Welcome to the eighty episode of Access On, the National Federation of the Blind's Technology podcast.
Episode
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Timestamps
In this week's episode:
This week's Access On features a comprehensive review and demonstration of BrailleNote Evolve, the latest generation of BrailleNote from HumanWare running Windows 11 Pro.
Here are the segments in the episode:
Looking ahead to our gaming Access On webinar 0:00:00
What is BrailleNote Evolve 0:02:13
The evolution that led to BrailleNote Evolve 0:06:11
BrailleNote Evolve with JAWS 0:12:22
Hardware 0:15:25
Dimensions and portability 0:24:38
The keyboard 0:28:13
Setup 0:33:02
Starting, and the Main Menu 0:34:44
Testing the microphones 0:40:01
Word, BrailleNote Evolve, and NVDA 0:42:47
Options 0:58:18
Braille Editor 1:10:14
Victor Reader 1:11:54
File Manager 1:16:41
No Braille Terminal 1:18:16
Final thoughts 1:19:45
Andrew Flatres and Rachel Ramos from HumanWare 1:31:18
Closing and contact info 2:02:08
Transcript
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Access On.
Jonathan Mosen:
Welcome to Access On, the technology podcast of the National Federation of the Blind. In this week's episode, a comprehensive review and demonstration of BrailleNote evolve from HumanWare. Running Windows 11 Pro, the BrailleNote evolve is HumanWare's most open BrailleNote to date. Can this device be your laptop, your Braille display, and your notetaker all in one? Then following the review, we talk with HumanWare representatives about BrailleNote evolve and our findings.
It's Jonathan Mosen at the Jernigan Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, welcoming you to episode 80 of the podcast, and given that this is quite a lengthy episode with distinct segments, it's timely for me to remind you, or inform you if you're a new listener to the podcast, that we do make an effort to segment the podcast by chapter. Many podcast apps for your smartphone and devices that play podcasts support navigation by chapter, and this allows you to move through sections of the podcast conveniently, so bear that in mind if there are specific sections of the podcast that you'd like to navigate to.
Just before we get started with our BrailleNote evolve review, a quick reminder that we are heading towards June 30th, and that is the date of our next Access On webinar. This one is all about gaming, whether it be on your computer, your smartphone, or games consoles, which are becoming increasingly accessible. If this is a subject that's of interest to you, you won't want to miss this webinar, and you can register by going to nfb.org/cena. That's nfb.org/cena. That stands for our Center of Excellence in Nonvisual Accessibility here at the National Federation of the Blind. Once you land on that page, you'll be able to find the events and training link. When you click through to that, you will find the registration for the webinar. If you can't make it in person, we do send out a recording afterwards, so it is worth registering even if there's a time clash for you, and also we will make highlights of that webinar available on this podcast, Access On, in future.
For a quarter of a century, the word BrailleNote has meant something specific to blind people, a self-contained Braille computer with a suite of applications designed specifically for the needs of blind people that just works. The BrailleNote name carries a lot of history and a lot of expectation, so when HumanWare announces a brand new BrailleNote, it is a significant blindness event. Many people greeted news of BrailleNote evolve with plenty of enthusiasm. The concept sounded like what many of us have dreamed of, a light, screen-less Windows 11 computer with a Braille display and a Braille keyboard built in, giving you limitless possibilities while still offering the simplicity and familiarity of KeySoft to fall back on. I think it's a stretch to say that that's what BrailleNote evolve delivers in practice.
At the heart of this conclusion is this question: what exactly is KeySoft? In the user guide for BrailleNote mPower and BrailleNote Touch, HumanWare uses exactly the same definition. It defines KeySoft as an application suite, a multipurpose program called KeySoft, it says, running under the Windows CE operating system, designed for blind users, providing functions such as KeyWord, KeyMail, KeyWeb, KeyChat, KeyPlan, KeyList, KeySync, KeyPlus, KeyBook, file management, database, games, terminal mode, clock/calendar/stopwatch, and network client. For Monarch, which is a current product which we reviewed in episode 59 of Access On, HumanWare uses the phrase, "HumanWare's KeySoft accessibility suite," saying Monarch applications are powered by it and that it includes apps such as KeyWord, KeyBrf, Calculator, Tactile Viewer, Victor Reader, and KeyFiles.
In the FAQ for BrailleNote Touch, HumanWare says KeySoft is the way you experience the BrailleNote Touch, including the main menu and apps such as KeyWord. It also says KeySoft is the primary accessibility service that makes apps and the touch experience accessible, handling speech, Braille output, TouchBraille, keyboard entry, and first letter navigation. HumanWare summarizes it as, "The interface that makes the device accessible and efficient." You'll note that KeyWord is always mentioned in these definitions since clearly, as all of us have used these devices know, one of the most essential functions, if not the most essential function of this category of product, is writing things down and reading them back and getting it done efficiently and intuitively.
And this leads me to another question for you to consider, and to help crystallize this important issue, I'm going to draw a parallel. In 2018, Microsoft changed the default keyboard layout in Narrator, its built-in screen reader, to lessen the learning curve for JAWS users, and that change is still in effect today, but most of us know that when we're in Narrator and we press Insert + T to read the window title or Insert + Numpad Up Arrow to read the current line. Just because the commands are the same, that doesn't mean we can call it JAWS. The output we get, the whole look and feel, is different despite the same keystrokes.
On BrailleNote evolve, since there's no familiar KeyWord and several other applications that we usually associate with KeySoft and BrailleNote, what we have instead is like a JAWS user running Narrator. If you choose to use NVDA and the provided add-ons, what you press may be the same as previous and some current HumanWare products, but it's a stretch to call it KeySoft because for much of the time, you'll just be in a standard screen reader with a helping handset of keystrokes. You don't get context-sensitive help. You don't get the simple file open experience. What you do get is full Windows with a few familiar keystrokes in some apps as long as you use NVDA.
Let's set some historical context. KeySoft on standard computers goes back a very long way. 40 years, in fact. The first version of KeySoft released back in 1986 ran on a proprietary Epson device, but the next generation ran on a standard Toshiba laptop running DOS. It had many of the applications BrailleNote users became used to over a decade later minus the internet applications because we weren't using those things then. It was a completely self-contained environment written specifically for blind people, optimized for efficiency. If you wanted more, you exited KeySoft and got to a DOS prompt from which you could run a DOS screen reader. In 1996, Pulse Data, the predecessor to HumanWare, released the Keynote Companion. It ran a modified version of Windows with a KeySoft overlay.
Then came the year 2000 and the arrival of the BrailleNote. The BrailleNote Classic launched in April 2000, and it ran Windows CE on a MIPS processor at 100 megahertz. KeySoft sat on top, and there was no screen reader to shell out to on Windows CE. Students used it in school. Professionals used it at work. It was, as people said at the time, just plain friendly, and the context-sensitive help played a key part in that friendliness. In a startlingly short time, it knocked the Blazie notetakers off the top spot in the category. If you learned one app, you understood them all.
Then the family grew. In 2004 came the tiny BrailleNote PK, small enough to fit in the pocket with an 18-cell display, and in 2005 came the BrailleNote mPower. The connectivity improved, though the KeySoft changes were modest. The BrailleNote Apex arrived in late 2009, going on sale in 2010. It was thinner and lighter, with more connectivity. KeySoft kept maturing. Crucially, the Apex could act as a Braille terminal for your computer and for your iPhone. You could be writing in KeyWord, pop into terminal mode to read an incoming text on your iPhone, and then pop back out and keep writing.
Then in 2016, HumanWare made a huge leap, a change of operating system. The BrailleNote Touch moved to Android. HumanWare rewrote KeySoft as an Android accessibility service. You got TouchBraille where you could type on the touchscreen. You got Play Store access. The Touch Plus followed in 2018 with better hardware. You could triple-click the home button to disable KeySoft and use the device as a standard Android tablet. HumanWare has continued to use the strong BrailleNote brand with the new BrailleNote evolve, but what's on this product is very different.
Now that we have a BrailleNote running Windows, it's worth reflecting on the fact that there is a long history of other products that have attempted to integrate a standard desktop operating system and refreshable Braille. In the 1990s, I was talking to a blind woman who actually said to me, "I love my David." And I thought, "Wow. That David's a pretty lucky guy to have that sort of adoration." But then I found out that she was actually referring to a Braille device.
German Braille display manufacturer Baum David combined a Braille keyboard, text to speech, and an integrated Braille display running mainstream DOS-era software. It cost exactly 30,000 Deutsche Marks. Here in the United States, the SuperBraille was made and sold by Advanced Access Devices. It was a Pentium laptop with a Braille display and even a CD-ROM running Windows 95. It cost 15,000 dollars at release, which would be roughly 33,000 dollars in today's money. The SuperBraille was heavy at about 15 pounds. There are also several devices running full Windows integrated with a Braille display on the market today, some of which we will review in future episodes of Access On, and none of which have been able to gain significant traction in the US market at this time.
That takes us back to BrailleNote evolve because HumanWare is seeking to change that. The BrailleNote evolve is a full Windows 11 Pro computer with the Windows license activated out of the box. It has a Braille display and a Braille keyboard instead of a screen and a QWERTY keyboard, although a QWERTY version with a 40-cell Braille display is planned later this year. That means that you can install anything on it that you can install on any Windows PC. HumanWare has taken the free open-source NVDA screen reader and modified it. The spec sheet describes it as a customized NVDA powered by KeySoft. They use the specially modified NVDA to skin certain Microsoft Office applications, add additional blindness-specific functionality, and to modify some parts of Windows so it feels KeySoft-like.
They deliver this through add-ons and add-ins, which you can enable and disable as you see fit on an application by application basis. Now, there are some actual applications, but far fewer than on any previous BrailleNote, and if you want to use them, you must have a screen reader running. The onboard KeySoft applications that HumanWare does provide include a Braille editor that they call KeyBrf, a file manager called KeyFiles, a KeySoft Control Center, a graphing calculator and math editor called KeyMaths, and the Victor Reader application for books and media.
Of particular note, there is no full-featured word processor, no KeyWord. To get real word processing done, you, your school, or your employer must provide the Office license. A 30-day trial of Microsoft Office is in the box, and after that, you're on your own. The menu system is optimized for the Microsoft Office suite. If you don't care about familiar KeySoft keystrokes, you can run whatever you like, it just won't have the familiar KeySoft keystroke emulation. You could just as easily use Google Workspace if you wish.
The device comes in two models for now, a 20-cell version and a 32-cell version. Here at the National Federation of the Blind's Center of Excellence in Nonvisual Accessibility, we tested the 32-cell model. Because the BrailleNote evolve is a real Windows computer, if the KeySoft-like commands are not important to you, you can run JAWS, and HumanWare has made that attractive. When you buy a BrailleNote evolve, it ships with six months of JAWS included free of charge. This comes out of a new partnership between HumanWare and Vispero, the parent company of Freedom Scientific which makes JAWS. HumanWare and Vispero announced this partnership only in March of this year at CSUN, and one has to wonder how the product might have been different and possibly better if Vispero had entered into a partnership with HumanWare earlier in the development cycle.
HumanWare will manage the global distribution of JAWS for BrailleNote. After your six months, you can continue your JAWS subscription at a preferential rate through HumanWare. If you own JAWS already, since this is a Windows computer, you can just go ahead and install your own copy of JAWS on BrailleNote evolve and authorize it in the normal way. The JAWS for BrailleNote option, which is cheaper than a full JAWS license, can only be activated on BrailleNote evolve. For now at least, the KeySoft-like experience on BrailleNote evolve runs under the modified NVDA thanks to the add-ons. When you run JAWS instead, you give up the KeySoft-like keys that depend on the add-ons.
If you are using JAWS and you've installed the add-ons, those add-ons will appear in the ribbons of their respective Microsoft Office applications, but since you can't emulate the keyboard shortcuts when JAWS is running, there really is little value in using the add-ons, particularly since JAWS has a virtual ribbons feature built in which seeks to make the Microsoft Office ribbon feel more like the menus of old. So your JAWS experience on BrailleNote evolve is more like using a traditional Windows computer with a Braille display and Braille input. This is almost certainly fixable in software fairly easily, but for now I found that when running JAWS, some of the applications built in, such as main menu and the file manager, are displaying spurious characters, and I've concluded that at least for now, the best thing to do is to stop the main menu from loading at startup and just accept that you're running a standard Windows device with an integrated keyboard and Braille display if you want to use this with JAWS.
