Recommendation for reading device for low vision

April 16, 2022 11:46 AM

I am looking for a device for a technologically-challenged person in their 80s who recently became unable to read due to low vision.

I thought that maybe an Amazon Echo or other virtual assistant would work, or maybe just a phone or tablet would be better.

It's for my Mom. She only used dumb phones and never used computers. She's a bit averse to technology, and cognitively a bit slower than before. So, nothing complicated would work. She has very low vision now, seeing just silhouettes, shadows, some colour, all is very blurry. It's a recent development, and she's sad about it.

This device would have be able to play audiotracks (books, music) with simple voice commands. The tracks would come from a collection of around 100 mp3s. No subscriptions services like Audible — most of them don't even work in her country/language (Echo works tho).

It would be a bonus if it could read text out loud too, again with super simple voice commands.

What's the best solution for this? Let me know of your experience or the experience of someone close to you with this type of technology! Thanks :)

posted by plant or animal to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

So, nothing complicated would work.

The solution I suggest for people in the US is to have the person sign up with the National Library for the Blind. They can send a very very basic MP3 player and you can get books on USB cartridges mailed to you, for free. The devices are intended to be used by people who are completely blind and are fairly straightforward. The goods thing about this is that the person using them can obtain fairly recent/new books and either choose from a catalog (with another person or on their own) and there are other options such as magazines which is what I have heard a lot of people experiencing vision loss really miss. Here's what the device looks like and if she still has decent manual dexterity, it would be usable for her. It's more like a tape player and very unlike a computer. If your mom is in Canada she'd connect with CELA and here is their first-time users page. I'm aware that this isn't exactly what you were asking but just want to make sure people know that in North America there are free options for people. If you want to let us know your mom's country if it isn't one of these perhaps a MeFiBrarian can help you.
posted by jessamyn at 12:27 PM on April 16, 2022 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: She's is not in the US, and English is not her language, as I said, sorry I wasn't clear :)
posted by plant or animal at 12:35 PM on April 16, 2022

Would you feel comfortable sharing where she is located? We might be able to help find location-specific resources.
posted by aquamvidam at 12:46 PM on April 16, 2022

Response by poster: Thanks, folks, for trying to expand the solution to possible services. I am already researching in the local language for local services. But for the purposes of this question, I'd like to know if there's a technological solution to this problem. Expanding a bit, a player that would work with ginormous easy buttons would also sort of work, but ideally I am envisioning my Mom saying, "Play Beloved", and the thing would play the book from her own collection. Maybe Kindle could do something like that?
posted by plant or animal at 12:59 PM on April 16, 2022

I dion’t have a specific answer, but Apple or Android tablets might be where you want to look. Both operating systems have voice assisted technologies and apps to read text aloud and are localized to many different nations/languages (one again, some specifics might be helpful). Either one would certainly require some setup before releasing the device to her, but I know blind people use smartphones all the time for many different things.
posted by lhauser at 1:08 PM on April 16, 2022

Out of the box suggestion: burn the MP3s to CD (or MP3-CD) and get her a CD player. It’s not controlled by voice but you could decorate the CD cases so they’re distinctive by touch.
posted by Monochrome at 1:15 PM on April 16, 2022

Response by poster: Sorry to threadsit, but I'd love to know what works for an older person who can't learn a lot of new things and became blind recently. Many technologies work for younger people who can learn and have good motor coordination. I also imagine that tablets might work – but do they for real? And how?

Right now she's listening to text on an iPad. Someone else (my sister, usually) has to open the text/book, and turn on the read out loud manually, and then it reads and reads and reads – she can't turn it off because she doesn't know how, and can't see. I thought it would be cool if she had more autonomy.
posted by plant or animal at 1:19 PM on April 16, 2022

My father, also in his eighties and technologically-challenged, has low vision. He use an iPad along with a very bright light. He uses text-to-speech a lot and listens to audiobooks. He doesn't use voice commands, instead he jabs at the screen. He really can't see much and only in his periphery but although he's sometimes frustrated he does get the iPad to work on his own. We spent some time configuring the iPad: there are lots of excellent features when you start playing around.

In my country both the public libraries and non-profits focusing on the blind have sessions to help configure tablets.

Youtube has proved better than anything else: even though he can't see the images he gets a lot from the audio and it's easy to navigate.
posted by boudicca at 1:33 PM on April 16, 2022 [1 favorite]

Sometimes when I'm not quite able to sleep, I say to Alexa, "Read me a story." I don't think it gets easier than that. When I am ready, I say, "Alexa, stop."
posted by crw at 1:33 PM on April 16, 2022 [3 favorites]

I realise that I haven't explained that although he doesn't use voice commands, my father relies on VoiceOver.
posted by boudicca at 1:46 PM on April 16, 2022 [2 favorites]

My husband is now blind and he's been listening to audiobooks on Google Play. He listens on his Google Assistant, but it works fine with the Google Home device. Generally we sit down together and pick books to buy through Google Books, and then he can say "OK, Google, read Book Title" and it will read it. When he's in the middle of a book, he can just say "read my book" and it will pick up where he left off.

We have not tried buying new books online through the Google Assistant but I'm sure you could.

I'm pretty sure Amazon Alexa would do the same thing with Audible books, but I don't know exactly how that works or how smooth it is.
posted by gideonfrog at 4:20 PM on April 16, 2022

Hypothetically, if Amazon Echo works then Audible and Kindle books should work as well. Echo should be able to read any books available in Kindle and Audible.

https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-listen-to-audiobooks-on-an-amazon-echo-device

And you can get a LOT of free books from Amazon, no subscription needed. It's just probably not the quality of books you'd expect, at ohfb.com
posted by kschang at 6:59 PM on April 16, 2022

This is late, but hopefully maybe still helpful to someone. I also have recently diminished vision, and the state here has set me up with an iPad and software called "voicedream" that will text-to-speech anything you throw at it (including stuff that needs to be OCR'd on the fly). I was skeptical about the need for an iPad, and I'm sure there are "just as good" solutions on other platforms, but this setup works remarkably well for me. I don't use the iPad for anything else, but it is always with me for reading text.
posted by nixxon at 4:13 PM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]