Alexa Smart Home, BT and Orbit Speak and Apple latest

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00:08 S1

Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from April the 8th, 2025. I'm Stephen Jolley - great to have you with us, listening maybe through Vision Australia Radio, associated stations of the Radio Reading Network or the Community Radio Network. There is also the podcast- to catch that, all you need to do is search for the two words Talking Tech, and down it can all come, usually on a Tuesday afternoon just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask your Siri device or Smart Speaker to play Vision Australia Radio Talking Tech Podcast. Vision Australia Radio Talking Tech Podcast.

With me, Vision Australia's national access technology manager. Damo McMorrow. Hey, Damo. 

S2

G'day, Stephen. 

S1

Tell us about a program of Vision Australia that's been going for some time. The Vision Australia Alexa Smart Home program.

01:01 S2

We're actually about to do another run of this program, so we're commencing the program in May. The idea is that it's for people who perhaps haven't used smart speakers before. And the program includes a free Amazon Echo pop speaker. It's an eight week program. It's one hour a week, and it's sort of in small groups of usually four participants, with one of our facilitators, all of whom are blind or low vision themselves. And it's to to show you what you can do with a smart speaker. The beauty of these is that you don't have to have, you know, massive technology skills. You don't have to know your way around a keyboard. There's no gestures because everything you do, you do with your voice. So it's a really good way to sort of get information, you know, to show you how to do things like, you know, getting the news and weather through the speaker, but also things like reading your audible books, your, um, Kindle books, uh, and even, you know, how to set up routines so it plays your favorite news bulletin in the morning and you know, we can turn on your aircon or your smart lights or those sorts of things. It's funded through either the Home Care package or Commonwealth Home Support Programme or funding. And, uh, we will be starting the next program in May. Um, either the 5th or the 12th of May at this stage. So if people are interested in finding out more or potentially registering, they can email voice assist all one word at Vision Australia and a member of the team will get in touch and, um, you know, provide more information and go through a few, uh, sort of questions to make sure it's going to be suitable for you.

02:48 S1

Voice assist at Vision Australia. Remind us about the actual device that you use, the Amazon device.

02:58 S2

Yeah. So the Echo Pop is a it's a small speaker. Um, it's sort of, uh, what would you describe it as? Half a half a sphere, I suppose, in shape. So half a ball. It's the sort of thing you could just sort of sit on your kitchen counter top, your bedside table, that kind of thing. And there's no screen on them. So you, you know, you trigger the device by sort of saying the wake word, which is usually Alexa or something similar. Um, you can you can customize that and then just asking it a question. So play 612 ABC Brisbane or is it going to rain today. And if so, when and what's the current score in the test between Australia and India? You know, all of those kinds of things you can do. You can, as I said, play radio stations. You can um, read if you've got we I remember we had a participant who had been using a Kindle device, and, uh, his vision had got to the point where he could no longer read it, and he'd set it aside about 18 months prior and thought, okay, my reading days are done. And, um, he learnt in the program that he could read his Kindle book on the, um, Amazon Echo pop. Speaker. And it basically continued exactly where he'd left off on the Kindle 18 months before. And so he was he was rapt that he could continue to read all the Kindle books that he'd got.

04:21 S1

Do you have to purchase the device before the program, or does Vision Australia arrange that?

04:27 S2

No. So we we provide the device as part of the program. So we there's no sort of cost to the device as such. Um, and we also have we work with an installation partner. So what happens is we send the speaker out and then our installation partner contacts you, and they send a technician out to actually get it connected to your Wi-Fi network for you. Uh, create an Amazon account if you need one. Uh, all of that kind of thing so that it's up and running and ready to use with the the program.

04:55 S1

Sounds pretty good. And the email address to enquire again.

05:00 S2

Voice assist all one word at Vision Australia or.

05:04 S1

Voice assist at Vision Australia. Org for the smart home program that starts in early May. Good luck with that one. Thank you. Now, our friend the BT speak, since we last spoke about it, it's had two monthly updates. Please explain.

05:22 S2

So the BT speak, just as a quick refresher, is a small they the Blasi tech call it a pocket computer. It is a small pocket sized device with a Perkins style Braille keyboard and speech output. They've done some fairly major reworkings in the last couple of updates, so some of the features that we now have are a number of enhancements to the editor, which is sort of the main note taker function of the device. The other one, the other thing that they've done is, um, an ability to search through menus because it is a menu driven system, and often things might be 2 or 3 levels deep in the menus. So you can now search for a particular function if you wish. And there's also they've introduced a way of being able to send emails. So the device has two modes, kind of a traditional, they call traditional mode, which is sort of replicates the old Braylon speak from back in the 90s, and then it has desktop mode where you can go into the Linux desktop. Now, previously emails were done, uh, using the Thunderbird email client in desktop mode. But what they've done is developed some workarounds so that you don't have to go into desktop mode. You can trigger a new email or reply to an email and things like that from within traditional mode, which is is nice, um, because it's a much more friendly sort of interface. And you don't have to learn the, the orca desktop screen reader. So, um, you know, as we've said before on the show, they do, um, add new features very regularly. And, uh, it is becoming quite a capable little device.

07:04 S1

Now, you've been playing with an alternate device recently, the orbit speak from Orbit Research. How does that stack up?