So what if you like the KeySoft keystrokes and you're a Braille power user? Well, this puts you in a bit of a quandary because JAWS has stronger Braille support than NVDA. NVDA Braille support has improved a great deal and for many tasks it's just fine, but the Braille support in JAWS remains more powerful. A striking example of this is Split Braille. Freedom Scientific introduced Split Braille in 2024, and it lets you view content from different locations on the same Braille line by splitting your display into two regions. For example, you could have a Word document on one side of the display and reference material on the other side, both visible at once on the same line of Braille. On a 32-cell Braille display, that gives you two regions of roughly 16 cells each, which is tight, but it's usable.
At the heart of the BrailleNote evolve is the Intel Core Ultra 5 125U. That's a first-generation Core Ultra chip from Intel's Meteor Lake U series launched at the end of 2023. It has 12 cores in total, and they're made up of two performance cores, eight efficiency cores, and two low-power efficiency cores, with 14 threads and a base power of 15 watts. That processor is paired with 32 gigabytes of LPDDR5X memory rated at up to 7,467 megatransfers per second, and if you're in the market for a laptop right now and you're a blind person, potentially AI on board is a significant thing to consider when you're buying, so let's do a deep dive into this.
Before I do, let me introduce you to a term you might not be familiar with if you haven't been shopping for a PC lately, and this is TOPS. It stands for tera operations per second. It measures how many trillion operations per second a processor can perform. Microsoft has a specific bar for what counts as a Copilot+ PC. They say that you need an NPU capable of at least 40 TOPS, enabling AI tasks like real-time translation, image generation, and intelligent search to run locally. All or some of those tasks could be highly relevant to blind people, and just so I'm clear, we're talking about 40 trillion operations per second measured on the NPU alone, not the whole chip combined.
Microsoft's qualifying processor families are the Qualcomm Snapdragon X series, the AMD Ryzen AI 300 series, and Intel's Core Ultra 200V series, which is the Lunar Lake family. The NPU in the 125U, the one that's in the BrailleNote evolve, is rated at around just 11 TOPS. Intel's own specification page lists the chip's overall peak at 21 tops, and that figure combines the CPU, the GPU, and the NPU together, so measure it either way and the 125U falls well short of Microsoft's 40 TOPS required on the NPU alone. Only Intel's Lunar Lake chips, the Core Ultra 200V series, clear that bar, so the evolve cannot qualify as a Copilot+ PC.
Let's put what that means into some perspective because it doesn't mean that there can't be some AI taking place locally. The NPU may still accelerate some local AI workloads, and it's also true to say that these things are moving. Just last week as this review is published, Microsoft announced that some other computers that don't qualify as Copilot+ PCs will be able to run the local language model APIs, which is very positive, but even then when you look at the specs that Microsoft have set, BrailleNote evolve doesn't qualify for that either. I want to translate this into what it means daily for blind people, which is, of course, why the National Federation of the Blind's Center of Excellence in Nonvisual Accessibility exists.
Most people understand the latency or delay that we might experience when we send a query to an AI service over the internet, and that can be a little annoying, but there is much more to it than that. Although blind people are benefiting from the ability to both interpret and create visual elements, at the National Federation of the Blind, we're hearing mounting and understandable concern about the privacy price we're paying for access.
There are responsible players out there, and it's also true that if you're using artificial intelligence in an enterprise context, your privacy is likely to be safeguarded better, but there is no shortage of stories about certain companies playing fast and loose with our data, so it's absolutely legitimate to be concerned about what these companies are learning about us and what they're doing with that data as we let them into our homes, our workplaces, and take them on our travels. It's not a concern to everyone, but it's a real issue for some. Locking blind people into something that will require us to go to the cloud for functions we could do locally on a more capable device deprives us of that important choice.
There are a couple of Copilot+ features worth highlighting. As we've mentioned on previous editions of Access On, the National Federation of the Blind has been advocating to Microsoft about the need for Narrator to implement the Braille HID standard and to offer more conventional Braille commands. That's now rolling out, although at the time of recording this review, I haven't had an opportunity to test it on BrailleNote evolve, but in theory, you should soon have Narrator as another choice of screen reader that will work on BrailleNote evolve, and Narrator has an image description feature. It works differently depending on whether you have a Copilot+ PC. Without one, you press the key to describe an image, Narrator opens a Copilot window, and you must submit the image to the cloud. With a Copilot+ PC, you opt into the image description by downloading the model. Then descriptions happen locally and quickly right on your device. That's a feature that many blind people may well want to use.
Another useful Copilot+ PC feature is the somewhat controversial recall feature. Simply by typing a natural language command, you can get back to work that you were doing previously, and potentially it has many accessibility and efficiency benefits. 32 gigabytes of RAM is a genuinely excellent decision, and it's good to see that it is fast memory as well, so that should have a very positive impact on performance. Battery life on BrailleNote evolve is a serious concern. It contains three lithium polymer cells of 5,000 milliamp hours, each at a nominal voltage of 11.1 volts. HumanWare's own rating points to 5.5 hours of battery life based on a duty cycle of 70% active use and 30% idle. Five and a half hours won't get a kid through a school day. It won't get a professional through a workday. You'll be tethered to a wall charger or an external battery pack to get you through the day.
It is interesting to note that the insideSUPRA, which is another blindness device running Windows 11 Pro with a Braille keyboard, is boasting 10 hours of battery life, but it's also worth saying that is with a much slower processor. It's also worth noting that since we have a pre-release BrailleNote evolve unit that has not yet been optimized for battery performance, we have not been able to verify that HumanWare is getting its 5.5 hours that they advertise, and our evaluation of the insideSUPRA is continuing, so we haven't evaluated their claim either. We will have a separate insideSUPRA review at some point here on Access On.
The BrailleNote evolve's battery life as a significant step back from past products. The BrailleNote going all the way back to the Classic gave us around 18 hours of battery life with speech. If you turned off the speech, you got close to 30 hours. Now, of course, the devices are completely different. They just share the BrailleNote name, but in the end, that's what the consumer cares about. If the company is going to use the brand BrailleNote, then the brand BrailleNote comes with certain expectations.
Even though this BrailleNote can do a large amount more than the one a user had 20 years ago, they will also care about the fact that the battery life easily reached 18 hours 20 years ago and their new one won't even get to a third of that now, and you can understand how, in that regard at least, this does not feel like progress. Today's devices running ARM processors are capable of getting close to those specs, and even if HumanWare considered it prudent to stick with Intel or AMD for driver compatibility reasons, and that does make a lot of sense in some ways, five hours is a significant sacrifice and buyers should weigh it carefully.
Speech is a primary way blind people interact with these devices, so it is reasonable to expect a blindness company to pay significant attention to sound quality. On a demonstration like this, it's difficult to demonstrate the speakers, but I can only describe them as tinny. It is probably okay for speech, and this may depend on the characteristics of the text-to-speech engine you choose to use, but you're unlikely to want to listen to music on these speakers even though the speaker placement is excellent and you do get very good stereo separation.
This is a real Windows computer with a real Intel processor in a small Braille notetaker chassis and an onboard cooling system. You can hear it. The fan runs a lot and the device runs warm. It's not silent the way a Braille notetaker is traditionally, and the warmth is noticeable during longer sessions.
The device contains a 512 gigabyte hard drive. It's solid state. That's more than adequate if you're using the device for documents, but if you're creating and playing a lot of media content, it might be argued that for such an expensive device, one terabyte would've been more appropriate. The BrailleNote evolve is a delight to carry around. It measures 243 millimeters or 9.57 inches wide, 175 millimeters or 6.89 inches deep, and 20 millimeters or 0.79 inches thick, or 25 millimeters, one inch, once you include the feet. It weighs 990 grams or 2.18 pounds on its own and 1.4 kilograms, three pounds, in its carrying case, so it's compact and ultra portable.
In the box along with the BrailleNote evolve itself, you get a carrying case, a nylon strap with a shoulder pad, a modifier sticker, a getting started guide, and a command summary, each in both print and Braille, and the power adapter with a local power cable. Hard copy Braille documentation in the box is the right call. It's all very well having the documentation on board, but first you've got to learn how to access that documentation, so well done to HumanWare for doing the right thing and giving us hard copy Braille.
A feature of BrailleNote devices is that you can use them when they're over your shoulder or even around your neck in their carrying case, and you can do this with BrailleNote evolve. Having been using one for a couple of months now as we've put this review together, the novelty of being able to use a Braille device like that running full Windows still hasn't worn off. It's terrific. In terms of ports and connectivity, you get two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 support. Both handle charging and both handle video output. There's a USB-A 3.2 port. Its output is limited to 900 milliamps, so it'll happily run a thumb drive, but it's not designed to fast charge your devices. You also get HDMI 1.4, a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack that supports microphones as well, and a Kensington lock slot.
Wireless includes two Bluetooth 5 radios and Wi-Fi 6 operating on the 2.4, five, and six gigahertz bands. I have no issues at all to report with the Wi-Fi. When I've been traveling with BrailleNote evolve, I've successfully paired a Sonos Roam via Bluetooth and also Phonak hearing aids, which are working very well. They pop up as standard Bluetooth audio devices, so the radios appear to be very sound. Somewhat intriguingly, there is a programmable 13.7 megahertz NFC tag, which HumanWare says is reserved for future use. There's a vibration motor for haptic feedback, which is a welcome feature for deaf-blind users. It works well. It is very strong. In addition to the stereo speakers, there are stereo microphones as well, and we will, of course, do a little recording on BrailleNote evolve as we go through this review.
BrailleNote products have historically done well in the education market, so non-blind teachers or technology professionals will be interested to know that a status LED on the left edge shows solid green when the device is on, solid red when the device is off, plugged in, and fully charged, and blinking red when the device is off and charging. The LED turns off when the device is off or asleep and not plugged in. And speaking of support, if you'll be supporting a BrailleNote evolve user or you will be a BrailleNote evolve user who might need remote support, HumanWare has made the excellent call to include Remote Incident Manager from Pneuma Solutions on all BrailleNote evolves. The system ships in English, French, German, Dutch, and Spanish.
Now let's turn to the keyboard. It's always a challenge performing Windows functions on a Braille keyboard, and HumanWare has given this careful consideration. There are dedicated Control, Alt, Shift, Windows, FN, Escape, and Delete keys. You also have a dedicated cursor pad, so you've got up, down, left, and right in the typical cross-shaped fashion, and those keys work well and they're very helpful.
Thankfully, HumanWare has retained thumb keys on the front of the device, which is a popular feature for Braille readers, and means that you can read your Braille display without having to take your hands off it. You get reassuring tactile feedback when you use the thumb keys, but they aren't too clicky, which is very welcome by people like me who do audio production or a lot of oral presentation where clicky thumb keys can be a distraction. On the right-hand side, you have an up and down volume control, which makes adjusting volume very simple, and there's a button below that on the right-hand side with a dot on it, and that is the action button assigned by default to dictation.
Let me talk a bit more about the FN key. Because there's no number row and no function key row on a Braille keyboard, the FN key is how you get numbers and the function keys F1 through F12, but that description leaves out one critical key, and that's because that one critical key is not to be found on the device. If there's one thing Windows users do a lot, it's tab around the operating system and the apps that run on it. There is no dedicated tab key on the BrailleNote evolve's keyboard, and this is one example of where you don't know what you've got until it's gone. You tab between controls and dialogue boxes, you tab through form fields on the web, you tab through ribbon elements, through buttons, through entire interfaces. Tab and Shift + Tab are how you move around windows when you're not using the arrow keys.
There are two ways to perform the tab function on BrailleNote evolve. There's the standard Braille method where Dot 4-5 Chord will produce Tab and Dot 1-2 Chord will produce Shift with Tab. You can also use the thumb keys, but disappointingly given how critical the tab key is to the Windows interface, you have to press two of them down at a time to execute either Tab or Shift + Tab. You can, of course, add another key to this regularly. Alt + Tab is a common keystroke to switch applications. BrailleNote evolve does include an alternative means of doing this where running applications appear in a list, and now I found that second nature having been using the device for a while, but the command that feels intuitive to get that list of running apps, which is Space with Dots 2-3-5, is only available when you're running the modified NVDA. There is a list of running apps feature built into JAWS, and you can access that by pressing the JAWS key with F10.
