Dot Watch puts a refreshable Braille cell on a $300 wristwatch for the blind

In 2015 a Seoul startup called Dot set out to fix a scandal of exclusion. Refreshable Braille displays — the standard way blind people read digital text — cost thousands of dollars and plug into desktop computers, so by Dot's own estimate only about 5% of visually impaired people worldwide could own one. Everyone else made do with audio, which has its own cost: headphones block the ambient sound blind pedestrians rely on, and speakers broadcast private messages to everyone nearby.

Dot's answer was to compress the whole idea into a wristwatch. A grid of tiny physical pins rise and fall to form up to four Braille characters at a time, slowly scrolling through notifications, text messages, emails and translations. The watch pairs with a smartphone over Bluetooth, reads caller info, lets users accept or reject calls, sets alarms, and even rings a loud beep through the phone when activated — a 'Find my phone' for users who cannot see. An Open API invited third-party developers to build apps for the touch-tactile interface.

The price target — about US$300, versus thousands for desktop displays — was the point, not a happy accident. Dot funded its three years of development through crowdfunding with roughly 140,000 backers, and planned an initial production run of 100,000 units; the first units were slated to ship from the company in 2017. The launch earned the world's first Braille smartwatch title and put Dot on the map of inclusive hardware design.