Since it is a sort of modernized TeleBraille, deaf-blind users must be Braille readers. The deaf-blind population tends to need more medication than the population in general. Remembering to take medication is especially difficult for deaf-blind people, however, as they cannot track the visual cues of time passage nor use auditory alarms. We decided that for some people the answer to this problem would be a Braille wristwatch-type device that could be set tactilely, with multiple alarms that could be set tactilely, and an alarm signal that is vibrotactile. A colleague from the University of Tokai joined us in developing a prototype unit.
More work is planned to refine the prototype and to make it smaller.
Once this is accomplished we will ask deaf-blind consumers to evaluate it.