But there really is an act to this because I've found that if you don't hold down the modifier keys for a short time before you press the letter J, it's not recognizing the FN key. So you're getting the JAWS window instead of the running list of apps. Also, just because of where the keys are positioned, it does feel quite unwieldy to have to hold the JAWS key down, the modifier key down and Braille the letter J. But I guess if you're using this day in, day out, you'll get used to anything over time. And it is fair to say that without these modifier keys, it is pretty complicated, convoluted to enter these keys just on a standard Braille keyboard without modifiers. So I do think that this approach is better than just having a standard keyboard without modifiers.
I think there may be enough real estate to have put a tab key on the device, but if that's not the case, in the absence of a dedicated tab key, it would've made a lot of sense in the Windows environment to map two of the thumb keys to that function. And that brings me to another unfortunate user interface decision for BrailleNote evolve. The options menu, which is a feature commonly found on HumanWare products, does not include the usual ability to reassign thumb keys, which is the very first thing I and some others do whenever we get a new HumanWare device. As a fast Braille reader, my personal preference is to have the far left thumb key pan me right and the far right thumb key pan me left. To be clear, there's no right or wrong way to set these options. It's whatever works for every Braille reader. And for my Braille reading style, that setup works for me.
The critical thing is how easily can we make those changes? Well, to do this on BrailleNote evolve, whenever you're running the HumanWare version of NVDA, you have to go into the NVDA settings and change the input gestures from there. There are a lot of gestures you can change in that dialogue so it is far more complex than the simplicity of redefining each thumb key that we used to have. When you get BrailleNote evolve out of the box and switch it on for the first time, you're going to have to set it up and create your Windows account and do all the things that you would normally do on a Windows device. This was quite challenging. I will say though that I did it during the beta cycle, so it may be a bit less challenging now. I'm not able to reset this device to test this at the moment.
The fact that I was able to do it independently though with full Braille access throughout the entire process is a great bit of software engineering on HumanWare's part. It is encouraging to know that deaf-blind users who can't use speech will be able to do this process independently, even if it may be a little convoluted. That truly is putting Braille first on the device. So the whole setup experience may feel a bit daunting, but I'm not sure there's much HumanWare can actually do about that. There is one way that I think can make it a bit easier on yourself. If you've just taken a BrailleNote evolve out of the box, you're likely to be still familiarizing yourself with the keyboard layout, working out what grade of Braille works where. And for that reason, you might consider plugging in a USB keyboard when you do the setup.
When I started using BrailleNote evolve, I purchased a great little mechanical keyboard. It's a joy to type on. It has no number pads, since I always put my screen readers and laptop mode anyway. And I find that if I'm working at a desk with BrailleNote evolve, I use this keyboard a lot. It just seems simpler than the Braille commands. I type faster than I Braille and more accurately. And even when it comes to the KeySoft add-ins, there are QWERTY keyboard shortcuts. So it's good that HumanWare has thought about this use case.
We're almost at the point you'll be pleased to hear where we can get this BrailleNote evolve talking and you can hear it in action. It takes about 38 seconds after I press the power button until I hear the Windows sound. That may be different for shipping units because we have an early test unit. During that process, you will read starting on the Braille display in uncontracted Braille and the little spinner that is familiar if you have a Brailliant or the NLS eReader or some other HumanWare product. You're then at the Windows start screen once you're set up and you'll be able to enter your pin. So I'm going to type my pin and press enter and then I want to show you how long it will take us to get to the experience with NVDA running. I'm running one of the Acapela voices and I'll just go ahead and enter the pin.
Automated:
Welcome.
Jonathan Mosen:
So we now see welcome on the Braille display and we're logging into Windows. I just want to give you a feel for how long this takes.
Automated:
Loading NVDA. Please wait.
Jonathan Mosen:
NVDA was at the start screen. Now it's loading now that I'm logging in.
Automated:
Desktop list.
Jonathan Mosen:
The next part of this process can take a while. There are a lot of Windows applications that often do their magic in the background that we never see that are loading at startup. And what we eventually should get is the KeySoft main menu application launching. As we'll discuss later, you don't have to have this main menu application launching, but it gives you that main menu type experience with first letter navigation and arrowing through it that KeySoft users have become used to. So we're going to show you this and we're just letting it load. I do want to stress also that with this demonstration, because many people will be using this as a portable device, I am running it on battery and I'm running it with the default settings. And I think it's reasonable to expect that it'll be more performant when it's plugged in.
Automated:
Please wait while the application opens. Main menu window. List, Braille editor, key BRF, one of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
And now we are finally at the main menu, so that can take quite some time when you're booting from a cold start to get to the main menu. It won't take nearly that long if you tap the Power button to put it into a sleep state once you've got to the Windows desktop or you're working in your application and then you hold the Power button down for about a second to wake it up again, but nor is it the instant on that we've become used to in these sorts of products.
So we're in the main menu now and you can navigate in the ways that you would expect. You could use dot 4 chord and dot 1 chord if you wish, but there are also dedicated arrow keys and you can up and down arrow. This menu does wrap, but you can get to a known place by performing dots 1-2-3 chord to get to the top of the menu and dots 4-5-6 chord to get to the bottom of it and that's a standard Braille convention. On the Braille display now, I am reading Braille editor key BRF and if I down arrow ...
Automated:
Excel, two of 10. File Manager, KeyFiles, three of 10. Math editor, KeyMath, four of 10. Microsoft Edge, five of 10. Outlook Classic, six of 10. PowerPoint, seven of 10. Victor Reader, eight of 10. Word, nine of 10. All apps, 10 of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
We'll have a look at some of these things in a moment, but then if I press down arrow again ...
Automated:
Braille editor. Key BRF, one of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
We have wrapped to the top. You can use first letter navigation. If I want to get to PowerPoint, I can press the letter P.
Automated:
PowerPoint, seven of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
If you don't want to use this menu system, you don't have to. You can disable it at startup and at any time you can press the Windows key and you'll be back in the conventional Windows start menu. Just as with many HumanWare products, you press M chord to get to the context menu. We're on PowerPoint right now and if I press that here ...
Automated:
Context menu upping PowerPoint from main menu. Enter +M/CTRL+M, one of seven. Settings collapse, two of seven. Navigation collapse, three of seven. Open running apps menu Space+dots 2-3-5/CTRL+F12, four of seven.
Jonathan Mosen:
That's the feature I mentioned earlier, where, if you want to go through a list of running apps rather than alt tabbing through them, you can press dot 2-3-5 chord and get into that list. That is another fairly standard convention with HumanWare devices.
Automated:
Cast to device, Windows +K, five of seven. Search Space+F/CTRL+F, six of seven. Copilot, Windows+C, seven of seven.
Jonathan Mosen:
And of course you do have Copilot because this is a Windows PC.
Automated:
Upping PowerPoint from main menu, Enter+M/CTRL+M, one of seven.
Jonathan Mosen:
Now we have wrapped back to the top and we have unpinned here. This is important because you can pin any application that you want to this menu and you can also unpin those that you might not. So if you never use PowerPoint, for instance, you can unpin PowerPoint at this point and it's not taking up space on the menu and it just makes it a little less cluttered. To pin something, you would go to the all apps section. We saw that in the main menu. Find the app that you want to pin and it should appear there once you've installed the app and then you can pin that to the main menu by going into the context menu. If the application isn't pinned at the moment, then the pen option will be available. I did promise that we would take a look at what the audio recording was like with the built-in microphone on BrailleNote evolve. So this is also an opportunity to demonstrate how we pin an app. I'm going to press the letter A from the main menu.
Automated:
All apps, 10 of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I'll press Enter.
Automated:
All apps. Main menu window. List. Access, one of 59.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I'm going to press the letter S.
Automated:
Snipping tool, 42 of 59.
Jonathan Mosen:
I'll down arrow now.
Automated:
Solitaire and casual games, 43 of 59. Sound Recorder, 44 of 59.
Jonathan Mosen:
Let's say I want to pin the Sound Recorder to the main menu. If I want to, I can go into the context menu, if I don't remember the shortcut, but I do remember the shortcut. It's Enter with M.
Automated:
Sound Recorder pinned.
Jonathan Mosen:
Now when I go back by pressing the ESC key ...
Automated:
List. Braille editor, key BRF, one of 11.
Jonathan Mosen:
The number of apps has gone up by one and I can press S.
Automated:
Sound Recorder, eight of 11.
Jonathan Mosen:
And press Enter.
Automated:
Sound Recorder. Sound Recorder window.
Jonathan Mosen:
I'm going to pause the recording of this review so that I can make a recording and sound record it on the BrailleNote evolve. What I'll then do is save that recording, bring it directly into the project here, so you can hear exactly what the recording sounds like.
Automated:
Recording started.
Jonathan Mosen:
This is Jonathan. And you would have hit-
Automated:
Stop recording button.
Jonathan Mosen:
All right. I'm going to leave that in because you should be able to hear a little bit of the speakers there. The speaker is clearly right by the microphone.
Automated:
Sound Recorder.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I am recording in Sound Recorder just using the built-in microphone. I'm recording in FLAC format. The new Sound Recorder in Windows is actually quite capable. You will notice that there's a little bit of acoustical bounce in my office, which the microphone that I use tends to mask. So that's expected. And this is what it sounds like to record using the microphones of BrailleNote evolve. So this will give you some indication as to whether you think it will be acceptable for recording a lecture or something like that. You can, of course, because this is an Intel Windows machine, connect all sorts of audio peripherals, everything ranging from a USB microphone all the way to a full audio interface, which is one of the powerful things about using full Windows.
I'm going to stop this recording now. A nice job with those built-in microphones. And if you were to be sitting in a lecture in the right place and you applied a bit of dynamic audio compression, which of course you're able to do because you can run any audio thing you like on this, then I think you would be able to get a good recording in that situation. Just to get us back to the default state, I have now unpinned the Sound Recorder from the main menu so we have the main menu that HumanWare ships with the product for the remainder of the review. I'm going to open Microsoft Word so I'll press W.
Automated:
Word, nine of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
Now before I press Enter to run this, I haven't run Microsoft Word since I booted the BrailleNote evolve, so we're going to find out how long it takes to load Microsoft Word from a cold start. Let's press Enter.
Automated:
Document one Word. Document print layout. Page one, section one blank.
Jonathan Mosen:
So to take a wee while, and of course that's a stark contrast from opening a KeyWord file and just getting straight into your document without any delay. I should also say that I have the start view disabled. That is what is recommended in the user guide, that all the instructions that they give in the user guide are based on you disabling that feature from settings. So if you're not an expert user, that might be a bit of a stretch because you've got to go hunting in the options to disable the option that the user guide wants you to disable. It does provide some information about that. I'm going to check my battery status at this point and to do that I can press Enter with P, which is a familiar command.
Automated:
99%, four hours and one minute remaining unplugged.
Jonathan Mosen:
On the right-hand side of this device, below the volume controls, is a button with a dot on it and this is the action button. By default, it is set to dictation. So I'm in a nice, quiet environment. I'm going to see how well this works if I just tap the button and start to talk complete with punctuation. Hello. This is Jonathan dictating into the BrailleNote evolve on Microsoft Word.
Automated:
Hello. This is Jonathan dictating into the BrailleNote evolve on Microsoft Word.
Jonathan Mosen:
If I pause for long enough, NVDA will repeat to me what I just dictated, but I can also read it on the Braille display as it starts to appear there.
Automated:
If I pause for long enough, NVDA will repeat to me what I just dictated, but I can also read it on the Braille display as it starts to appear in their dot.
Jonathan Mosen:
I'm going to press the action button to stop dictation now.
Automated:
I tick am going to press the action button to stop dictation now.
Jonathan Mosen:
Now I can go to the top of the file by pressing dot 1-2-3 chord.
Automated:
Hello. This is Jonathan.
Jonathan Mosen:
I can dot 7-8 to silent speech, which is a standard KeySoft type behavior, and I'm just reading what I had dictated there. As I quickly scroll through this, I find that there are no errors. There may be some capitalization issues, but of course you can correct those with the cursor routing key. With the KeySoft emulation, one would expect to be able to press dot 1-6 cord to do a spell check. That's the C-H symbol, so we'll try that.
