Thanks to 3D Printing, the Visually Impaired Can Have a Braille Mobile Phone

With free-market capitalism and its tried-and-true methods of mass production, mainstream consumers are inundated with more product choices than many have time to make, while smaller, specialized segments of the population find that even obvious products to meet their needs simply aren’t available.

Because 3D printing offers cost savings specifically on prototypes and smaller production runs, the ballyhooed new production method could rescue atypical consumer segments from the cold shoulder of the market.

Consider the visually impaired. In 2011, what appeared to be the first braille watch emerged, capturing design and innovation awards, and subsequently failed to secure funding through Kickstarter.

Smartphones are today's watches. Yet, while the devices have reached every group of consumers, from rich to poor, all around the world, they also lack a version that caters to the visually impaired.  Any of us who has stood in the sun trying to make a phone work knows that it’s not easy to make use of a tiny touchscreen when you can’t see it.

British company OwnFone is launching what it claims is the first-ever braille phone, and it’s thanks to 3D printing. For £60 (about $100), a user can enter the names and numbers of the people he or she calls most on the OwnFone website and design his or her own custom-made mobile phone with their contacts’ names and numbers printed in braille on buttons on the front of the phone.

“In the past the cost of developing a braille phone vs. the market size has been a barrier to entry. 3D printing provides a fast and affordable way to overcome this barrier,” said OwnFone founder Tom Sunderland in a press statement provided to Singularity Hub.

Will, blind since birth, was one of the first Braille phone users.

Those who don’t read braille can design phones with raised text, texture or images on the buttons; all phones come in custom colors and designs.