Comparison of Accessible GPS Systems

Recently, I had the great good fortune to catch the recording of an incredibly enlightening seminar. The seminar focused on a comparison of the numerous accessible GPS systems available for the use of the blind. It is not often that I realize my knowledge concerning a subject is woefully inadequate, but listening to this recording and gaining an idea of the substantive differences between the available systems and the complex history of GPS, it was definitely one of them.

GPS systems designed specifically for the blind began to come to prominence in 1994; as you can imagine, there have been vast improvements since then. The first GPS system was a program which could be purchased for use on the Braille Note, which is rather like an accessible Lap Top with a Braille keyboard. It’s triangulation ability (the ability which allowed it to calculate your position in relation to the remaining distance from your destination) was not very good, meaning you could be told you were fifty feet away when you were seventy-five, and its commercial points of interest database (in essence, restaurants, bars, and such things as beauty salons present in each community) was much smaller. Now, with the rise of commercial GPS systems, there are twelve satellites floating above the Earth which help with triangulation. If your GPS receiver is picking up 10 to 11 of these satellites, your signal is excellent, although the minimum required for any sort of triangulation is 3, and I wouldn’t imagine the positioning would be very good.

Until the seminar, I never realized the myriad of components that form the GPS. For instance, does it have a telephone key pad, a QWERTY keyboard, or a Braille keyboard?  Picking the keyboard which you can most efficiently utilize will help immensely to maximize your use of the device. For those of us who are proficient Braille users, obtaining a GPS with a Braille keyboard, usually one which comes installed on another device like the GPS system that comes with the Braille note, helps us immensely. To find Starbucks with a Braille keyboard takes twelve keystrokes, versus the over thirty required to find the same information with the key pad of a cell phone, which is another popular device on which to install accessible GPS systems.  

Another incredibly relevant point concerns commercial points of interest.  The maps the GPS systems utilize are licensed from digital mapping companies such as Tele Atlas or Google. However, it will be cheaper for the company to license the use of two million points of interest per city than it will be to license fifteen million. Points of interest, for anyone who like I was, is unaware of their exact nature, are all sorts of venues of interest throughout a city; they can be anything from movie theaters to concert halls to recreational facilities such as parks. If you are someone who knows you will be exploring cities where you visit or live frequently, purchasing a GPS which licenses as many points of interest as possible is crucial.  

Another thing the presenter addressed was the use of Braille displays in conjunction with the GPS. If you obtain an accessible note taker like the Braille Note along with its accompanying program, you may also obtain a Braille display, which may assist the user in a number of ways. Firstly, it allows location confirmation. If you are moving briskly through a noisy environment, you simply may not catch the spoken directions or distance to your destination, but with a Braille display, you simply look down and see what it says. It is also helpful for multitasking. If you are driving in a car, for instance, you can be animatedly chatting to the driver or other passengers while skimming for businesses of interest along the way, whereas if you are using headphones and speech, it may very well be that you lose the thread of conversation, or have a delayed reaction in responding because you are attempting to filter auditory information from your GPS.

Finally, however, the most important reason for a Braille display is location literacy. Until recently when the presenter pointed it out, I did not realize that Krispy Kream Doughnuts was spelled with two Ks. With a Braille display, especially if you were reading your destination or directions to said destination, you would learn crucial information, such as how to spell street names, town names, and the names of businesses. This, some argue, is not important and because of the price of the GPS with the Braille display added is not a crucial function, which can be dropped in the name of affordability.  I can understand this argument if you are funding the device yourself; with a Braille display, a device like the Braille Note which costs around $2,000 without one skyrockets to nearly $4,000 with one! However, if it is at all possible to either get external funding or afford one yourself, the literacy location alone would be an excellent justification; it will not be the end of the world if you spell Krispy Kream with two Cs, but knowing its proper spelling makes you look intelligent and professional.