Automated:
Edit her window. Pain. Spelling. Not in dictionary grouping. Misspelled. NVDA, if I pause for long enough, NVDA will repeat to me what I just dictated, but I can also read it on the Braille display as it starts to appear there. One of two.
Jonathan Mosen:
Now we're in Microsoft's editor, which provides both spelling and grammar checking so we can tab around this.
Automated:
Consider grouping. Nada, N-D-A, similar to nothing. Nil. Next split button, one of three.
Jonathan Mosen:
And now we can down arrow through the suggestions.
Automated:
Neda, N-E-D-A, similar to no reference information split button two. Nida, N-I-D-A, similar to no reference information, split button, three of three.
Jonathan Mosen:
So we'd need to make a manual correction. I can continue to tab with dot 4-5 chord.
Automated:
Other actions grouping. Ignore once button, one of three.
Jonathan Mosen:
And we can down arrow.
Automated:
Ignore all button, two of three. Add to dictionary button, three of three.
Jonathan Mosen:
And tab again.
Automated:
Options button.
Jonathan Mosen:
And there's an options button here.
Automated:
Back button. Spelling, not in dictionary grouping.
Jonathan Mosen:
So we have a lot of power here in Microsoft Word, but we've also lost quite a bit of the simplicity that made KeySoft so attractive and efficient. There have been some accessibility improvements on the Microsoft side of late to this editor, so it's actually a lot better than it was. But I think you could still say that if you're a younger person just getting into Braille, this dialogue is not as intuitive as the KeySoft KeySpell used to be. I'm going to press Escape to get out of here now.
Automated:
Document, print, layout, select NVDA.
Jonathan Mosen:
Let's say that I want to select all text. I know that if I want to do that, I can press the Enter key with the four sign symbol and that will select all the text. But if you're new to this, this is where the add-ons that emulate KeySoft keystrokes come in. So when you first run any of the Office applications, you are invited to install the add-on. You can choose not to, if you wish, and you can come back and install them at any time if you change your mind or for that matter, uninstall them, and I'll cover that in a moment.
One caution I would give is that I have found suboptimal results by accepting the installation of the Microsoft Outlook add-on. At least at the time that I have been testing, this actually had a detrimental effect on Microsoft Outlook Classic on all my other devices, including changing the sent items view to the extent that I couldn't tell who my messages were sent to anymore and I had to redo the view of the sent items folder, so you might just want to be aware of that.
It's also important to note that even if you elect to install these add-ons, that doesn't change the keystrokes that you might already know as a Windows user. So it's not like you have to choose one or the other. You can have these KeySoft commands as a fallback while also using your screen reader commands. All that said, let's press the Backspace key with A, since the add-on is installed.
Automated:
File functions collapsed, one of four.
Jonathan Mosen:
Now we have a menu system that many people may find a lot more intuitive than Microsoft's Office Ribbon. I'll down arrow through these options.
Automated:
Editing functions collapse two of four. Formatting functions collapse three of four. Styles collapse four of four.
Jonathan Mosen:
So in this case, I want to select text. Let's go down again.
Automated:
File function. Editing functions collapse two of four.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I can press the right arrow key.
Automated:
Spell check Space+dots 1-6/F7, one of 17. Find Space+F/CTRL+F, two of 17.
Jonathan Mosen:
So there is a CTRL key here. You could press CTRL F if you wish it's a bit complex to do that because of where the keys are. It just feels a little strange. Space with F feels much easier and as long as you're running these KeySoft add-ons, you can do that.
Automated:
Find previous Space+P/CTRL+Page Up, three of 17.
Jonathan Mosen:
And you'll hear there that the QWERTY equivalents are also being given in case you want to use a QWERTY keyboard with this.
Automated:
Find next Space+N/CTRL+Page Down, four of 17.
Jonathan Mosen:
I'm just going to go through this whole menu to show you how comprehensive these lists are.
Automated:
Replace Backspace+F/CTRL+H, five of 17. Insert page break CTRL+Enter, six of 17. Insert hyperlink Space+K/CTRL+K, seven of 17. Insert table, eight of 17. Insert/edit equation Enter+M/L+=, nine of 17. Select all Enter+dots 1-2-3-4-5-6/CTRL+, 10 of 17.
Jonathan Mosen:
That was actually what I was looking for was select all.
Automated:
Copy Backspace+Y/CTRL+C, 11 of 17. Cut Backspace+X/CTRL+X, 12 of 17. Paste Backspace+V/CTRL+V, 13 of 17. Undo Backspace+Z/CTRL+Z, 14 of 17. Redo Enter+Z/CTRL+Y, 15 of 17. Dictate, 16 of 17. Jump to search bar Alt+Q, 17 of 17.
Jonathan Mosen:
Now all of the menus are pretty comprehensive like that. There are a lot of features in them. If I want to go to select all, can I use first letter navigation in this menu? So can I press S for select all? I cannot. It just dings at me, which does seem very curious that that's not possible. It's important to understand the constraints of what's being done here. All this is doing is providing, via a menu system, access to existing Microsoft Word functions. To give you an example of this, I'm going to go down ...
Automated:
Insert table, eight of 17.
Jonathan Mosen:
Inserting a table is something that's pretty nice to be able to do on a BrailleNote, so if I press Enter ...
Automated:
Document one Word. Document, print layout, select NVDA.
Jonathan Mosen:
So this doesn't give you some sort of user-friendly interface to the actual functions. It's just now returned me to the Word document and has inserted the table.
Automated:
NVDA table with two rows in one column. Row two NVDA, column one. NVDA unselected. Table with three rows and one column. Row three, NVDA column one.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I can up and down arrow and navigate the table, but it doesn't give you any kind of friendly access to this table. So it is just providing menu choices to existing Word functions. And I think it's really important that we understand the limitations of the system. It makes the whole experience more user-friendly to get at what you want, but once you get there, you're still using your screen reader's functions. Now there is at least one notable exception to that general rule, certainly in Microsoft Word, and it's a very good exception and that's the ability to select a long block of text very easily without having to hold any keys down.
To do this, you get to the beginning of your selection. That could be through the arrow keys or the keys on the Braille keyboard or using a cursor routing key. When you get to the beginning of the selection, you press Enter with S for start and then you just navigate away. You don't have to hold any shift keys down or anything like that. Navigate to where you want to end your selection and press Enter with E. The Braille display will show you what is selected and then once that selection is active, any deletions you perform will act on the selection. I am going to select all by pressing Enter with the four sign.
Automated:
Select all. Hello. This-
Jonathan Mosen:
And I'm going to press delete, which is Backspace with 2-3-5-6.
Automated:
Out of table blank.
Jonathan Mosen:
And now ...
Automated:
Blank.
Jonathan Mosen:
We have an empty Microsoft Word document again. So if you are used to KeySoft commands, you will be able to zip around Microsoft Word from the Braille keyboard and this applies similarly in all the Office applications. There's a similar structure in each one where you can press Backspace with A and get that convenient menu. Now I want to introduce you to HumanWare's Braille IME. Now IME stands for Input Method Editor. This is a great bit of engineering on HumanWare's part and really establishes this device as a Braille-first device.
So a bit of background. An IME is a software component that lets people enter text in ways the standard system keyboard doesn't directly support. The concept originated, actually, with languages like Chinese, Japanese and Korean, where thousands of characters need to be composed from a smaller set of keystrokes. The IME sits behind the input hardware and the application, translating what you type into the characters that actually appear.
HumanWare has plugged contracted and uncontracted Braille entry into the standard Windows text input pipeline. This was an important thing to do to try and get that Braille-first feel because BrailleNote evolve is so dependent on third party apps now, rather than the traditional KeySoft suite. So this technology lets Braille input and back translation work system-wide in mainstream Windows applications. And since this is just a standard keyboard in Windows, you can switch between Braille input and the standard modified behavior anytime.
This innovative piece of technology has allowed HumanWare to work on contracted Braille entry consistency that goes beyond what NVDA and JAWS offer out of the box. And this is interesting to me because at one time JAWS used to do what the HumanWare IME is doing now, but at some point the behavior changed and, in my view, regressed in JAWS. I'll make sure that I'm set in my Word document. I have to tuck my thumb in to get to the NVDA key and then hold that down and press the letter T.
Automated:
Document one Word.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I'm in Microsoft Word still. So I am going to type. This is Jonathan from the National Federation of the Blind. This is quite a comfortable keyboard to type on and I don't think it is unduly clicky. I'm just going to read the current line and I can do that in the way that I would expect to do it by pressing dot 1-4 chord.
Automated:
This is Jonathan from the National Federation of the Blind.
Jonathan Mosen:
Now we're not using the Braille IME right now, so I'm going to go to the top of the file.
Automated:
This is Jonathan from the National Federation of the Blind.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I'm going to move character by character, just by using the right arrow key.
Automated:
H-I-S, Space, I-S, space, J-O-N-A-T-H-
Jonathan Mosen:
So what you hear is everything's expanded, everything's uncontracted. Even though it's coming up in contracted Braille for me on my Braille display, I'm not navigating this Microsoft Word document as if it were written in Braille. Now I'm going to press the Windows key with the Space bar.
Automated:
Language switcher list list. English, United States. Braille line, English, United States, two of two. Document one Word. Document print layout, page one, section one. This is from the National Federation of the Blind.
Jonathan Mosen:
There is behavior here that I can't explain, and it's possible this is a bug, but if I go to the top of the file now ...
Automated:
This is Jonathan from the National Federation of the Blind.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I perform a read current line with dot 1-4 chord.
Automated:
Is Jonathan from the National Federation of the Blind.
Jonathan Mosen:
So the Word "this" is highlighted in Braille and now it's not speaking, but all that aside, I'm now going to right arrow through the document, just as I did before.
Automated:
Dots 1-4-5-6 Space. S, Space dot 6, J-O-N, dot 1-4-5-6. N-
Jonathan Mosen:
So it's not giving you the actual contraction. It's not saying T-H sign, which I believe JAWS used to do when it had this capability, but it is giving you the Braille symbol, dot 1-4-5-6 sign. So as you right arrow through the document, you are able to right arrow through it as if it were a Braille document. And that is important, particularly for people who are learning Braille who want to make sure that, as they review a document, they are actually reviewing what they Brailled. So this is a good piece of technology here. Let's see how long it takes us to get to the main menu. If we press the main menu key, the little round button on the front, and again, this is a standard HumanWare convention. I am pressing it now.
Automated:
Start toggle button Alt pressed. Main menu window. List, Braille editor, key BRF, one of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
So there's a bit of extraneous speech, but ultimately we do get to the main menu and we're at the top of it. I can press dot 4-5 chord now, which is tab.
Automated:
Power button.
Jonathan Mosen:
If we activate this, we will get into the standard shutdown, restart, suspend Windows options.
Automated:
Search, edit, blank.
Jonathan Mosen:
There's a search field here.
Automated:
List. Braille editor. Key BRF, one of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
If you are using NVDA, you can press O chord from anywhere in BrailleNote evolve to get to the options menu, which is a standard HumanWare style convention. If you are running JAWS, you don't have this option because you're just running an unmodified version of JAWS, so any configuration that you want to do in the JAWS environment is done in the normal way with all of the JAWS managers.
Automated:
Options menu window. List. Configure language profile, one of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
Let's just see what's here.
Automated:
Manage language profiles, two of 10. Select language profile Enter+L/CTRL+Alt+L, three of 10. Braille settings, four of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
If we press Enter to activate Braille settings ...
Automated:
Braille settings dialogue. Show messages, combo box used, timeout collapsed. Message timeout seconds. Edit selected four.
Jonathan Mosen:
I'm tabbing through.
Automated:
Show, cursor check box checked. Show selection combo box default, enabled, collapsed. Okay button.
Jonathan Mosen:
There's the okay button. I'll press Enter on that.
Automated:
Main menu window. List. Braille editor. Key BRF, one of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
Unfortunately, you're not taken back to the options menu where you came from. You have to invoke it again with O chord.
Automated:
Options menu window. List. Configure language profile, one of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
Nor does the options menu remember where you were when you were last in it, so we've got to keep going down.
Automated:
Manage, select language. Braille settings, four of 10. Keyboard settings, five of 10. User preferences, six of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
Let's go in here and see what's available.
Automated:
KeySoft control center window. Tab control. User preferences, tab selected, two of five. List. Launch main menu on startup, checked, one of five.
