Description

The Orbit Slate is the first and only product in the world to provide multiple lines of true real-time refreshable braille in a single, compact, tablet-sized device.  It enables people who are blind or visually impaired to seamlessly and intuitively experience spatially arranged text and information such as tables in real time. The Slate offers Orbit’s unique signage-quality TrueBraille™  cells in two configurations – a model with three rows of forty cells and one with five rows of twenty cells. 

The interactive refreshable multi-line braille display provides students and professionals a vital tool for the exploration of spatial math problems involving fractions and mixed numbers, number line graphs, and matrices and makes solving multi-step equations at all levels of mathematics much easier. It enables braille readers to efficiently engage in tasks that were previously very laborious using single line displays, e.g. reading and writing braille music, manipulating spreadsheets and parsing tabular data in a way that has heretofore been impossible using refreshable braille technology. 

The Orbit Slate offers all the features of the revolutionary Orbit Reader 20, including a book reader, editor and the ability to connect to a smartphone or computer via Bluetooth or USB and access all the features of these platforms using popular screen reader programs. It also includes features for productivity and convenience such as onboard translation to and from braille in over 40 languages, a clock with alarms, a calendar, and a calculator.

When used as a standalone reader, it enables the user to read any file from the SD card. These could be BRF and BRL formatted books, text files or files in any format. The reader has features for easy navigation, inserting and editing bookmarks, browsing through folders, scrolling horizontally and vertically, etc.

As a braille display, the Orbit Slate connects to PCs and Macs, iOS devices and Android devices. It provides Bluetooth and USB connectivity and can connect simultaneously to multiple devices. Using the screen reading capability on the computing device, such as Voiceover, Brailleback or popular PC screen readers the user can control the functions of their computer or smartphone, use their favorite apps, read and send text messages and email and browse the internet.

As a note-taker, the Orbit Slate offers all essential file creation and editing functions.  A user can create new files, save them on SD card and edit existing files.  The Orbit Slate also includes file management features, allowing the user to rename, delete, copy, and create folders and files.

The device is inherently language independent and prompts and menus can be easily localized for different geographies.

While it offers a host of features, the Orbit Slate is extremely easy to use and allows seamless and instantaneous switching between reader, note-taker and braille display modes, as well as selection between connected devices such as a computer or phone.

The Orbit Slate is very compact, measuring a little over an inch in height and about 11 inches by 6 inches and weighing three pounds. It includes a high-quality Perkins style keyboard with 8 keys and a space bar. It also has a cursor pad with 4 arrow keys and a select button, as well as rocker keys on each side of the braille display to control navigation. Cursor routing buttons allow the cursor to be moved to any location on the multi-line display instantly.

The Slate features a full-sized SD-card slot for loading books and files for reading and editing.  When connected to a computer or smartphone, the Orbit Slate leverages the extensive screen-reader ecosystem developed for the Orbit Reader family of braille displays to provide instant access to Windows, Mac OS, iOS, Android, Chrome OS, Fire OS and Linux systems. Its integration with all popular platforms means that users have countless ways of interacting with their favorite apps and software.

The unit is powered by a user-replaceable fast-charging lithium battery which is recharged through the USB Type C port. It is fluid and dust resistant, and its construction is optimized for durability in extreme environmental conditions.