07:13 S2

That was an interesting thing. I, I saw one at CSUN and decided I wanted it. Um, and look, they both do different things extremely well. The orbit speak is, I guess, the, the best way to describe it is that the orbit speak really is kind of a pocket note taker, rather than a pocket sort of computing device. So it doesn't have, uh, you know, um, things like the Chrome or Firefox web browsers built into it and those sorts of things. Now, having said that, the things that it's designed to do, it does exceptionally well. The footprint is similar, but it's a little bit thinner than the BT speak. And that was one of the reasons I like it, because I can put it into a man bag or a bum bag and, you know, carry it around and it takes up less room. It just fits in there a little bit better. It's about the same footprint as my iPhone 15 Pro and probably a similar thickness, to be honest. Um, it, uh, it feels a little bit better in terms of finish than the BT speak. The BT speak the plastic case has some sort of rough edges and that kind of thing. And the keyboard is very is a lot less rattly or clicky. The keyboard is actually very similar to if you've seen the orbit Reader 20 or the orbit writer. It's using a similar eight key keyboard, but it does also have a little d pad where you can go up, down, left, and right. The advantage of that, um, in my particular use case, I, I went shopping last week. I was wanting to try some South African cooking and, uh, had quite a shopping list, and it meant that I could carry the unit in one hand and just operate the d pad with my thumb. I had each shopping list item on a new line. I find doing that on the BT speak where you're doing chorded commands. I find that kind of difficult one handed. Uh, obviously the reason I'm doing it one handed is because I was being sighted, guided around the, um, the South African grocery store. Um, the speech, I think, is a little better. Uh, well, not the speech. It does come standard with the vocalizer voices, but it has one speaker, but it's a slightly bigger speaker, so it seems to me to sound less tinny. Um, it does have things like a clock, a calendar, a contacts function, um, an alarm, you know, those sorts of things. It's got a web, radio and a very good and easy to use media player. So it does have some other functions apart from the note taker. But I think, you know, kind of depends what you want it for. Um, the other thing of course, because it runs Android and it behaves a little more like your phone in terms of when you put it to sleep, it goes to sleep and doesn't draw a lot of battery, whereas the BT speak, um, it does get warm and it probably will still be flat overnight. It just goes into a slightly lower power consumption kind of mode. Whereas the, um, orbit speak, when you put it to sleep, it, it, it goes to sleep like your phone so you can put it into sleep mode. Come back to it five days later and you'll be exactly where you were, and you won't have lost a lot of battery. So, you know, there are like all these things. There are pros and cons, I think, as a straight sort of portable note taker device, kind of pen and paper replacement, if you will. The orbit speak does a better job. If you want to tinker and play with Linux and still use it with, you know, desktop browsers and YouTube and things like that, then the BT speak is probably the way to go.

10:47 S1

Tell us about the price of the orbit speak and how it compares with BT speak.

10:52 S2

Uh, it is quite a bit cheaper. So the orbit speak sells for I think, 695 US. So by the time you convert that it probably works out at around about $1,000. Whereas the BT speak is I think 1199 US. So by the time you get it here, you're probably looking at something in the order of a little over $2,000. So there is a significant price difference.

11:20 S1

So we've been talking about the BT speak and the orbit speak from Orbit Research. Apple dropped some software updates last week.

11:31 S2

They did iOS 18.4. And they also released a sort of a minor update for devices that are not capable of running iOS 18, just to sort of plug some security holes. I think there are a couple of good features for VoiceOver users in this latest update. They have a couple of additional verbosity controls now, so when you are scrolling through content, you can elect to have it say or not say things like heading. Uh, those kinds of attributes. And you can also tell it whether to speak those before or after the name of the item. The other one that I was quite pleased to see was, uh, for those who use Braille displays, there is now a gesture which enables you to do a double tap and hold. So a good example of where you might do this is if you use either WhatsApp or the Apple iMessage program to send voice messages where you want to sort of tap and hold your finger on the record button. And then when you let it go, it stops recording and sends the message. So there's now a way to do that, a key sequence, a chorded command using your spacebar that you can sort of press once, which will initiate the double tap and hold. And then you press it again. And that that lets sort of releases the gesture. Um, there's also several bug fixes. Um, and as always, a couple of new bugs as well, I think. Um, I haven't come across them yet. They're obviously not major ones, I don't think, but definitely some nice improvements there in iOS 18.4 for VoiceOver users.

13:14 S1

And at the same time, upgrades for watchOS and for Mac OS and Probably tvOS, so I haven't seen much about that yet.

13:24 S2

No, I haven't looked into the TV one, but definitely the the watchOS and the Mac OS. Sequoia gets an update as well. Yeah.

13:31 S1

But certainly for the iPhone and for the iPad, it's 18.4 is the new version. That's right. Before we go, a reminder that you can find details of what we've been talking about in this and previous editions of the program by going to VA radio. VA. And to write to the program.

13:55 S2

You can email me. At Vision Australia.

14:06 S1

At Vision Australia. This has been talking tech with me has been Vision Australia's national access technology manager Damo McMorrow. I'm Stephen Jolly. Stay safe. We'll talk more tech next week.

14:18 S3

See you.