People who are visually impaired have a very limited selection of watches available to them. Well slowly but surely, new options are coming to the market. One such product is the new tactile watch called the Bradley for the visually impaired, by a company called Eone.
This isn’t the first tactile watch for visually impaired on the market. In fact, there are a number of products available. The problem with these is that most of them draw a lot of attention to the wearers disability, and many people do no like this fact. The Bradley is much more subtile, At first glance, it would be very easy for someone to mistake it for a normal everyday watch. It’s only if you really look at it that you might be able to tell a difference.
Bradley Snyder who was an officer in the Navy, and is now a Paralympic swimmer who lost his vision in an explosion in Afghanistan. He serves as the inspiration for the watch, and even provides the name for it!
The way it works is essentially the same as a normal watch, with a few variations. Instead of having hands, the watch has two ball bearing on two different tracks, one for minutes and one for hours. To tell the time, the wearer simply needs to feel the ball bearings, and locate them in relation to the notches on the watch. The ball bearing can fall out of place, but a quick shake of the watch will return them back to the spot they are supposed to be in, which is another great feature.
The watch is also waterproof to 164ft, so showering and swimming won’t be a problem with it. The design is also such that it can be worn with any outfit, and it is made out of titanium, giving it the strength to last. The watch comes with the wearers choice of a stainless steel band or a leather band that comes in a range of colors.
The watch is available from the Eone website, and will cost $128. Don’t expect it too soon though as the first batch has sold out, and the second batch is expected in December.
