Meet Vicki! The Wonderful BrailleSense 6!

Introduction.

What is it like when your daughter has twice as much memory than you have, can carry almost double the amount of material, and can help you communicate with more people than you are able to do? That's exactly what Fleur, my BrailleSense Polaris, must be feeling right now since this week I took possession of the new BrailleSense 6. We call her Vicki!

I first came to learn of this new device around the time of the CSUN virtual conference in March of this year. I hesitate to use the term notetaker now because the BrailleSense 6 particularly can do far more than any similar device I have owned. I was lucky enough to take delivery of it on Thursday of this week and hear are my overall impressions so far.

Before Arrival.

CSUN and similar conferences are a mixed blessing. They are great because you get to learn what is upcoming, and manufacturers are keen to let you know about their forthcoming products. But from the potential user's perspective they are quite irritating as well, because the companies representing the products are unable to answer questions such as those relating to an estimated availability date in many countries. I found this particularly so with this product. Various webinars took place trumpeting the new improvements over previous models, there was plenty of publicity on social media, but there was a great deal of uncertainty over trade-in offers and general availability, and for some people, there still is. In short, it has been a ball of confusion.

To be fair, certainly here in the UK, our distributor brought about a very generous offer, where a person could trade in any existing Braille-based product and receive a substantial discount on the BS6. At the time of writing, those people as I understand have not received their products yet. I just feel that it would be quite helpful to set customers' expectations from the outset as to what they will get and when. But congratulations to Sight and Sound who did make the offer available because it has brought the BS6 into the hands of people who could not have otherwise afforded it.

Until this week, I relied a great deal on the BrailleSense Polaris in order to get work done day-to-day and especially at the weekends when I do a lot of internet radio broadcasting. I need to be able to write plenty of documents, synchronise them to the unit and read them back at speed. So in view of the fact that I did not want to send my unit back to the distributor to have the existing Braille cells put into a new unit, (the HIMS website states this is the procedure), that is something my wife and I decided was totally impractical for my use case. So we purchased a new unit rather than working through that upgrade process.

So, I have it. Does it live up to the claims made about it at the time and subsequently?

This is going to be the easiest blog post I have ever written because, yes, it does. I could stop right there and let you go and watch all the YouTube videos which will describe it far better than I can. But I will dive a little deeper into it and let you know what I think.

The Differences.

When I started using the BrailleSense Polaris, I did write a full review of that product which you can still read. The physical appearance between the two products is very similar indeed. The BS6 does have a new casing. The measurements and weight are both slightly different, but if you compare the specifications, the differences are hardly noticeable.
BS6 Dimensions: 9.65 x 5.67 x 0.87 inches. Weight: 1.58 lbs.
Polaris Dimensions: 9.64 x 5.66 x 0.74 inches. Weight: 1.65 lbs.

The BS6 feels very much like the Polaris and if you were not careful you could easily mix up the two devices. However, there are a few small differences.

The BS6 contains 4 USB ports in total. On the righthand side, there are 2 USB C ports with a USB A port between them. The USB C port nearest the rear of the unit is for powering and charging it, as well as connecting to a PC for use as a Braille display. The USB C port nearest the front of the unit is used to connect portable video monitors, and will host other compatible USB C devices as well. To eliminate confusion over which port offers which functions, Braille letter indicators are placed on the top of the casing near each port: the letter p for the power and data port, and the letter v for the video and host port. Between the 2 USB C ports is an additional USB A host port for connecting drives, printers, audio devices, cameras, etc, a subject I will return to shortly.
another USB A host port, for connecting drives, keyboards and mice, cameras, printers, audio items and other compatible USB peripherals can be found on the back of the unit.

Although it does not describe how to do so in the User Guide, the battery is easily inserted into the unit and just clips into place. I was lucky enough to receive two batteries which I was very pleased about as this gives me an expected 36 hours of continuous use. What is interesting is that when the unit is charging, and theoretically powered down, the charging status is shown on the Braille display. I like that a lot.

The BS6 comes equipped with the power adaptor for charging, various USB connectivity cables, a set of earbuds and a Keystroke Summary as a Braille volume.

You will notice that the shape of some of the keys has changed and tactile markings are included on some of them which is a most welcome improvement. The changed keys are Control, ALT, and the function keys.

The Braille entry keyboard is to die for. Especially in meetings, I write Braille extremely quickly and it is a joy to write Braille using the new keyboard at considerable speed. There is an extra "bounce" to it which helps with this.

