Orbit Teacher Remote FAQs

This Application is free

This application works on Android version 4.4 or higher

You can update after every 3 months

1. Teachers are now able to connect to their student’s Orbit Reader 20 braille display by connecting to the app via Bluetooth on a smartphone or tablet.
2. It then provides a real-time text translation of the braille being typed or read by the student using the device.
3. The Orbit Teacher Remote allows teachers to effectively teach in a remote setting.
4. Through an internet connection, the teacher can view the student’s braille display and can type the text that will appear on the student’s braille display.

It works in online and offline mode

The Orbit Teacher Remote app is available on the google play store, or you can directly go to this link https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.orbitteacherremote and click the install button. It will download and install the app on your device.

Yes, it does ask for the following permission:

1. Access Bluetooth Settings: This permission is required so that if the Bluetooth is turned off while using the Orbit Teacher, it can request the user to turn Bluetooth back on.

2. Approximate Location: This permission is required because Android relies upon location services to retrieve the identity of the nearby Bluetooth devices. It is only required while pairing. The location can be turned off once the app is paired with OR-20.

3. Storage: The application needs permission to read a text/BRF file from the storage. The application will not modify or delete any stored contents.

Note: On denying any of the above permissions, the application will not work properly.

Rebooting the Android device; Reset the OR-20 unit and try again.

1. Check to make sure that the OR-20 unit is not in sleep mode and is not connected with any other device, screen-reader software, or any other application through Bluetooth.
2. Reset the OR-20 unit and try again

This application helps teachers and students to connect remotely.

1. The first step is to establish an Internet connection between the student’s tablet and the teacher’s tablet.
2. Because the Orbit Teacher app does not include voice communication capabilities, the teacher and student must be able to speak over a normal phone call or platform such as Zoom or Skype for effective interaction.
3. Next, the student selects “Student Profile” from the menu in the app, and will log in to the app using a valid email ID.
4. The app automatically generates a user ID and password that are displayed to the student.
5. The student must then share his user ID and password with the teacher over the phone, text, email, etc., allowing the teacher to initiate the connection.
6. Next, the teacher selects “Teacher Profile” from the app’s menu and signs in using a valid email ID.
7. Fields will appear that require the teacher to enter the user ID and password given by the student.
8. After entering this information, the teacher will choose the “Connect” button on the screen.
9. This login and sign-up is a one-time process.
10. When the teacher’s app is connecting to the student’s app, the student will receive a notification regarding the incoming connection request, along with the name of the person requesting the connection.
11. They will then either accept or reject the connection request.
12. Both sides will receive a notification once the student accepts or rejects the connection request.

1. The application is downloaded and installed on the device, you can now launch the application.
2. This will land you on a welcome screen you will see two options. “Orbit Teacher Tutorial” and “Take me to the app”.
3. If you are a new user and wish to learn about how to use this application, you can select “Orbit Teacher Tutorial” to open the tutorial.
4. Otherwise, you can select the “Take me to the app” option which will redirect you to a screen from where you can select your role and further use the application.
5. Orbit Teacher Tutorials:

1. Tour of the Application: This page gives you a tour of different features in the form of slides. You can press “next” to switch from one slide to another.
2. Quick Start Guide: This page gives you a list of useful shortcut commands to operate your Orbit Reader. This page is accessible using TalkBack.
3. Manual: This page opens the application manual using which you can learn about how to use the Orbit Teacher application step by step in detail. This page is accessible using TalkBack.
4. Go to App: This option redirects you to the main application.
5. Feedback: This redirects you to the compose email option of the Gmail application and you can share your feedback with us.

1. Once you launch the main application using the “Go to App” option, it redirects you to the screen asking you to choose your role between a teacher or a student.
2. If you are a teacher or a person helping a visually impaired student remotely, choose “I am a teacher”.
3. If you are a student receiving help from the teacher, choose “I am a student”.
4. The application will launch the respective home screen depending on the role chosen, teacher, or student.
5. The home screen and available controls are slightly different between the two roles.

If you selected the “I am a Teacher” option, it takes you to the home screen for the Teacher’s role.

1 Connect with the Orbit Reader 20: For a teacher, it is optional to connect with OR-20. If you connect, you can use your OR-20 display to view the student’s display and use the OR-20 keypad to control the student’s OR-20.

2 All these features are available with the application as well otherwise.

3 To connect to an OR-20 for the first time, tap on the “Connect OR-20” button. It opens a page showing a list of already paired OR-20 available for connection.

4 If your OR-20’s serial number mentioned on the listed devices, tap on it to initiate the connection.

A5. If your OR-20 is not already paired with your phone, it would not show on the list. You can tap on the “Scan for devices” button to initiate the first-time pairing.

