people different ways to accomplish tasks with a bigger braille display. You know, the multimedia feature is unique to it. The multi-language support and all the Nuance voices is another way to do that.
JM: Awesome. And it looks like, as you mentioned, the support for all of the major operating systems. I saw the NVDA driver get pulled in a month ago. And then it looks like they're coming in for all the others. And it will still work with Android because you're supporting legacy protocols?
JA: Yep.
EH: Correct.
JA: Actually, it will. It should with HID braille via USB also work. Via USB. Yes.
JM: And hopefully someday Google will do the rest of what they need to do for Android. That's a whole separate topic.
EH: Well, they've come a long ways.
JM: Yeah, for sure.
EH: I'm considering diving back into the Android world again. So I do it once every couple of years.
JM: What's the timeline for release and the price point?
JA: So this is it. We're introducing it here at CSUN, of course. And I think we're probably looking somewhere, oh, May-ish for the release. Maybe June. What do you think?
JA: It should be sooner than that.
EH: It should be sooner?
JA: I bet it's by the end of April, I think.
JM: Awesome. Sounds great. And what's the pricing going to be?
EH: The pricing is retail is $3,595.
JM: And people can go on the site now and pre-order?
EH: We can. We are accepting pre-orders.
JM: Awesome. And what's the website for that?
EH: So HIMS-inc.com. You should find it right on our homepage there.
JM: Awesome. Jenny, I wanted to talk to you a little bit. We've been away from podcasting for a while. And in the meantime, the SensePlayers came out. I should, as full disclosure, say that A. T. Guys is a dealer of the SensePlayer. But for people who maybe aren't as familiar with what it is, maybe just briefly talk about what the SensePlayer is and some of the latest features that you've added to it.
JA: So the SensePlayer is an accessible multimedia player. Of course, you could sort of directly compare it to the Stream, except it really is different in the same way that the eMotion is kind of different from other Braille displays. The SensePlayer is different from other multimedia players. So it is based on Android. It has, again, your file manager, media player, daisy player, document reader. It has a voice recorder. As J.J. mentioned, it supports USB audio devices. So you can get a really nice recording out of that. It also then has the ability to install third-party applications. So it's not a Google-certified device, but we have provided an installer of some of the most popular and accessible applications with the SensePlayer. For example, Audible and BARD Mobile and Google Lookout and Netflix. Actually, Google Lookout's not in the installer because we have a camera version and a non-camera version. So we have one that does OCR, and that one would work with Google Lookout. We have one that does not have a camera, so does not also have OCR and would not work with Google Lookout. So we don't put that in the installer, but it is possible to use that. Same way with Envision, Seeing AI. All of these devices, if you have the one with the camera, you're able to use these applications. But in the installer, we have applications that work with all of the devices. And we've actually included this in the BrailleSense 6 as well, this little installer. So it makes it easier for people to just jump into a few third-party apps that we know are popular and that work well on our devices. And so that's sort of the, you know, we don't have to fight sort of with Audible as far as that goes, because we just use the app. The same way with BARD Mobile, we, you know, there's always the licensing and things like that for the audio books. We don't deal with that. We just kind of piggyback onto what they're doing and use their third-party app. It is still a bit easier because you have direct keyboard access. So for example, you can just jump to the top of the screen. You don't have to find your way. A lot of times with our arrow keys, you're able to go up and down and left and right. So if you know, for example, something's on the second row from the bottom middle thing, you can jump to the bottom, arrow up and left, and you're there. So once you sort of memorize the screen layout, I think it's a lot easier to sort of get where you need to go sometimes than using a touchscreen, and that's kind of the advantage. The other advantage is, of course, that you don't actually have to use your phone. You can use your phone for those functions and read a book or do something on your SensePlayer if you want to connect it to your stereo system or whatever you want to do. So it's just, again, it's an accessible media player, but we tried to sort of bring it into the modern age and make it a little bit more robust, I think.
