Hello everyone! I have been visually impaired for my whole life. I have ocular albinism, no depth perception, nystagmus, am super super nearsighted, etc. etc.

Right now I kinda feel like I am going through the like 'am I gay? quiz' era of my disability (if my fellow queers get that). I recently moved to a new city and its much more accessible for me. As a result of this, I am considering things I had not before with my vision because I had more urgent issues.

I am currently working on getting trained on a white cane and I would like to learn braille as I think it would help me in some circumstances that will be common in my career.

I deal with eye pain pretty much most of the time, I kinda always have. My doctors have tried a few different things to help, but I think ultimately blending in as sighted has been considered more important than reducing my fatigue/pain. I wish I didn't have to use my eyes so much, now I feel like I am learning to be blind.

I guess this was mostly a rant, but I feel very disconnected from the blind and visually impaired community. I have only met a few other blind folks in my life, so i am open to any advice y'all have from that.

Additionally, when I have to tell people about my vision, I always explain myself as visually impaired. This was always what I was told I was, if I feel like saying it, I will tell them a bit more about my actual conditions.

I am not ashamed of my vision to any degree, it has always been central to my identity, though it has not been well accommodated. Still, I do not always wanna explain myself. When I say visually impaired, they don't get it at all. They either think its pretty much nothing or that I can't see at all.

Sometimes, I just wanna say blind, while I do not think this will make them understand this or not ask questions ever( I totally understand it wont at all), it feels like a quicker way to get the point across for the randos that just situationally need to know. Can I say this? It feels like semantics to spit out visually impaired when my eyes barely work and hurt like hell when I have to use them.

Hi! I hope everyone’s doing well. I just needed some recommendations on a backup cane. Unfortunately many Amazon US links or some cane brands don’t ship to my country. I was thinking of getting an ambutech telescopic cane (8 section fiberglass one). I just need a cane that can always be stored in my bag just in case anything happens to my main graphite mobility cane. I was about to consider a slimline cane but I think they’re too flimsy and won’t be able to store it folded for a long time due to the elastic. Should I go for the telescopic ambutech cane or does anyone have any other suggestions? Thank you so much

I’m looking for a music app that is screen reader friendly, easy to organize, and customize, and that I can sync across several apple devices. What apps are people using? What’s your experience with them?

Hi -

Earlier this week we received a diagnosis that our son was diagnosed with some form of an inherited retinal disease. His vision is already 20:100 and he struggles with periphery and colors.

This has been emotional but my wife and I are determined to provide him the most love, support, and opportunities we can.

What advice does this group have? Either tactical or things that give me hope for him.

We are immediately pursuing genetic testing, getting him setup for special education in school, amongst other items. Also we live in the Minneapolis area for what it’s worth.

Apologies if this is the wrong type of question for this sub.

Hello so i have a saftey concern considering there are so creeps on the app now.

Can the blind person phone see the volunteer, like is our camera turned on like theirs ?

I’m on iPhone, and i find that when i turn speech off to listen to some music or watch something it just turns straight back on? I dont wanna turn voice over off entirely just the speech so i can keep the screen curtain on but it doesn’t seem to work any more. Any tips?

The NVDA 2026.3 Release Candidate is now available for testing! This is the LAST step before the final, stable release, and we encourage ALL users to download and test this and provide feedback. See the full release notes and download at: https://www.nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2026-3rc1/

This one is for the dictation users. I'm curious if any Google Pixel owners have tried Rambler for the Pixel? I tried it out on a friend's phone and I can't believe how insanely accurate dictation is. Apparently it's only available for the Pixel 11 series for now, but it's supposed to roll out to other Google phones and hopefully other Android phones in the future. I'm seriously thinking about trading in my Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra for one of these newer Pixels, but I fear accessibility won't be as good.

Separately, has anyone switched from a Samsung device to a Google Pixel device and had no regrets? Is the accessibility on par with Samsung phones? The dictation on these Pixel phones now are so good that it's going to be difficult to use the dictation on Samsung or Apple devices without feeling envious.