Jonathan Mosen:
This is the KeySoft control Center. It's an important application. So you can get to it from the options menu. You could also get to it by going into the all applications options and go through alphabetically through the applications, press letter K because first letter navigation works and you will find the KeySoft control center here eventually. So now we're on user preferences and this is where you can elect not to launch the main menu if you don't want to. If your primary reason for having a BrailleNote evolve is just to use it as a Windows computer, perhaps you're going to put JAWS on this and not use the KeySoft add-ons, you may not want the main menu option launching. You can disable that and you can get a bit of a speed increase, actually, if you disable the launch at startup.
Automated:
Disable modifier keys, not checked, two of five. Enable automatic crash reporting, not checked, three of five. Enable automatic updates, checked, four of five. Braille to keyboard conversion table, US, five of five. Launch main menu on-
Jonathan Mosen:
And now we're back at the top of this. If I press the tab key now ...
Automated:
Close button. Tab control. User preferences. Tab selector two of five.
Jonathan Mosen:
There are five tabs in this control center and it's really important to become familiar with this. I'm going to press left arrow to see what the first tab is.
Automated:
Dialogue checking for updates. Dialogue, no updates available. Okay, button.
Jonathan Mosen:
It already took me to checking for updates, just by virtue of me going into the tab.
Automated:
KeySoft control center window. Tab control. Updates tab selected, one of five.
Jonathan Mosen:
One imagines that there will be quite a few updates coming down the pipe, particularly because, as we will continue to identify, there are some quite serious deficits in the product at the moment, but also it's a new product. So the more units that get in the field, the more defects will come to light and the easier it will be to reproduce some of those things and address them. I'll press right arrow.
Automated:
User preferences tab selected-
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [01:02:04]
Jonathan Mosen:
... address them. I'll press right arrow.
Automated:
User preferences, tab selected, two of five.
Jonathan Mosen:
That's where we came from.
Automated:
Managed voices, tab selected, three of five.
Jonathan Mosen:
Let's have a look at this user interface. You can use any voice you like, of course, because this is a Windows machine. But if you stick with the NVDA experience that HumanWare has modified, you do get a special version of the acapella voices, which HumanWare products are known for, and you can install any of those voices. So let's see how that's done. I'll press tab to move to the main list.
Automated:
List. Please select a voice to replace or add up to three additional acapella voices, one of five. Laura, English, United States, two of five. Ryan, English, United States, three of five. Taylor, English, United States, four of five. Add another voice, five of five.
Jonathan Mosen:
So let's say I wanted to add another voice, I can press enter.
Automated:
Add a voice dialogue. List. Arabic, one of 24.
Jonathan Mosen:
When the brown node evolve tells you that it's in a list like this, that means first letter navigation is possible. So I'm going to press E to find English, which is the language I try to speak.
Automated:
English, six of 24.
Jonathan Mosen:
I mean, I don't always do it successfully, but I do my best. So now we're in English and I'll press enter.
Automated:
List. Darius, United States, one of 21.
Darius:
Technology has become a powerful tool for people who are blind or have low vision, helping to make everyday life more accessible. Audio devices bring books, news, and information to life while GPS tools provide safer and more confident travel. Braille displays and note takers open opportunities for learning, working, and staying connected in a digital world. These innovations are not just gadgets. They are essential tools that support independence, inclusion, and equal access for all.
Jonathan Mosen:
I really appreciate the length of that sample. So a couple of things happened there. Just by arrowing to the voice, I didn't have to do anything else, it started speaking that sample after a short pause. And the sample was lengthy enough that you get a feel for the pausing length between sentence, the inflection with a long passage. It's an excellent way to preview those voices. So I can down-narrow.
Automated:
Deepak, India, two of 21.
Deepak :
Technology has become a powerful tool for people who are blind or have low vision, helping to make everyday life more accessible. Audio devices bring books-
Jonathan Mosen:
I'll just press backspace with.
Deepak :
... news, and information to life while GPS tools provide safer and more confident travel.
Jonathan Mosen:
Okay. I can't actually stop this, so that's unfortunate.
Deepak :
Braille displays and note takers open opportunities for learning, working, and staying connected with...
Jonathan Mosen:
Let me try going to the context menu.
Automated:
Context menu download, one of two.
Deepak :
These innovations are not just gadgets. They are essential tools that support independence, inclusion, and equal access for all.
Jonathan Mosen:
That hopefully can be addressed that we can just silence that speech. But I am on the context menu for this voice and there are two options. The first one is download because this voice isn't installed at the moment.
Automated:
Play sample two of two.
Jonathan Mosen:
And then we can play the sample again. So if I press enter, it will install this voice and let's just go down and find another one. In fact, actually the one that we just heard is a potential candidate. So we'll go up.
Automated:
List. Darius. Contact when you download one of two.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I'm going to very quickly go to the context menu. Yeah. So if I very quickly...
Darius:
Technology has become a powerful tool for people who are blind or have low vision.
Jonathan Mosen:
Play sample two of two.
Darius:
Helping to make everyday life more accessible.
Jonathan Mosen:
I wonder if I press enter, will that stop it?
Darius:
Audio technology has become a powerful tool for people who are blind or have low vision-
Automated:
Darius, United States, one of two Contacts menu download one two.
Darius:
... helping to make everyday life more accessible.
Jonathan Mosen:
I'm going to press enter on download.
Automated:
Download. Downloading Darius. 0%, 10%-
Jonathan Mosen:
That is the standard NVDA progress indicator?
Automated:
30%. 40%. 50%. 60%. 70%. 80%. 90%. Installing Darius. Tap control.
Jonathan Mosen:
Now the browse display has gone blank. I'm not seeing any kind of progress or status information at this-
Darius:
NVDA. Please wait.
Jonathan Mosen:
So NVDA is restarting.
Darius:
To soft control center window. Tab control. Manage voices tab selected 305.
Jonathan Mosen:
So you may have just wanted that voice's one to fall back on or to use in certain contexts, but without really giving any kind of indication that this is what it would do, the voice has actually become the primary voice at this point. It restarted NVDA and started using that voice. You can set your default voice in the language profile, but what you can also do and what we'll do for now is I'm going to press enter with .4 to cycle through some options here.
Darius:
Rate 26. Pitch 50. Volume 67. Voice Darius 22KHQ.
Jonathan Mosen:
Now I can press enter with .6 and we can cycle through the available voices.
Automated:
Voice Laura, 22KHQ.
Jonathan Mosen:
That's fine. I can press enter with .4 now.
Automated:
Rate 26.
Jonathan Mosen:
So we can adjust the rate at this point.
Automated:
Pitch 50. Volume 67.
Jonathan Mosen:
So that's a nice way to quickly move through your text to speech settings. I'll press tab .45 court.
Automated:
List. Laura, English. Close button. Tab control. Manage voices, tab selected three of five.
Jonathan Mosen:
And right arrow.
Automated:
Officer and manager tab selected, four of five.
Jonathan Mosen:
If I press tap now we can see the office add-ons that are currently installed.
Automated:
List box checked one of four. look at and check two of four.
Jonathan Mosen:
That is saying HW in case there's any doubt. HW Outlook add-on and actually it is checked. I want that unchecked.
Automated:
HW, look at and not checked.
Jonathan Mosen:
And now we down arrow.
Automated:
HW PowerPoint ad in check three of four. HW Word ad in checked four of four.
Jonathan Mosen:
And those are the ones that I'm happy to have checked. As I indicated before, I have had some suboptimal experiences with the Outlook add-on enabled.
Automated:
Close button. Tab control. Officer and manager tab selected four of five.
Jonathan Mosen:
And there is one more in the KeySoft Control Center.
Automated:
About Tab selected five of five.
Jonathan Mosen:
This tells you about your device, the model you have, its serial number and some other information. So that's the KeySoft Control Center. I want to exit this application now and a standard KeySoft convention for exiting applications has always been ECORD and you can do that here. It's mapped to Old F4, so if I press equal now.
Automated:
Main menu window. List-
Jonathan Mosen:
I'm back at the main menu. I'm going to go back into the options menu.
Automated:
Options menu window. Manage Select Brail settings, keyboard settings, user preferences, quick settings backspace, plus Q/windows plus a seven of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
This is also a standard HumanWare convention that we have seen on other devices. So if I press enter ...
Automated:
Quick settings grouping. WiFi toggle button pressed NFB visitor one of 11.
Jonathan Mosen:
And just to keep you on your toes, this is a grid. So if you down arrow at this point, you will skip some things so you need to use left and right arrow.
Automated:
Bluetooth. Toggle button press not connect to two of 11. Airplane mode toggle button, not press three of 11. Accessibility button, four of 11. Energy save or toggle button not pressed, five of 11. Live captions toggle button not press, six of 11. Night light toggle button not press, seven of 11. Mobile hot spot toggle button not press, eight of 11. Nearby sharing toggle button not press, nine of 11. Cast button wire display, 10 of 11.
Jonathan Mosen:
That's quick settings. Now just to speed this up, I'm back in the options menu. I will down arrow now past quick settings and we have ...
Automated:
Key soft control center eight of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
So that's another way to get to control center without going to the specific tab that we did before.
Automated:
Displayed rail viewer backspace plus enter +V/NVDA plus W not check, nine of 10. NVDA settings, 10 of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
And that option will take you into the full NVDA settings. Now we come to an app that's missing something so essential that in its current form, it cannot do the job properly that it exists to do. BrailleNote Evolve includes a Braille editor called Key BRF for opening and working with Braille files. And in version 1.0, this editor has no find function. If anything needs a find function, it's a BRF editor and BRF viewer because plain Braille text files are just that. They're just text. They contain no navigation data inside them. So the only way that you can navigate somewhere in a file is to search on a text string. For example, the word chapter to get to the next chapter. If you've downloaded a book from Bookshare in Braille and you want to search for the term begin content to get past the disclaimer that we've all read so we don't need to read it again, you can't do that.
So if you download a BRF file from BARD, for example, all you can do is pan through the file, you can't search for what you need. And unfortunately, Victor Reader is not a solution to this problem. If you load a Braille file in Victor Reader, you can't find within a Braille file there either. This is a serious omission. I'm told that Find is planned for version 1.1 and when you're shipping a new product to somebody who has been involved in product management, I completely understand that there comes a point where you just have to say, "This is what we're shipping and we'll come back and fill in the blanks later." But it does seem an extraordinary decision to ship a 1.0 official release without the ability to search through Braille files on a Braille device. That segues us nicely into Victor Reader. The Victor Reader application handles books and reading material drawing on HumanWare's long and excellent heritage with the Victor reader line.
It plays daisy content, it connects to Bookshare and supports other online libraries. There are some notable emissions at launch, NFB-NEWSLINE is not available, Vision Australia is not available and there is also no BARD support. So if you want to download a Braille file from BARD, you will have to import that manually. But this highlights one of the benefits of running the Windows operating system because you could install the BARD Express app right away and get access to all of your BARD books that way. You can navigate by the structure of the book, move by headings and pages and read with your thumb keys.
If you're familiar with other Victor Reader implementation in software like this, it's very similar. So I won't go into too much depth demonstrating this given how long we have been going already, but I would like to demonstrate how long the Victor Reader takes to launch if you haven't launched it in a session. Let me confirm that I am in the main menu. I can press NVDA with T.
Automated:
Main menu.
Jonathan Mosen:
I am indeed. So I can use first letter navigation in this menu and press V.
Automated:
Victor Reader, eight of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I'm going to press enter now.
Automated:
Please wait while the application opens. Victor Reader window list. My books, one of eight.
Jonathan Mosen:
That does seem an extraordinary amount of time for these applications to launch and particularly for something like Victor Reader, which you wouldn't think would be massively difficult to launch. However, the Victor Reader experience is very polished and I think as an example of what could be achieved, if HumanWare reverted to the traditional values of KeySoft and provided onboard a suite of applications that were actually designed for blind people with the ability to use others for those who wish to do that. We're on my books and if we down arrow, and I will demonstrate actually how responsive this device is.
Automated:
Mybooks
Jonathan Mosen:
It's quite responsive actually. And clearly one thing HumanWare has taken care with is the audio driver on this device. It is a real problem to try and find Windows devices these days that aren't cutting off the audio, causing glitchy audio. I have not had with the built-in audio in the BrailleNote any kind of glitch like that at all. I have found no need to turn on any special screen reader feature that keeps the sound channel live. I've not had to install Silencio, so HumanWare's given some thought, I think, to the audio driver and ensuring that it performs well for this use case. So I can press the letter M in this list.
