Introduction
Welcome to another Atechability review! We are returning to the braille display category this time around! We will be reviewing a new braille display from HumanWare, who then gave it to the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) for them to sell. We are talking about the chameleon 20, a 20-cell braille device that can do more than just display the computer’s and smartphone’s screen output.
Special Crredit
Thanks to a local teacher of the visually impaired in my area for allowing me to review one of her units. I appreciate the confidence she had in me to be able to do this in the first place. It is the generous people like her that brings these reviews to you, the reader. Remember, these reviews are HONEST, and are NOT going to be sugar coated nor manipulated through payments.
Description
If you recall, we did a review over the Mantis Q40, which was also made by HumanWare and given to APH to sell. When that device came out, its little brother, the Chameleon 20 was released alongside it. Both devices have the same feature set, except that the Chameleon has a braille input keyboard, rather than a QWERTY keyboard. The device is about the size of the iPhone 13 pro, with a few inches to spare. However, don’t let the size fool you. It’s packed with some useful features to help with productivity. This device was released mainly targetted at the students, based on the device’s contents, and the feature set it currently has. The device has a fifteen hour battery life, which can get any student through any school day. We will outline all this on the next few headings.
Pricing
The Chameleon 20 is currently priced at $1715. You can also purchase it using your Quota funds, if you are a teacher of the visually impaired or are part of a school system. This means you can essentially “borrow” a device, free of charge, but when you are not using it anymore, you must return it.
In The Box
When you get your Chameleon, you will receive the following items with it:
- Chameleon 20
- USB C cable and charger block
- Quick start guide
- Neck strap for easy carrying
- Three carrying cases of different colors (pink, purple, and turquoise)
- A sticker pack with different tactile symbols for even further customization.
As you can see, with these three different colored cases, plus the sticker pack, students have a way to make their braille display match their personality with different color and symbol combinations. Keep in mind that these cases are padded, which can save the display from being dropped, but don’t go dropping it off a mountain top. If you wish to have a device that is the EXACT same as the Chameleon, but without the customizations like the cases and stickers, you can check out the Brailliant BI 20x and 40x, developed by the same company with the exact same feature set.
Orientation
Now that you took out your Chameleon, and you decided to make it yours by putting it in a specific case and put some stickers on it, let’s look at its controls! We’ll start off from the front, and end up back at the same spot at the end. then we will look at the top surface of the device.
Front Pannel
We will start from the front left and move right on the unit. You will find five buttons in total. The four rectangular buttons are called “Thumb Keys.” These help you move through menus, and also pan to the next line on your braille display. That is, once you’re finished reading a line on the display, pressing a panning button will put the next line on the display. From left to right, the buttons are as follows: “Previous, Left, Right, and Next.” The “Previous and next” thumb keys are the shorter ones, and have a raised line on them. The “Next” thumb key has a line on the bottom, while the “Previous” key has a line on the top half of it. The “Left and Right” keys also have lines on their sides, point towards the direction they move when you press them. In the middle of the thumb keys, you will find the “Home” button. this button takes you back to the previous menu, or the main menu, depending on where you are in the Chameleon itself.
Right Side
On the rightt side of the unit, from bottom to top of that side, you will find a “Volume Down and volume Up,” buttons, and above that, there is a headphone jack. Yes, this is where the difference between the Mantis and Chameleon begins to show. this display can talk to you, as well as displaying braille. Of course, the talking portion does NOT work in the terminal option, since that’s the screen reader’s job. The headphone jack is your standard 3.5 MM connector, so any headphone you purchase will do.
Back side
On the back side of the unit, on the far left you will find an SD card slot. You can easily download books to an SD card for reading on the Chameleon’s library app, or you can use the internal storage of the device as well. You can use SD cards up to 64 gigabytes for storage.
Left Side
Starting from the top of the left side, there is the USB C port, to connect the Chameleon to the computer or a wall charger to charge the battery. If using it with a computer, the chameleon automatically charges. Below the USB C port is a LED light indicator that shows when the Chameleon is powered on and off. Below that LED indicator, is the power button. Hold down this button for three to five seconds to turn on and off. This button is oval shaped, with a dot on the button. Below that button is a regular USB A port. Thumb drives can be used with the Chameleon, and like the SD card, up to 64 gigabytes is supported. QWERTY keyboards can be used in this USB port, if you want a bit of the taste of the Mantis layout. We were not able to test this in terminal mode, so use at your own risk.