Hi, I am a happy android user now with one exeption, music streaming. I am a huge music lover and audiophile. On iOS, I had Apple Music and then switched over to Tidal because I somehow like their desktop app more and also the iOS one. Now on Android, Tidal is usable, but not that great. Sometimes focus jumps around, sometimes it does not read the artist or the track name and I need to scroll around with two fingers to find it. Tried Qobuz but also not impressed with accessibility, even worse than Tidal. I am currently on a family plan on Tidal. What do you guys use? Any recommendations from the android world? And please not YT Music, this looks like the tiktok of music to me and has bad sound quality.

Hello everyone. I recently lost a charger for an Optelec Compact Touch HD (the kind with a barrel charger). I need a new replacement but can't find it anywhere online. I know it's old, so it's not listed on their website. I need it for my job and it's urgent. If I can't find a new charger, I have to buy a new video magnifier. Here's what the box says:

Compact Touch HD Orderable part number COMP-T-HD-WRLD Serial Number: W5AP0109

Any help you all might have or can give is greatly appreciated!

Hey, I am currently sick and was thinking about germs on my cane. So I was just wondering if any of you white cane users had any suggestions or tips for disinfecting the rubber cane handle. Are there any specific kind of wipes you use? I don't wanna damage the rubber or make it sticky and disgusting. Any help with this would be appreciated! Thanks.

TLDR, I'm using a product called the M5 Cardputer (m5stack link) to replace the old language master. Not precisely, but in spirit. What would you like it to be able to do? I'm not selling anything or adverttising here, just looking for thoughts from other blind users about a piece of kit that was popular decades ago.

I was proud to own a Franklin language master as a child. At a time without regular Internet access, it helped me understand the books I was reading, while away some time with games, and learn a bit about qwerty before I ever got in front of a full-sized keyboard. it was also just really nice to have access to a dictionary.

Fast forward a number of decades and I can honestly say that, in my ten years of teaching at a school for the blind, I'd never seen someone use anything better as a dictionary. people who are new to blindness or young need to learn an operating system or web interface to access most tools, or end up believing that they have to verbally ask a smart speaker and can't use their fingers. Either way, they don't have a pocketable, private tool to learn about language.

The cardputer is an 81 gram, 84 by 54 by 20m m handheld computer. It's got a 56-key keyboard, a headphone jack, an amplified speaker, a Micro-SD card slot, a MEMS microphone and a 1,500 MAh rechargeable battery you can top-up from a USB-C port. There's a small 1.4 inch colour display and that's where it lets down those with partial sight, but for the blind among us, running a dictionary on this thing is absolutely possible.

I have already got the start of a dictionary and voice recorder working. I plan to add a metronome, calculator, unit converter, text file reader, periodic table, flash cards tool and a stopwatch and a timer. That's before I think about working on some of the word games.

So if you ever used one of these things and were working on an upgrade, what would you have?

Anyone know of a good replacement for Blind Compass? Seems they don’t carry it in the App Store anymore and I found it useful to have a compass you can lock a heading on and then have it count how many feet you’ve gone in that direction. Super useful for crossing open spaces! TIA!

I'm really hoping I can get some different perspectives on this. I'm an adult, who reads braille fluently. I didn't learn as a child, although I did learn quite a bit in high school. this is just me saying I'm not a "native" braille reader if you will.

My typing and reading are fine. but I'm an author and editor professionally. I've been barely squeaking by for a long time by making font larger and larger when I need to edit. But I have to just accept that isn'j working any more. But I'm very frustrated with transitioning myself to working in an all braille environment.

The biggest challenges I'm noticing are I don't seem to have a rhthm between writing and reading the display. When I could see the screen, even if I couldn't see each letter, I could get an idea of how long a paragraph is (which tells me if it needs to be broken up to sit better when it goes to print). You can also easily see sen^ence length variations. When you write or edit, sentences should be varied to avoid sounding monotonous.

Then of course there's the need to seemlessly switch between adding comments into a document and reading.

It all just feels very clunky. And I know it will get better with practice, but I would really just love to talk to others who use braille to edit.

Note: I'm not interested in using a voice screen reader for editing. I'm DeafBlind and the screen reader chattering at me is just verbal noise. It makes the editing experience significantly worse.

I'm a man, and I'm completely blind. For a whole host of reasons, I don't want to have children.

I've given this a lot of thought, and I've decided to get a vasectomy because I'm sexually active and have multiple sexual partners, and an unplanned pregnancy would put me in a pretty difficult situation.