Automated:
My books, one of eight.
Jonathan Mosen:
And press enter.
Automated:
List. I Am Not A Robot, one of three.
Jonathan Mosen:
If you are interested in AI, this is a really good book called I Am Not a Robot by the famous tech journalist, Joanna Stern, who spent all of 2025 living as much as she could with AI and she writes in a very entertaining way. Now this is a Braille file. I decided to download it in Braille and see what would happen. So if I press enter on this ...
Automated:
Edit.
Jonathan Mosen:
Not particularly helpful, but it does say edit. And if I perform a window title now ...
Automated:
I Am Not A Robot, Victor Reader.
Jonathan Mosen:
Now, if I bring up the context menu ...
Automated:
Context menu, closed book, Escape, one of one.
Jonathan Mosen:
That's all we have because this is a Braille file. You have a lot more options if you are not reading a Braille file. To illustrate that, I'm going to back out.
Automated:
Edit. List. I Am Not A Robot, one of three.
Jonathan Mosen:
Down arrow.
Automated:
Fit Mind. Two of three.
Jonathan Mosen:
This is a great book called Fit Mind and I go to press enter on that.
Automated:
Dialogue, please wait. Fit Mind, Victor Reader window. Edit read only notice.
Jonathan Mosen:
This takes a bit longer to load. This one has come from Bookshare and now when I bring up the context menu because this is not a Braille file.
Automated:
Context menu file functions collapsed one of two. Navigation functions collapse, two of two.
Jonathan Mosen:
And there are all kinds of functions that you can access here. I don't know if this is typical, but I have also observed some issues retaining my place in a book. For example, the FitMind book is one that I have been reading on BrailleNote Evolve. Now that I'm back in this book, I see that I'm placed at the top of the file at the Bookshare notice and not where I last left off. So I'm in this book and I'm going to press the round button on the front of the unit to go to the main menu. Let's just observe how long this takes. I'm going to press it now.
Automated:
Task, main menu window. List, Braille editor, key BRF1 of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
So I think we got at least about three seconds there between when I pressed the button and when we got back to the main menu and this all just contributes to an overall feeling of unresponsiveness about this device. As we've established, there is no blindness specific word processor, but BrailleNote Evolve does include an alternative file manager to File Explorer. Many people will welcome this because people sometimes tab around File Explorer and get a bit lost. So there are plenty of alternative file managers out there, not just for the blind community, but also for non-blind people who find it convoluted as well. So the documentation clearly explains how key files works. Incidentally, where is the documentation? Unfortunately, it's not on the options menu, it's not in the main menu. The user guide is quite buried on the device and I think that's unfortunate as well, particularly given that the old days of context-sensitive help, which made KeySoft so famous are gone.
KeyFiles gives you a structured KeySoft style way to browse your files and folders, open documents, and move things to an external drive. You can plug a thumb drive into that USB-A port and you can transfer files. It's functional and it's reasonably familiar. As is well established now, BrailleNote Evolve is a standard Windows device so you can't connect it to another Windows device and have it present itself as a drive in File Explorer. But since it is a Windows computer, you can use cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive, or you could use technology like TailScale, which we covered in episode 76 of Access On. KeyMap is onboard as well, so it's good to see some of these standalone applications making an appearance and we demonstrated that when we took a look at the Monarch earlier in the year, if you have an interest in that.
The first version of the BrailleNote Evolve software doesn't include a terminal mode. On older BrailleNotes and on HumanWare's own Brailliant displays, you can connect the device to your phone or computer over Bluetooth or USB and use it as a Braille terminal. When you have this function, the Braille display shows what's on your iPhone or your Android phone or your PC and you can type on the Braille keyboard to control that other device. But for now, if you want Braille access to another device, you'll have to carry a second Braille device because the BrailleNote Evolve cannot serve as your phone's display or the display for another PC and that defeats a core purpose of carrying an all in-one device. You bought the flagship and you still need a second display in your bag. Given how important mobile devices are in our lives today and the price of BrailleNote Evolve, the absence of terminal mode is just another way that this product feels rushed, that it's shipped before it's truly ready.
We will get terminal mode eventually and when we do, it must not just include support for Android and iOS. It must also include support for other Windows computers. If you're at work and you've been assigned a work computer that you have to use for work-related tasks, you'll want a Braille display to connect to that computer. It is not unreasonable to expect that a Braille device costing in excess of 6,000 dollars should be able to perform that function in the workplace.
As we conclude this review, a few final thoughts. As we've mentioned, the 32-cell version of BrailleNote Evolve is priced at around 6,100 US dollars, roughly 5,495 pounds, and that's in line with what previous BrailleNote cost. But as you've seen, it carries much less blind specific functionality on board than previous BrailleNote did. In on important sense, you don't get a complete productivity suite out of the box.
For the first time you get something calling itself a Braille note taker, the name BrailleNote implies this pretty clearly that lacks the ability to do any word processing of note out of the box. So let's explore what good might look like. It's hard to know how HumanWare can recover from battery life that can't get someone through a work or school day without a significant reworking of the hardware, but they are likely to be able to address some of the software shortcomings of the initial release over time. For this device to be worthy of the name BrailleNote, the software approach needs to be completely rethought. If we want to look at who understands what's required, we can look to HumanWare's old competitors, the Blazies. The BT Braille has done in another context what many of us thought HumanWare was going to do in a Windows context.
The BT Braille has two modes, Blazie mode and desktop mode. When you enter Blazie mode, you get all the functions and benefits that exemplify why even some power users still purchase a device in this category, efficiency, ease of use, blindness specificity of both input and output. And I can point to several power users right off the top of my head who talk to us to say, "I know Windows like the back of my hand, but I use these Notetaker products because they help me get the work done most efficiently." But here's the thing, with the press of a single key combination on the BT Brail, you can switch to desktop mode. The BT Brail doesn't run Windows, it runs Linux, but desktop mode gives you the full power of the operating system with a full screen reader. Users deserve a genuinely KeySoft-like experience with KeySoft as a self-voicing application or suite of applications that not only talks to the text to speech engine without the need for a screen reader, but also interfaces to the Braille display in the same way.
You will have noticed how many times I've had to make a point of saying that this is the experience if you use NVDA that HumanWare has modified, but this doesn't happen if you choose to use JAWS. Going with standalone self-voicing, self-brailing applications would resolve that problem. There shouldn't be a class of user experience based on the screen reader that someone chooses to use, either because it meets their needs better or just because they're familiar with it and it's what they choose to use. If this were to be done, HumanWare would have to give careful thought to which experiences could be improved sufficiently to warrant a dedicated app and which apps would require a user to use a standard app with a screen reader. For example, it may require fairly minimal software resources to develop a self-voicing, self-brailing web browser that uses the Chromium engine, but would it improve the user experience sufficiently to justify the commitment of resources?
Some beginner users find interacting with bookmarks or favorites as well as browser settings to be difficult so there may be some value. For professionals using Microsoft Exchange or Google Workspace, robust email support is essential. So perhaps email should remain one of those tasks where using a mainstream app as expected and there is at least one very promising accessible email app being vibe coded right now by a blind person who has considerable experience of user interfaces for the blind community. But Word processing is fundamental to any of these devices. That's why we call them note takers. It's what we expect a note taker to do and there are benefits to a fully accessible self-voicing, self-brailing word processor. One thing you would immediately get back, of course, is all that context-sensitive help, which is so critical for newer or inexperienced users. Let's not gloss over the importance of context-sensitive help.
The National Federation of the Blind believes in structured discovery, whether that be when you travel or when you're learning technology. It is consistent with the concept of structured discovery to be able to say to a student, somebody learning one of these devices, "All you have to do is press the context-sensitive help key historically H-Cord on a BrailleNote, listen or read carefully and you will be able to learn new things." If we are talking about setting up students for the future, that structured discovery, that context-sensitive help, is an important thing that is now missing from this product. Even with all the add-ons enabled, if you press H Cord in Microsoft Word right now on the BrailleNote Evolve, it's just like pressing F1 and you're taken to Microsoft's standard help. In presentations about BrailleNote Evolve, HumanWare's talked about the journey from a child's first Braille lesson to a professional career on one device.
I love that ambition too, but think hard about who we're asking to drive a screen reader. We're asking very young kids just learning Braille. The classic KeySoft world suited young learners beautifully precisely because there was no screen reader to learn. HumanWare knows this so well that it sells the BrailleNote Touch Plus as my first note-taker and its own store describes the addition as created specifically for young Braille learners aged four to eight and it's bundled with the takeoff Braille curriculum. And sure, there's some inventory to dispose of, but I also hope that that product exists because the simple prompt-driven KeySoft model works for kids. So sure, let's get those kids using Windows apps and a screen reader in good time for them to be equipped for college or a job and let them do it on the device they know. This is something the Federation has supported for a long time, but those kids are not going to be well served by fully blown Microsoft Word running a few friendly menus at such an early stage of their development.
Accessibility and efficiency are not necessarily the same thing and HumanWare understands this in other contexts. The Victor Reader Stream, one of the most successful products in blindness technology history is still immensely popular in our community, even in the smartphone era. And that's because many blind people like the buttons. They want a simple, predictable user interface. What's happened here with BrailleNote Evolve is like taking the buttons away from the Victory to Stream and giving it a touchscreen. It would be a stream in name only without the product qualities that users associate with the name. If the Victor Reader Stream found a way for users who wish to run third party applications, many would celebrate and welcome that. But what they would not welcome is if in the process of doing that, they took the very thing that made the stream the stream away. Now let's come back to the value proposition of what HumanWare is shipping today because if you're buying something, you're not buying something else.
So let's build the same capability from parts. We'll take the Brailliant BI 40X and I pick that because it's a HumanWare product. There are, of course, other Braille displays available that we could look at, but this product costs around 3,795 dollars. It gives you 40 Braille cells, so that is eight more than the Evolves top model. It gives you 20 hours of battery life, roughly four times the Evolve's official 5.5 hour rating. And remarkably, this lower tier display has note-taking built in through KeySoft Light while the flagship BrailleNote Evolve has no comparable, no taking up of its own in the box. Now pair that Brailliant with a mainstream laptop. You can find an ASUS ZenBook 14 with an Intel Core Ultra 725H processor for under 700 dollars on special from Best Buy from time to time. That laptop gives you around 14 hours of battery, far more than the BrailleNote evolve.
And not only do you get much longer battery life, but you get a more powerful processor than BrailleNote Evolve's core Ultra 5 125U, it's a generation newer. So let's go to the cash register. The Brailliant at about 3,795 dollars plus the ZenBook at around 700 dollars comes to roughly 4,495 dollars. That leaves you roughly 1,700 dollars better off. The combination up performs BrailleNote evolve in almost every practical access except two. First, the Brailliant has no modifier keys or arrow keys that makes Windows entry easier when you're using it as a terminal. But if that's important to you, you can save even more money by swapping out the Brailliant for a competitive product. Let's take the QBraille from Selvas. Its standard price is 3,195 dollars so it's 600 dollars cheaper than a Brailliant. For that, you get basic note-taking, a Daisy player and more. And interestingly, you get Braille input while also getting physical controls, more in fact than the BrailleNote Evolve.
On QBraille, you get control, Alt, a Windows key, an applications key, a full row of function keys, F1 through F12, Escape, Tab, Caps Lock, Shift, enter and arrow keys. But with any of these combinations, there's one area where BrailleNote Evolve leads the way and which may be quite an ask to give up and that is portability and integration. Is having all this in one box with a Braille keyboard built into a Windows machine worth paying 1,700 dollars more for or 2,300 dollars if you choose to go with the QBraille and accepting worse battery, fewer cells, no terminal mode, and no onboard word processor. For some people in some situations, the answer will be, "Yes, portability is everything. I can take an external battery pack with me that's not a big deal. It's not that often that I'm away from a power source and I just love the likeness of this thing."
And if you've made that decision in an informed way because that's the most important thing to you, then you'll be happy with your purchase. For most people, I think the math is hard to defend. I think the equation changes quite considerably for more people if HumanWare lives up to its marketing and gives us a fully Windows-based product with KeySoft built in, not just KeySoft input emulated on one screen reader. You can find out more about BrailleNote Evolve by going to HumanWare.com. Stay with us because after the break, HumanWare responds to our BrailleNote Evolve review.