What sets this unit apart from anything else I have seen however is what is inside the BS6.

Android version 10 is installed as against the Polaris which accommodated version 5.1.1 lollipop. There is an Octa-Core CPU processor, 128 GB storage (as opposed to 64 GB), and 6 GB of memory (as opposed to 3 GB). The end result of all of this is that you can run the latest Android apps with optimum speed and stability. More about the Android apps later, but whether you are opening up a simple Notepad document, your appointments or a video on YouTube, it is lightening fast. Quite honestly it is like being in front of a computer. I've seen many Windows PC's that are much slower to respond than Vicki

In closing this section, readers of my blog will know that I think the HIMS products are absolutely wonderful, whether we are talking about their portable multi-media devices such as this one or the Braille displays. If I was in the market for a job, which I'm not, I would like to work for HIMS and sell these products. I would have the easiest of jobs. They would just sell themselves!

Is She Really That Fast?

I've already answered this question but yes. The Polaris was absolutely fine for most things I wanted to do. I bought it with the very clear expectation that what I really wanted to do was to read and write my documents on there and synchronise them to and from my PC. It does this very well and I had absolutely no complaints. But from the moment you switch it on, it does even struggle sometimes to play the opening launch tune without the audio dropping out slightly. None of that happens with the BS6 at all.

The improvement in speed is not something I need to convince you of. If you get the chance to switch on the device, you'll notice it from the moment you start it up, through to launching files or using apps. I use Google Drive all the time because the integration and implementation even on the Polaris for opening and working with files is just so fantastic. The speed at which the files are opened now is totally impressive; we're talking a couple of seconds here for a file to be available.

In the next section, I will talk about some of the apps I have used so far. But because of the speed and responsiveness of the device, searching for apps, installing and using them is just so stable and wonderful.

Android Apps.

What the BS6 offers is a combination of specialist apps and access to the Google Play Store. This means for those of us who love our traditional apps and ways of taking notes can do so with the same command structure as we've been used to for so long; in my case back to the 80's. But you have the flexibility of going to the Play Store and once there, you have the whole world at your fingertips, with the usual caveat that the app must meet accessibility standards. Nevertheless, that gives you a huge range and if you download something which is not accessible, just uninstall it from the provided App Manager. It's as easy as pie.

HIMS tell us in their extensive documentation that a separate screen-reader is being used to navigate these apps. It is their own screen-reader. If they did not tell you that, you would hardly know it to be honest with you. The voice settings are exactly the same as you set them, as are your Braille preferences. There are, however, just a few different keystrokes to move through it. But even for inexperienced users of such technology, just a few minutes of learning is all it would take to master these slight changes.

One very useful function in this regard is that if you know the name of the control you are looking for, such as "Search", you can just type its initial letter to reach it; a beautiful implementation and works reliably, as does the reporting of when computer Braille is required as opposed to contracted input.

So far, I have watched YouTube videos, used the Google Assistant, listened to radio shows with BBC sounds, watched a movie on disney Plus, sent tweets on Twitter with Tweetings, extensively worked with Spotify and heard audio from Clubhouse. All of these apps were accessible including Clubhouse, although the developers have got a good deal of work to do here, but that is not the fault of this device.

The speech and conventional audio volume levels can be adjusted independently which makes navigation a little easier if you are reliant on speech, particularly when you are learning the controls within the various apps you have downloaded.

Whether you are interested in radio through TuneIn, you want to use Amazon Alexa, read books from Audible, watch movies on Netflix or use a TV app specific to your country, the BS6 can be a fantastic all-round entertainment centre where quality is not in any way compromised. The audio through headphones is of a very high standard and would suit most people I am sure.

Additional Hardware.

One of the attractions of this new device is the additional flexibility you have available so as to connect USB-related hardware. Essentially, most things which are plug and play for Windows should work. There is a very good YouTube video which illustrates this well where various devices are tested. As a simple example, if you want to connect an audio sound mixer or USB microphone to the BS6 so your audio sounds superior on Zoom, Teams or Clubhouse, you can do that without too much thought. Similarly, you could connect USB drives for more storage if you wanted to.

The Recorder.

The BS6 contains the usual media player. They have added a feature where you can listen to internet radio streams which works well. The Media Player also contains an audio recorder which was available in the Polaris as well but I was asked to write about this. Specifically, I was asked to comment on the audio reproduction from the built-in microphones. Yes, there are two of them, and you do get true stereo reproduction.

