Technology advances ever onward, and one of the latest devices to be born from the imagination of the engineers at HIMS is the E-bot.

The E-bot is a portable CCTV camera designed to be connected via HDMI to a television or monitor - so far so normal. What sets the E-bot apart is that it can also wirelessly connect to an iPad, using the iPad's screen as its monitor!

In another twist, the most advanced version of the E-bot, the E-bot Pro, is fully motorized and allows control of the camera through either swipe and touch gestures directly on the iPad screen, or with the included remote control. This is fantastic for making fine adjustments when magnified and makes it possible to use the camera from beyond arm's length as you don't need to touch the camera in order to move it. 

The E-bot comes in three models, with the E-bot Pro being the most fully featured. The E-bot Pro, in addition to the motorized movement, offers great OCR, distance viewing, near viewing and superb portability due to its fold-away design. 

Look out for a video on the E-bot very soon, and in the meantime read more about the device here http://hims-inc.com/products/e-bot-pro/

"Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.?" Helen Keller, The Story of My Life

One of the main areas in which people who are blind or have a visual impairment suffer, particularly if they have lost their vision at a later age, is the loss of their ability to read. Suddenly being unable to read mail, books, magazines, restaurant menus and product labels, to name just a few areas, means a loss of independence and a subsequent decline in quality of life. Often people will turn to their family and friends for help; however having to rely on others is unsatisfactory to many people and the psychological burden further leads to a decline in quality of life. If a student experiences vision loss, being unable to access textbooks or see the whiteboard can put them at a disadvantage to their peers and lead to a loss of motivation in school and poor grades. Being able therefore to propose viable techniques that can enhance the ability of a person who is blind or visually impaired to read is very important, and thankfully there are many devices that can be utilized. 

Electronic magnification is a huge area and consists of devices from handheld to desktop and every size in between. Using an electronic magnifier or CCTV a user can read anything from a menu or food label to a book much more easily than with a regular magnifying glass.

If magnification doesn't work for you then OCR may be the answer. OCR or read aloud devices can take a picture of a piece of text and read it aloud to a user. Great for reading mail or books these devices can do wonders for your independence. 

As well as these there are many services available providing audio books. The Library of Congress runs a program called BARD offering free audio books and a device to play them to people with a visual impairment. You can apply at nlsbard.loc.gov or visit your local library. In addition, services such as Bookshare.org and learning ally offer access to many books including textbooks for students. As well as these, through a tablet, e-reader or phone it is possible to download thousands of books from places such as Amazon or the Apple App Store. 

Reading as a person who is blind or visually impaired is a huge topic and can't be covered in a blog post. For more information you can contact us at 312-997-3649, email at luke.scriven@chicagolighthouse.org and visit our Youtube Channel at youtube.com/chilighthouse 

Let's face it, everyone likes to watch TV, but for the person with a visual impairment this can be a difficult task. For those with a central or peripheral scotoma it can be hard to see faces of the people on television, and easy to miss important action happening on the screen. 

Audio described television (which we talked about last week with regards to Netflix) can be one helpful tool for this problem. A narrator describes the action on the screen so even if you can't see it you can imagine what is happening through the narration. 

However there are other options out there. One device is magnifying television glasses designed to magnify at distance. Sit in your easy chair with these on and the television will appear twice as large, which may be just what you need to better see what's happening. 

If these are not enough, a spectacle mounted telescope can be prescribed which would allow you to magnify objects in the distance to an even greater extent - however bear in mind that as you magnify your field of view will become smaller, meaning you may not see the entire television screen at the same time and will have to move your head around as you are watching. 

Tom Perski from The Chicago Lighthouse, now 62 and having been legally blind since the age of 21, offers some advice from his own experience - "I have found the best way to watch television is to use a smaller television and sit closer to it" He says. "Many people think a larger television will help, but it is hard to see the whole screen. If you have a smaller television and sit right up, relative distance magnification makes it appear much larger"

Tom adds "If you have central vision loss it is more effective to use eccentric viewing (your peripheral vision) to look at things. I find it best to sit at an angle to the television in order to help with this".

So as you can say there are many possibilities. Call us today at 312-997-3649 to discuss what might work for your individual needs!