One of the things that's really interesting to me, and you mentioned working with phone apps and working with phones. Well, for apps that you couldn't necessarily put on the SensePlayer, there is a way to remote control your phone, whether it's iOS or Android. That's really interesting to me. Why don't you talk about that a little bit?
JA: Thank you for mentioning that. So that is our Smart Connect function, and it's interesting because that is actually one of the main things that we touted when we launched this player. But with the advent of third-party apps, I think sometimes it sort of gets put on the back burner. But I'll tell you what, I'm actually going to let Earle talk about it because he actually uses this even more than I do.
EH: I do, yeah. So there's a number of use cases for Smart Connect, and at first, I've got to admit, I thought it was just kind of this gimmicky thing that they were trying out doing. It's just like, all of a sudden, I found myself in the automated attendant where I needed to type in a number. And you know, when you're on a touch screen, you're flicking around, listening to your screen reader, and the automated attendant's telling you, I'm sorry, I didn't recognize your entry. And then you keep trying, and it says, all of a sudden, you got, oh, I'm sorry, you are having trouble. Please try again. Well, what the SensePlayer allows you to do is just simply flip into input mode and press the pound key until you get to numbers. And then now you're just typing in numbers using the keyboard on the SensePlayer, and it just makes it so much easier.
JM: So you pretty much have full control, though. There's a lot of different commands that essentially emulate gestures on the phone, so it acts as a bit of an external control device for your phone.
EH: Yeah, it does. Yeah, so flicking around is really a matter of your navigation mode. You just left, right, up, down, arrow. When you want to input, you want to,
JA: Top and bottom?
EH: yep, top, number one, bottom is number two.
JA: Seven.
EH: Seven, seven, that's right, seven. And then in the case of the iPhone, you have a keystroke. So if you want to go to your notification center, what is it? It's menu two?
JA: Yeah, I think so.
EH: And then we've got a status. If you want to go to your status, it's menu one. If you want to go to your control center, it's
JA: Menu three.
EH: Yes, it's menu three.
JM: And if you forget what it is, there's a help mode.
EH: That's right. Press and hold the center key in the arrows, the OK key, and it'll turn on help mode, which is context sensitive. So it knows where you are, and it knows what you're able to do at that point.
JA: The other use case that I find with it is I have a dock for my old iPhone, my old lightning one, and I connect it to my stereo, but I don't want to go over there every time I want to change tracks. So I actually use it as a remote control. And you can also use it with the BrailleSense. So if for some reason you're watching movies with your family via HDMI, again, you can have this sitting by your entertainment center, and you can remote control it from your chair.
JM: It kind of sums up, yeah, the slogan that you guys are using is expect more from your media player, which it definitely seems like you try to do a lot more with this than just do a current version of the old BookSense or the Blaze or whatever, right?
JA: Right, yeah. We wanted to make it something different.
JM: Awesome. Any new features on the immediate horizon that we can get you to publicly talk about?
JA: I think we'll probably have an update this summer, but I don't know that there's anything that we would reveal at this point. You know, we have a lot of requests for different things, and I don't even think it's been decided for sure what all is going to go into it.
JM: Fair enough. But people can order the SensePlayer now. Same thing from the HIMS site or for one of the dealers?
EH: Oh, absolutely. HIMS-Inc.com or one of, your favorite reseller or dealer.
JA: Including A. T. guys.
EH: Yes.
JM: And what's the pricing?
EH: So the OCR version, the version with the camera, is $795 retail, and the non-OCR is $650 US. And the various resellers and dealers are doing very creative things with bundling things like cases and headsets and things like that.
JM: For sure. Awesome. Thank you both for coming on the podcast. Thank you for the coffee. And we really appreciate having you both on.
EH: That's barista Kelly over there.
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Joe Steinkamp is no stranger to the world of technology, having been a user of video magnification and blindness related electronic devices since 1979. Joe has worked in radio, retail management and Vocational Rehabilitation for blind and low vision individuals in Texas. He has been writing about the A.T. Industry for 15 years and podcasting about it for almost a decade.