You would only use these microphones if you had nothing else to work with. This is because there is some additional background motor noise when you make recordings emanating from the unit itself, but you would expect this as they are in close proximity to the unit. The useful point however is that you can select to record in a variety of audio formats and sampling rates, including Wav at 44,100 HZ and even above. While there has always been a 3.5 MM Line In/Microphone jack available, don't forget now that you can connect additional hardware to the unit so as to record something of top quality.

Additional Applications.

This blog post is getting rather lengthy so I will discuss these in brief.

There is a very impressive database management program so as to create a database of just about anything you want. You can set up your own fields, undertake queries on the content, and much more. Essentially, you set up the database how you want it to be presented. I first heard about this within a webinar and I came away feeling that was an excellent innovation. You may not wish to do this for storing contacts for example as there is already an excellent application for this, but you could do if there was additional information relative to each contact not included within the application designed for the purpose.

One of the cool things about the BS6 is that HIMS have included some applications brought over from another product, the U2, which as Polaris users we did not previously have access to which is very nice. One of these is the Download Manager for Bookshare content. I am not able to test this as I am not a Bookshare user. I believe the Dictionary is another such application. This I have tested, and it does retrieve the meanings of words without any difficulty.

So Are There Any Problems?

Because of the extra speed and performance offered within the BS6, it does inspire me to want to do more with the device. So during the past few days, I have used many of the functions perhaps more extensively than I would have done with the Polaris. What follows are just very small criticisms but nevertheless things perhaps to be aware of.

Within two minutes of switching on the device, I came across a Braille translation issue with UK contracted Braille. Whenever I typed some letters and numbers together without spaces, I was thrown out of Notepad. This does not occur with UEB or using US contracted Braille. This has been reported by me, and the company have confirmed there is an issue here.
Update: Hims have sent me the proposed new firmware update which does fix this problem.

When in the Scheduler, (a specialist app for keeping track of appointments), we are asked to enter dates in US format; month first, then date, despite the fact the unit clearly identifies that I am using UK as a regional language. Are we really saying programmatically it is not possible to latch onto the regional settings preferred by the user and deal with this quite basic requirement? Was this not flagged up in testing?
Update: Hims have sent me the proposed new firmware update which does fix this problem.

One of the things you will want to do when you first get this device is to obtain help information. If you are focused on a control within a specific application, you may want to know how to interact with it or learn its purpose. You can press letter H with Space to get help, but it is not quite as context sensitive as I thought it would be. When it does work, which isn't often, it gives you a list of keystrokes you can use relative to the overall environment. These keystrokes are helpful, but I would have thought that pressing Enter on one of these keystrokes would have caused it to be actioned. It doesn't do that. So once you have found the keystroke you want, you need to exit the help then press it. I do accept this teaches a user the keystroke, but not allowing a user to press Enter on the keystroke (or to provide more ccontext sensitive help information) just seems to me to be little areas which have been forgotten about. In menus and in many dialog boxes, the context sensitive help key does not function anyway. To me, the help looks like it has been bolted onto the device as an afterthought rather than integrated at its core. There is a lot of work to do here.

Given that the Twitter social media platform is so widely used by blind people, I would have hoped a specialist application would have been developed for this. We can use mainstream apps, that is true. But those of us who work with Twitter on the Windows platform understand how helpful a specialist Twitter client can be, particularly with its dedicated shortcut keys to reach core components. There was an app that was being developed by an alternative company to provide Twitter access for these devices. But purchasing and activating it was the most convoluted and unwieldy process I have ever seen. Creating such an app would be a very welcome addition to what is a fabulous product.

Next, I come to the output volume. I would have thought that the headphone volume would be independent of the main speaker audio level. If I set the audio output while listening on headphones to a value of 8 because that volume is comfortable for listening with those, and then I disconnect them, the speaker volume is very loud. I would like to see this being implemented in the same way as used by Humanware in their Victor Reader Stream.

Conclusion.

When a new product like the BS6 is made available, the old chessnut always raises its head: is there a need for such specialist devices to continue given the mainstream options available? The quality, stability and rapid response of this product all go to show there most definitely is. HIMS have done a tremendous job in ensuring that specially designed applications sit comfortably next to mainstream apps with the user interface being fairly transparent when moving from one platform to another. I am confident that anyone who purchases the BS6 will be very pleased with it.

To their credit, in recent weeks HIMS have published a number of excellent training videos on their YouTube channel, showcasing the abilities of the product which you may care to browse through. I hope too there will be more of these.