Top Surface
On the top of the device, from front to back, there are two space bars, (either of them can be used to insert a space) followed by the 20 cell braille display. Above that, there are 20 springy strip looking buttons, which are the cursor buttons. These allow you to put the cursor under a specific cell, depending on the user’s preference to manipulate text. These are also used to select an option from a menu. Above the cursor buttons, there is a braille keyboard. There are a total of eight keys on this keyboard, in order to enter braille letters, numbers, and symbols. From left to right, the keys are labeled as follows:
“Backspace, 3, 2,1 ,4, 5, 6, enter.”
The left index, middle, and ring fingers go on dots “1 through 3,” and the pinky goes on “Backspace.” The same applies to the right hand but on “4, 5, 6, and enter.”
Chameleon Features
As mentioned above, the chameleon 20 is not just a braille terminal for your computer. It has some basic productivity apps that can help get some basic tasks done. We will cover these in short below.
Editor
This application is a very basic notepad. You can do basic selection, copying and pasting, along with finding text. You are also able to save documents, whether it’s on an SD card or internal storage, or even a thumb drive. You can only save the files in a .TXT format, which can be opened in Notepad for Windows. If you were to open a word document, or any other formatted text file on the Chameleon to modify it, a .TXT copy stripped of any kind of formatting will be saved.
Braille Editor
Remember the Perkins braille writer? This app is EXACTLY like that, except without the paper. This app lets you create a braille file, and you can practically have ANYTHING on it. The only devices that will be able to open this kind of file are newer braille displays such as the Chameleon, and braille translation software on a PC or Mac. This can be useful if you are working with math or science, and you need a scratchpad. PLEASE NOTE: the voice will turn off when using this app, since it’s only intended to be just that, a braille file editor.
Terminal
Here’s where the magic really happens! Here, you can connect a computer or smartphone to the Chameleon in order to see its text in braille! Most modern screen readers support the unit, but we recommend reading the screen reader’s manual in order to make sure it supports the Chameleon. You can have up to five bluetooth and one USB device connected at the same time.
Library
Aah yes, the good old library! Here, you can read books you download from your favorite special library service for the blind. You can access these services from the “Online Services” option in the Chameleon’s main menu.
Calculator
This calculator app can perform the basic functions of a standard calculator. This is very useful if you need to perform some quick crunches of numbers. You can perform these calculations in your favorite braille code of choice, such as UEB math or the Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics and Science (1972 revision.)
Voice.
As mentioned above, the chameleon can talk. You can customize the voice to your liking by either turning it on or off, changing its speed, or, changing the voice used.
Turning the voice On Or Off
This command is a toggle. You can press the “Space Bar,” and the “Previous” thumb keys together to toggle the voice between on and off. If you turn the voice off, you will not hear confirmation of this, but you will get “Speech: off” in braille. When you turn the voice back on again, both voice and braille will say, “Speech: on.”
Adjusting the Speed
To Adjust the speed from anywhere, you can press “Enter+Dot 5” to increase the rate, or “Enter+Dot 2” to slow the rate down. Keep in mind though, as of this review, the Chameleon has problems speaking at fast rates. It is almost like it “Swallows part of its words” when speaking. We hope a fix comes soon for this, since some students are fast typers, and they might prefer reading things at a very fast rate.
Pro’s and Cons
Now that we looked at the Chameleon in a bit more detail, let’s look at what to look for before buying this product.
Pro’s
- Able to use braille display as a terminal
- simple productivity apps for on-the-go.
- Easily portable with about fifteen hours of battery life
- built in text-to-speech for reading long documents and/or menus
Cons
The only BIG game changer we found throughout our test is the voice lagging and having trouble keeping up. The device seems to stutter if having the voice at fast speeds, or, if you are a quick typer, it skips many letters and words. Of course, while it is possible to turn the voice off, there are people that like having both speech and braille at the same time. These people may be fast typers and readers.
Rating and final thoughts
Overall, we’re giving the chameleon a 4 out of 5. As mentioned above, speech is an important issue, especially if this is marketed towards students. While it is understood this release of the software integrating speech capabilities is an initial release, there should be a release soon after fixing these issues. However, overriding the cons, this device is a good small braille display, for those that are looking for something to fit in their backpack or jacket pocket. If you wish to listen to LIVE demonstrations on how the Chameleon sounds like, we recommend checking out episodes 36 through 40 of Teachavision, where I walk you through some of the VERY basics of the unit. We hope this review has been helpful on your decision of purchasing this unit! Of course, if you wish to contact us, you can send us an email. Happy braille reading/writing!