Speaker 2:
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Jonathan Mosen:
Well, I've been talking for a while and it's only fair that we get a human respective on BrailleNote Evolve and to do that we're joined by HumanWare's Braille product manager, Andrew Flatres and also blindness product specialist at HumanWare, Rachel Ramos. Welcome to you both.
Rachel Ramos:
Thank you.
Jonathan Mosen:
Welcome to you.
Andrew Flatres:
Thank you. Thanks for inviting us.
Jonathan Mosen:
Andrew, you're talking on the BrailleNote Evolve right now, right? With a headset connected to it.
Andrew Flatres:
I am, yes. I tend to do a lot of my work actually on the BrailleNote Evolve as opposed to my standard workshop, my workstation. Just don't tell HumanWare that though.
Jonathan Mosen:
How do you feel about it being potentially a complete laptop replacement? Do you think that BrailleNote evolves at a point where somebody could do choose to use this over owning a laptop?
Andrew Flatres:
Well, it's a very good question and that was one of our main objectives here is how can we get Braille at fingertips as early as possible working on a Microsoft computer and also making it as your main station. As I said to you, this has now been part of my main station for some time now with the development progress of the BrailleNote Evolve and I'm able to do all the tasks that I do in my daily job such as work into web browser and go into development of Jira and do all the nursery things that developers do and do all my necessary documents and emails. So I do think that we are at a good stage of the development of the BrailleNote Evolve to be your own computer. Of course, the software will evolve. Part of the product name is BrailleNote Evolve, the software will of course evolve.
And we have to get to a point where the software or whether the product does go out the door to get exclusive and external feedback so that we can continue and further improve the software.
But at this current moment, we do believe it's in a very good, stable position.
Jonathan Mosen:
When HumanWare says that the device is powered by KeySoft, what does that mean to you?
Andrew Flatres:
So we want to promote the familiarity of KeySoft. As you know, Jonathan, working at PulseData, KeySoft has been out for 40 years near enough, right? From the original Keynote Companions and the Keynote Gold days, what KeySoft is about is the accessibility suite, making things more simpler, familiar, putting yourself at a Braille-centric environment rather than be on a QWERTY environment, which is traditionally what a computer does. It puts you into a QWERTY keyboard skin environment, not Braille.
So when we talk about KeySoft, it's more about that user experience of can I do the standard simple shortcuts in a Braille way without using all of the modifier keys that are traditionally used amongst screen readers? We wanted to promote that you can do that, that you can use your screen reader skills with modify keys. But at the same time for the younger learners, for anyone that's new getting into computers, then they can be in a more Braille-centric environment. So for me, KeySoft is about simplicity, familiarization, and workflow, simple workflows in a Braille-centric environment.
Jonathan Mosen:
Is it really actually KeySoft when, say, you go into Microsoft Word and you press the same buttons that you would press as if you were running KeySoft? If you're running NVDA, you've got the input sorted out. It's KeySoft-like because the keystrokes are the same, but is it actually KeySoft when the output is coming from a screen reader and Microsoft Word and you lose some of those key features like context sensitivity and the simplicity of the file open dialogue, the output, all of those things, so input rather than output?
Andrew Flatres:
Well, the input side, I think you are right. I mean, we use a customized NVDA version here and with a KeySoft kind of layer or add-on over the top. Just as we've done with our previous BrailleNote, when we talk about the BrailleNote Touch, that had TalkBack. TalkBack was the underlying screen reader with a KeySoft overlay. And it's a similar aspect here in some way where we're using the NVDA screen reader that we've customized. We've added a KeySoft field and a KeySoft layer over the top of that.
So when we look at Microsoft Word, the shortcuts that we've added relates to what you'd use in your previous BrailleNotes. So for example, for your spell checker, you'd use your ‘C H’ sign with space to open up your spell check, but of course it's utilizing the mainstream applications now.
So we want to get people in an environment where we're trying to promote the need or trying to promote you working on a full Windows system using mainstream apps, but feel like you are in that KeySoft environment still. And at your own time, if you wanted to, you can exit that KeySoft environment and go full native to screen reader skills. So we wanted to offer that flexibility to users and that's something that's been really limited on previous BrailleNotes and note takers today. So we are shifting away from your traditional basic note takers, the basic kind of keywords because you're limited on what you can do. And that's to me and what we get from users is the limitations. We want to remove the limitations. We want to make sure that our users can do more and equal to what sited peers can do using Microsoft Word, for example.
Jonathan Mosen:
Do you have any concerns about what is effectively now a different class of user experience based on whether the BrailleNote Evolve user chooses to use NVDA or JAWS? So if the applications for fundamental things like note-taking and perhaps email and a few others had actually been standard on applications, then JAWS users and NVDA users would have had the same experience. But now essentially you're having to say to people, "Well, if you use NVDA, you're going to have a very different experience from the one you'll have if you use JAWS."
Andrew Flatres:
Yeah, and we had to make those key decisions. So we need to cater for many, many different user personas here, from younger learners and educations to professionals to consumers. There's a lot of different personas that we have to cater. So our first kind of way into the BrailleNote is having that customized NVDA experience that gives us the KeySoft side. And we wanted to focus more on that because that's how BrailleNotes have been established for many years. It's on the KeySoft. It's been established for many, many years.
Now, those that are JAWS users certainly can use JAWS at their own will. They can install JAWS, use their own license, or they could buy their own home pro license, home license from HumanWare, but there'll be some differences that you can't use the KeySoft add-ins through Word. Well, not certainly seamlessly. But that being said, that's something we can certainly continue to work on as the product does evolve. But our main priority is to ensure that users use the custom NVDA version to try and promote the KeySoft experience because it's been out a lot longer than probably JAWS, I'm guessing with the screen readers.
But that familiarity is key. We don't want that big step, a big steep on learning curve for users to jump from a BrailleNote Touch straight into, "Okay, I'm using JAWS. Now what do I do?" We just want to gradually get a user into learning screen reader skills as they go, and whether that be NVDA, whether that be JAWS, or whether that be Dolphin.
Jonathan Mosen:
Rachel, as somebody who's been using Braille for a long time and as somebody who will be providing a lot of advice to people, particularly in the United States as this product rolls out, tell me a bit about your experience of using BrailleNote Evolve so far and how you're feeling about it.
Rachel Ramos:
That's a great question. So the BrailleNote Evolve, as Andrew mentioned, the customizations with NVDA and KeySoft are very convenient. I like the simplicity that it offers, pressing Space NS to save a document, it's very equivalent to pressing F12 to save a document in Windows where you can bypass the new Microsoft Save As dialogue and hop into a familiar, very efficient dialogue and that you can do with NVDA or with JAWS.
I will say that having the BrailleNote Evolve with the JAWS experience, which at this point may lean a little heavier on your Windows commands, your modifier keys, and that's where I find the device very productive. I travel a lot for work and I have used it as a laptop replacement. I may throw a QWERTY keyboard in the bag as well, but using JAWS and having the Windows modifier keys directly on the device, I find very helpful, replying to emails in Outlook, having the Braille support in JAWS, and maybe we can discuss how we've achieved a very similar outcome with NVDA in terms of Braille support input and output as was mentioned earlier. But I find it very, very close to mirroring a full experience that I would have on a laptop because of the modifier keys.
We haven't really discussed those too much in detail, at least from when Andrew and I have joined your interview and review here. But the modifier keys allow you to do commands that you may not be able to do as easily with a Braille display and laptop. So for instance, if you want to select some text, very easy to pull up the Windows command for that, control shift and the arrows. Select your text, copy, cut it, paste it somewhere else all using Windows commands.
So as mentioned, we, and users can of course use the device how they see fit, but we see folks using NVDA to kind of start out with the KeySoft familiarity. And then when they cruise on over to JAWS, they might lean a little more on the Windows side and that's where those modifier keys come into play and I think really allow the device to kind of function at its full potential to be a laptop replacement.
It's the first device that I've been fortunate enough to use that kind of bridges that gap between Windows, between Braille, between a screen reader and allows me to get done everything I need to get done as an advanced Windows user. So from my perspective, it's gone well so far and I'm really excited to see where we're going to evolve and update it in the future.
Jonathan Mosen:
Yes, there's absolutely no doubt that when you're using a Braille-only keyboard with JAWS, unless you're doing it day in, day out, some of the contortions that you have to go through to exercise those Windows commands are quite something. I'm curious though about how you determined which keys to include and which ones to leave out. For example, if you look at the QBraille from Selvas, they have a tab key. They also have the function row, F1 through F12, and I think a few other keys as well. But the tab key for me in a Windows environment is significant because clearly from the get go, this device was built knowing that you'd be running Windows on it. Why no tab key?
Andrew Flatres:
I can certainly answer that, Sir Jonathan. That's a very good question. And I guess why we don't like to add lots of keys. We start adding lots and lots of keys, it starts making the product look a bit more complex. And already having the six modify keys, free either side of the space bar, can be seen as overwhelming for many people. And I want to be clear that those modify keys you do not necessarily need to use to run the BrailleNote Evolve. They can be completely disabled and you can use the BrailleNote Evolve without knowing what those modifier keys can do.
But going to the tab, you're definitely right, it's a very well known needed shortcut when you work in with a computer. And we're utilizing the existing Braille shortcut that's used, so we're using space four and five to go forward, and to mimic a shift tab, we're using space one and two. We then also have another option where you could use your two right thumb keys or your two left thumb keys to mimic the same.
That being said, that doesn't mean that there's room for improvements. That doesn't mean that we can certainly look to assign certain keys to do the tab and shift tab for us. So there's still a lot of things in the works there that we're thinking based on feedback. I know from the beta list that we had a lot of feedback about, can we assign a thumb key to use the tab and do the shift tab? And that's certainly possible. That's the great thing with software, right? So we're certainly open to that idea, but we just felt that we didn't want to introduce more keys for the sake of adding keys.
Jonathan Mosen:
Let's talk about the choice of processor, which also impacts battery life, of course. You may have been able to get close to, I would say, triple the current battery life with an ARM processor. There are some trade-offs associated with going that route. Would you be able to talk me through why you chose the processor that you did and particularly why Intel over ARM, particularly when ARM is really designed exactly for this kind of use case?
Andrew Flatres:
Yeah, when we looked at the ARM processes that were available to us, it really lacked the high performance, the demanding performance, demanding task and applications that we expect for users to make. I have a Surface Pro, for example, and it's fantastic on energy efficiency, but when you're trying to achieve multiple tasks, it really was a letdown.
So we had to try and get a balance as well. The balance was we wanted to get a processor that was relatively powerful, to produce high performance tasks and demanding tasks for our users, but at the same time, we also had to have a trade-off in terms of having the fan or the battery. Initially, we looked at the processes without having the fan, but then not having the fan caused other issues. Other chips that we were looking into, again, wasn't really well performing those higher tasks, those demanding tasks. So it really led to trying to get a balance.
And I think the Intel Core 5 processor that we have picked is a great processor. It is a newer processor than what a lot of people tend to benchmark is the i7 now. We'd expect users to do more than just note-taking on this device and that's the whole idea of this product. It's to replace your main laptop, your main workstation and use this instead of an ARM processor, which is based on mobile platforms. And we want to get away from the mobile platforms. We've seen that in the past with our Android devices, it's mobile platform for a reason. And we want to promote that longevity and that all adds up to the reason why we went down to the Intel route. And of course, that in the 32 gigabyte RAM processor really does help as well.
Jonathan Mosen:
So one of the things, and I'm curious about this in your daily usage, Rachel, if you missed this, but one of the things that's always been the case about BrailleNotes, and their competitors for that matter, is that if you're carrying one around and you might have it over your shoulder, around your neck or whatever, and you quickly want to take a note somewhere, even if you have that in a standby state, you can wake it up really quickly, be at a point where you can type in a document and get that note written down. It's like a fundamental function. And I think that ARM might've made that a bit more possible too because they just tend to wake up a little quicker from a standby state.
Do you miss that? I mean, it does take a little bit longer, right, to get into a document. In this case, it would have to be a Microsoft Word document or some third-party tool and write something down.