Another valuable feature which is included on some GPS systems and not others is a virtual explore mode. This means that through the GPS, one can pull up a map of the city and explore that city from the comfort of your own home. You can explore block by block, or you can look in categories of interest, like movie theaters or places of worship. With a feature like this so many possibilities open up. For instance, if you are planning a business trip, you can look at hotels located in your destination of choice. You can see if these hotels are located near a freeway which can make walking difficult; you can see if said hotels are located near the center of town which will make your chances of public transit more likely, and what points of interest surround them. This allows you to pick the most blind-friendly hotel possible. If you are new to a city, you can explore and find out where your favorite chain restaurant is, find a beauty salon to cut your hair or a mall to buy new clothes. This is such an amazingly valuable feature I am shocked every GPS system doesn’t have it.  

After hearing about the various systems, if it is at all possible to obtain the funding, I would like to get a Braille Note with Braille display along with its accompanying GPS since I do not currently have a note taker. The Braille Note is a reliable note taker, and its GPS seems the most versatile and functional of the lot. It has the explore mode, a large amount of points of interest per city, a look around mode which tells you about approaching points of interest, and since it has been around the longest, its system has been finely honed by lots of user feedback.  

However, this option is certainly not right for everyone or within everyone’s price range (including mine if I can’t get funding), so here’s an overview of the other options. Geo Mobile, which works on all Windows phones, would definitely be my second choice. It is cheaper than the Braille note, simply because the cell phone itself is immensely cheaper. This means you may pay $200 for the phone and another $100 to $200 for the GPS. Unfortunately, you may also have to pay a couple hundred dollars for a screen reader for said phone, but that is still $600 versus $3,000 to $4,000 for a device with a Braille display or $2,000 for one without. Geo Mobile has the explore mode, lots of points of interest, and an excellent look around mode.  Unfortunately, all its output would be auditory, and since it would have a keypad, its efficiency level would be lower until you overcome the learning curve.

Here are some other devices, all of which I would prefer to avoid, but which may be right for other people. The Trekker Breeze, manufactured by the same company that manufactures the Braille Note, is simply a basic GPS unit, which allows you to record routes you have walked many times, simply to give yourself additional feedback about turns and landmarks. Unfortunately, that is all it does; no points of interest, no routes for other destination, simply the automatic recording with a press of a button of the route you are walking. The other device I would prefer to avoid is Wayfinder, which works on Symbian phones, like Nokia.  This device does not really have a workable virtual explore mode, and its form of giving directions is odd; it will say something like: destination 30 feet at 327 degrees north. For me, or anyone who is mathematically challenged, that is way too many numbers. Other systems might say something like: Krispy Kream 30 feet, north; far easier to understand, in my opinion.

As I contemplate buying a GPS, I am incredibly excited about their future.  The presenter would love to see so many things added to these devices, everything from databases of user generated ratings about restaurants, which would tell you whether said restaurant had a Braille menu and other pertinent details (I knew the man was a man after my own heart when he said the thing he would like to see most is a loudness rating for restaurants, so that even if it had a Braille menu, you could avoid it if the noise level would be too much) to information about transit stops. In Portland Oregon, which is one of the few cities where this is true, all transit stops are on the GPS map, so you can easily find your nearest bus stop. Not only that, but it will tell you if said bus stop has a bench or only a pole, is at the front or back of the sidewalk, and what busses come to said stop, which makes it very easy to plan routes using virtual explore mode.  

Another feature the presenter and I would both like to see added when more cities begin having this data available on the GPS maps is the location of elevators for wheelchair users in places like train stations. And more cities adding this info may not be far off; Google has just started a beta testing program where info like this will be collected in a database for users to locate; already, over 40 companies have plugged their info into this database. It is somewhat of a transition to get this info from Google’s database onto the GPS, but the database makes the eventual addition of the info more likely, which will open so many doors. The information already available through GPS can be obtained in other ways, especially with good mobility skills and the knowledge of what questions to ask your local officials or acquaintances in your area, but GPS makes orientation so much easier.