6 It will show all the OR-20 within the range to be paired.

7 Tap on the serial number of the OR-20 you wish to connect to. If that unit is not paired already, the Orbit Teacher would generate a pop-up message asking to pair with the new OR-20.

8 Tap on the “Pair” button on the pop-up message to establish the connection.

9 Once connected, it displays the serial number of the connected device at the bottom of the screen and mirrors the display on the display area of the application showing the display in the translated visual fonts as well as Braille fonts.

To connect to a student, tap on the “Connect Student” button.

1 It opens up a page where you can enter the user id and password of the student you wish to connect to and press the “connect” button to send the connection request.

2 Alternatively, if you had connected to the same student in the past, their names are displayed in the history section.

3 You can simply tap on the name from the history list to initiate the connection process.

4 In this case, you are not required to enter the connection credentials again.

5 Once the student initiates, accepts, or rejects the request, you will receive a notification message saying the connection request is accepted/rejected or the connection error with details.

You can access and control the student’s OR–20 using:

1. On-Screen keyboards
2. Physical keyboards

Using these keyboards, you can entirely control and operate the student’s OR20. For example, you can open, read or edit files and change the menu configurations.

You cannot put the student’s OR-20 to sleep or turn it off remotely. You cannot perform the hard reset and put the device into firmware upgrade mode.

• The following on-screen keyboards are available for you to use.
• The Virtual Perkins keypad
• Third-party keyboard applications

The default is the Virtual Perkins keypad, but you can switch between the two by tapping on the edit button available at the top right corner of the text display area.

1 Virtual Perkins keypad: It offers the same functionality as the OR-20 keypad. (i.e. you can use the pan keys of the virtual Perkins keypad to perform the file navigation or press the hot key to open the menu on the student’s OR-20).

2 Third-party keyboard applications: You can use the third-party keyboard applications installed on your phone for typing but note that they usually don’t have the navigation keys.

3 If you are using these applications to perform navigation, you need to switch to the virtual Perkins keyboard.

4 These applications will be used only for the editable fields for the OR20 screen, such as file editor or find command.

For phones, with small screen sizes, if it is not possible or convenient to use multiple key presses, then you can use “one-handed mode”.

1 When a one-handed mode is enabled, you can press the multiple keys in sequence and then press the “submit” button to trigger the key input. The keys will turn green as you press them.

2 If you pressed the wrong key sequence, then you can press the same key again to deregister the key.

3 Pressing the key again (deregistering) shall return to its default color

4 For example, if you wish to press select + Up to open the menu, you can first press “select”, and then “up”, and then choose the “Submit” button, so that OR20 will receive it as a simultaneous keypress and it will open the menu on student’s OR-20.

Once the connection is established, the “Connect to OR-20” button turns into the “Disconnect OR-20” button.

• To disconnect the OR-20, tap the same. To manually disconnect from the OR-20 keypad, press SPACE + D (Dots 1 4 5 7).
• The connection is closed automatically when you put the OR-20 to sleep or turn it off. The connection is also disconnected automatically when you close the application.
• Note that the application and the OR-20 remain connected when you put the phone/tablet on standby (screen lock).
• OR-20 reconnects to the last connected host when you wake it up from sleep or turn it on provided the phone/tablet’s Bluetooth is ON and the Orbit Teacher application is running.
• If you had locked the phone screen, while the application was still running, any activity on the OR-20 wakes the phone/tablet and reconnects.
• To connect manually, follow the same process as you followed for the first-time connection, except that you don’t have to pair it again.

Following are the use of external physical keyboards:

• 1 If connected, using the Teacher’s OR-20 Perkins style keypad
• 2 Orbit Writer paired with the phone (It does not have panning keys)
• 3 External Qwerty keypad (Does not support navigation functionality)

The context menu is available at the top right corner of the screen for both Teachers and Students. It offers the following options

• Change your Role: This allows you to switch between student and teacher Roles
• Select language table: This lets you choose the translation table to be used for Braille to text conversion when you are working with a BRF file
• Activate License: This lets you activate the license
• Check License Info: This option gives information about the current activated license
• Set Font Size: This Lets you adjust the size of the fonts being displayed
• Read a file from the phone: Opens up an offline reading mode where you can read the files from the phone
• Show/Hide braille font: This Lets you show/hide braille fonts on the screen of the application
• Do not speak/Speak braille display text: This will not announce the braille display text of the application
• Show/Hide Braille Keyboard: This lets you show/hide the braille keyboard in teacher mode of the application
• Go to tutorial: Opens up a tutorial screen to guide you about the application
• Enable logging: Enables debug logging for developers
• About: Displays the version number of the application installed

Please write to us at techsupport@orbitresearch.com

Please write to us at techsupport@orbitresearch.com