Rachel Ramos:
So there is the extra time needed, correct, to enter your pin, hop onto the desktop or the main menu, wherever you want to be. There is the Braille editor, which I can get into fairly quickly, and there is also the ability to pin various apps to the menu. And I bring that up because I have notepad pinned to my main menu if I don't need a full document. And that opens very quickly and I'm able to take a quick text note. So while the instant on isn't as instantly on as in devices of the past, because we are running Windows and things can take a bit longer to come to life and be at a usable state, it's usable enough to where I am able to get into where I need to be rather quickly.
And it could just be that because we are running Windows and there are a few more things that need to happen, I might build that into my day. I might build that into the cost of efficiency and say, "Okay, if I need to take a note," I might need 30 seconds or less to get that going. So it's one of those things that I understand why it needs to happen. Would I prefer an instant on? Definitely. This device as mentioned could evolve and we could see some of those things change in the future as well to really kind of get that note-taking piece back.
Jonathan Mosen:
As we have this discussion, Andrew, one point really comes clear to me, did you consider whether BrailleNote was the right brand for this product? Because essentially it's a very different product from any BrailleNote that we've ever known. And BrailleNote comes with certain expectations, certain, if you will, behavioral norms that this product does not adhere to. Would it have been a better option to start with a brand new brand for this line of device?
Andrew Flatres:
Well, I think the BrailleNote brand certainly is known by many and we wanted to capture that familiarity of the KeySoft part. That all comes down to the brand of the BrailleNote. What we are certainly doing is changing what a BrailleNote is. And change can be seen as scary by some, but some either thrive on that change. And I think it's a good change purely because we're now making a Braille notetaker do more than what is expected.
And I remember a lot of people many years ago, when you talk about a Braille notetaker, it comes across as limited and that's what I don't really, really appreciate. When we look at note takers, it's limited, limited what you can do because it's based on an Android platform or a lower platform of some kind.
So we want to keep the BrailleNote name brand because it is a popular brand. It's still promoting the KeySoft. It's still, you can do your note-taking, but you can do more than a notetaker. And that's why we're changing BrailleNote. We're changing the BrailleNote to do more than just your general basic note-taking.
Jonathan Mosen:
As long as you install third-party apps though, right? There's actually less in the box than there used to be.
Andrew Flatres:
So I disagree with that is less in the box because you can do more. There's certainly, you can do a lot more on the BrailleNote Evolve than what you could do on the BrailleNote Touch. I'm guessing you mean by the application. So when we talk about applications that come out of the box, you've got Victor Reader for your book reader, you have your Braille Editor, you have a KeyFiles file manager. And then of course you've got all your Microsoft Office Suite applications, which of course you do have to have a license for and that's what's based around on our add-ons. So we have our KeySoft add-ons based on the Microsoft Office Suite.
So yes, you do need a license. If you don't have the license, then of course you could use your general notepad, you could install LibreOffice and other applications as such. So yeah, in terms of the applications, if that's what you're referring to, Jonathan, we don't have all the key Word applications, but that's not necessarily KeySoft. KeySoft is that whole user experience that we're talking about. And it's really powerful that a user now can use Microsoft Office that can do all of the bells and whistles, but in a KeySoft way.
Jonathan Mosen:
So can you tell me about the NFC chip, which is on the spec sheet? What's planned for that?
Andrew Flatres:
Yeah, it's a great chip. So the NFC, Near Field Communicator chip. So traditionally, this chip is being used for when you're paying things for your phone, your mobile device or even your Apple Watch and it uses that same technology. So initially, our thinking is that we could utilize this chip by having kind of a tap and view, many for sighted teachers of the visually impaired where they could tap on the top of the device and have a visual display output straight to their mobile device because now we don't have a screen. The BrailleNote Touch had a screen and now we've removed away from the screen. You have the options to plug in a monitor using HDMI or you can cast, you can use the cast it option.
So we wanted to find a different way of sending a visual output to users, but then also having that NFC can do other things. I'm not going to go in too much detail there, but I think we wanted to make more things future-proof. So we really wanted to include things that we could that would allow us to expand and add additional value.
Jonathan Mosen:
Now there's a lot of interest in the QWERTY version of this. Are there any timeframes that we can talk about with respect to when the QWERTY might be available? And is it possible that because presumably the QWERTY version is going to be quite a bit larger to accommodate the QWERTY keyboard, there may also be a larger battery in that device?
Andrew Flatres:
Okay. So yes, definitely the QWERTY model has been exciting times. A lot of people have been looking forward to the QWERTY version. It's a similar size to the Mantis QWERTY 40, I would say maybe a little bit more in the depth. But generally speaking, it's very much the same, same size.
The expected time release, I'm going to say the end of the year. I don't like to get specific dates, Jonathan. You know what it's like being in product management. I'll get into trouble. But I'm really hopeful that we could have a working device at NFB Conference. That's my aim. I really would love to have a working device that NFB members can come to HumanWare and get their hands on the QWERTY model and actually use it. We will, of course, have a prototype at least. At minimum, we'll have a device that gives you the form factor, the whole weight and the size of it, but I'm hoping that we'll get a working device ready.
In terms of the battery life, still to be determined. I cannot commit if it's going to be more or less. You would expect more because obviously it's a little bit more depth, but I cannot commit on the time at this moment because we've not done any testings at this stage and I'd hate to say it's going to give us more when it's going to give us less or vice versa. So at this moment in time, we're really concentrating on getting the BrailleNote Evolve Braille keyboard out. It's actually shipping this week. In fact, we will then transition over to the QWERTY model and we'll do more testing and more work on the QWERTY.
Jonathan Mosen:
What's your timetable like for software updates to the BrailleNote Evolve? As we mentioned in the review, we have an early unit. It is not a production unit and so there will be some changes, particularly with respect to the Windows image, which is great so people can reset if they need to and make those sorts of changes. But then of course the big question is there are some gaps there, particularly with terminal mode and some other things. How aggressively might we expect to see software updates pushed for this device?
Andrew Flatres:
So yes, you are right. There are some applications that are missing that we would have liked to have got on the first version. But as you know, we do have to make those tough calls. And terminal one was something that we had to kind of let go for the first version. It's definitely going to be on the 1.1 version and we expect that to happen approximately, I would say, and again, you're going to hold me to this, but I would like to say it's going to be around sort of that September mark where we'll get another version out.
It all comes down to as well on what is happening in the market. So if there are some big issues that we need to attend to, we would certainly address those early. So we can push out potential hot fixes, push out other things. We do have a buffer for that, but the 1.1 version that includes the terminal mode, I would suggest we're looking at around about that September date, I'd like to say.
Jonathan Mosen:
And will that terminal mode support only smartphones or would it also support JAWS and NVDA and Windows screen readers?
Andrew Flatres:
Initially, the Braille terminal will support connectivity to your iPhone and Android devices. Connecting to another Windows device is something a bit more trickier, right? I mean, that's what we're asking for at this point. It's like connecting your laptop to another laptop. We need to think differently, we need to rethink how that is possible.
So for the 1.1 version, you'll connect to your iPhones and Android devices, not to another host device such as another computer. For that, you may have to look at maybe the Remote Instant Manager or something like that to remote into that computer. But short term, just your iPhone and Android device. Long term, I'd like to include that, but there's a lot more work that needs to be looked at to get that done.
Jonathan Mosen:
Is there anything that we haven't covered that you would like to tell people about BrailleNote Evolve? And this applies to either of you. Is there anything else that we should get in here?
Andrew Flatres:
I think the first part of it is the actual hardware itself. So when we talk about the hardware, why we designed the product. And a lot of our products has been focused around the user feedback that we've received from previous notetaker users. So from Apex users to BrailleNote Touch users, that all added to the reason why we've created BrailleNote Evolve. So the form factor was a critical requirement. We didn't want it to make it too big and bulky and that's what the BrailleNote Touch introduced, it was quite bulky, it was big.
But then going on the Windows also then introduced those challenges to make a device, like a portable device, to make it as slim, as make it as a great form factor as possible, that did have some challenges. And I have to say, I'm really impressed with how the team has created the BrailleNote Evolve and the form factors is incredible smaller size.
And I think a lot of people do still come to our booths and say, "Oh, is this a tablet?" And in fact, we have to kind of educate that, "No, this is a full computer." That's the first kind of feedback that you tend to get. So a lot of all of our introductions of the Microsoft Office, all of that is based on a lot of our user feedback from previous notetaker users.
But of course, the software will continue to evolve as like our previous products have done in the past. We will continue to add value and continue to listen to feedback from many, many users, new users and current users to introduce and add additional value to the BrailleNote Evolve.
Jonathan Mosen:
Any final thoughts from you, Rachel, as somebody who's been using this a lot?
Rachel Ramos:
Yeah, definitely. As folks are perhaps listening to this review and in this discussion, I would encourage you to also, if possible, come see the unit. We will be at the NFB Convention, we'll be at ACB, we'll be all over the place with it.
Using the device, it's very travel sized, very convenient. The form factor is great. I can show it to folks who may not even know Braille and they pick it up and they say, "Wow, this is very convenient." So I enjoy using it.
The work that the team has done with the Braille IME keyboard has really brought the device into kind of a sphere of its own. We know that NVDA and JAWS, in the past at least, have had differing levels of Braille support and the maturity of that support, and the Braille IME has allowed me to really put a lot more kind of trust and confidence in NVDA as I'm writing emails and doing Word documents, whereas before, I leaned on JAWS pretty heavily for that type of document creation.
So being a user of the device, I think it strikes a good balance between getting things done in a Braille-first way. Having the modifier keys for when I need those Windows commands, they're right there without adding too many extra buttons. If I can kind of call it the layered commands of the function and performing the F1, F2, et cetera, keys, function A through L is also a very neat command that is there when you need it and gets out of your way when you don't. So I think the efficiency is there, the productivity is there.
And the technical specifications, the battery life, those things will be improved. Well, obviously not the processor, but the battery life and other things will be improved on units that you will see in the field and that you may obtain for yourself if you're a listener and curious about the device.
So overall, great device. I really enjoy it. Come see us at convention if you will be there and we'd love to show it to you as well. And from a Braille user perspective, from one blind person to another, we're really looking forward to showing you how the device works and what it can do for you.
Jonathan Mosen:
Good on you. And I certainly agree with that. I think people should go and take a look at this and get their hands on it and use it and you'll be at the booth and we're looking forward to seeing you there.
What's the coolest thing you've done with this, Rachel? Because I know that sometimes you do audio production, you do things like that. So I mean, I must submit I put Reaper on BrailleNote Evolve and I don't know how it would go if I put a lot of effects on and some of the crazy things, but just for multi-track basic audio production, it held up well. I did use a QWERTY keyboard with it in that instance because it's just easy to use all those Reaper commands that way. Are there any final things that you can tell us about that you've done with the BrailleNote Evolve that really made it clear this was the benefit of the Windows approach?
Rachel Ramos:
The things that I've done, and that's something, Jonathan, that I want to get to as well, is installing Reaper. We, of course, at HumanWare run the See Things Differently podcast and I definitely want to throw Reaper on there, do some recording and really show folks how it kind of performs in that sense.
But what I've done that's maybe not in terms of such a cool factor, but it is, is installing third-party applications. You've done Reaper. I've done AI, ChatGPT and other things like that, even the Bard app, just the ability to do that and then get answers to my questions in a Braille-first way. So again, kind of expected and yet very difficult to do on previous devices. You just couldn't. So I would say the coolest thing for me is been able to install third party apps, read in Braille. There's absolutely no excuse. Your Braille display is right there. You don't have to connect it and I find that very, very good.
So I'll be giving some speeches later on this month at some pretty large events and I plan to have the Evolve with me to keep up with emails and speeches. So install third-party apps that you know to be accessible and you won't be disappointed.
Jonathan Mosen:
Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We really do appreciate it and we hope that people will check out the device themselves at National Convention in just a few weeks' time in Austin and it's great to speak with you both.
Rachel Ramos:
Thanks for having us on. This is great.
Andrew Flatres:
Thanks, Jonathan.
Jonathan Mosen:
That concludes this episode of Access On, the technology podcast of the National Federation of the Blind. To send in a contribution for a future episode, email us, attach an audio clip or just write it down and send it to [email protected]. That's [email protected].
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To learn more about the National Federation of the Blind, visit our website, nfb.org. Or phone us, 410-659-9314. That's 410-659-9314. And be sure to check out the Nation's Blind Podcast right from where you heard this podcast.
PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [02:03:19]