Here in Brazil, both private health insurance companies and the country's universal public healthcare system are required to provide vasectomies to men aged 21 and older. The public system is funded and run by the government, is available to everyone, and provides care free of charge at the point of use.

But I'm scared. Tomorrow, I have an appointment with a doctor who works in the government-run healthcare system to start the process of getting a vasectomy. On Friday, I have another appointment, this time with a doctor through my private health insurance, to get the same process started.

One thing about Brazil is that our free, universal public healthcare system is actually very good, while private health insurance plans are pretty terrible. So when we need medical care, it's common to start the process through both the public system and private insurance at the same time, then go with whichever one can get us treated sooner. Usually, the public system wins.

The thing is, I'm really afraid of experiencing ableism. I'm worried that doctors might refuse to perform the procedure, even though Brazil's Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities Act explicitly guarantees people with disabilities the right to family planning.

I'm worried that doctors who are misinformed, ableist, and full of themselves might make things unnecessarily difficult, leaving me with no choice but to file formal complaints, hire lawyers, take the matter to court, and get dragged into a legal battle just to secure a basic right.

Honestly, this fear is always with me. Whenever I need to do something important, I'm afraid something will go wrong. Maybe it's anxiety. But it's the kind of thing that people without disabilities probably never even have to think about.

Anyway, I just wanted to get this off my chest and hear what you all think.

I'm looking for apps on iPhone or android that will read a PDF in a pleasant voice while the phone is just in my pocket. Like as though I just had a recording of somebody reading the PDF. I do not want to use AI. I figure maybe something like this exists even if it's made for people who drive cars? OK I hope this was clear but let me know any questions thanks!

Edit: some of the priority features that I'm looking for are
-the audio will continue playing while the phone is locked
-controls for rewind fast forward pause and a slider to move the position to different points in the overall content
-an option to select what document page to start reading on, and an accessible indicator that will tell me what page is currently being read
- ability to save my place and restart audio at that place later on. Also would be nice to be able to add bookmarks
- all of those features are more important to me than the quality of the voice itself, although it certainly he'd be nice to have a break from the mechanical monotone of the
screen reader I'm usually using

Hello, I’m 27 and I live in the USA, specifically Texas. I have a question regarding life as I am visually impaired, but I always finding super hard to enjoy life both financially and emotionally what I mean by this is that I feel like I’m just surviving to live and all the finances I have were used for appointments or medication’s and insurance nothing to enjoy on spending and if I try to enjoy on spending, I feel like I’m gonna be wasting money in a way as for the emotional aspect I feel like I have less wants needs goals in life because at the end of the day, I feel like I’m just gonna be blind so what’s the point anyways so I don’t even bother trying

Sorry for any typo as it’s voice to text,.

I woke up this morning to find that my phone had automatically updated to the latest version of iOS. I don’t know why it did it because I thought I had turned off automatic updates, but I guess what’s done is done. I had been trying to stop it from updating because I had heard that one of the most recent updates didn’t work very well with voiceover, but now I guess I have it.

I’ve been OK mostly, except for dealing with Safari. I prefer to use Safari for the Internet and voiceover keeps glitching out whenever I open a new page. It won’t read anything on the screen except for the address bar and allow me access to the vertical scroll bar and the forward and back buttons. I’ve tried refreshing and that doesn’t work. Some pages will be recognized and some won’t and it doesn’t seem to depend on the website that I’m on because there’s very little difference between a page that it won’t recognize and a page that it will at times.

Does anyone know if there’s anything in settings that I can adjust to fix this? Voiceover has never done anything like this before so I don’t really know where to begin.

My dad has fairly advanced macular degeneration- he lives by himself and is very independent but struggles with losing his sight.

His birthday is coming up, besides time helping him with certain things, I’m wondering if there are any items that are not computer/technology related that might help him out.

He does not use a computer or a smart phone and he does not plan to. He does have a very large tv that he can still navigate and he uses a large magnifying glass with built in light to read if necessary. He also purchased a clock that has audio functions so he can check the time.

Thank you for any ideas.

i’ve been sighted my whole life and 2 years ago I lost all of my vision very abruptly and I still haven’t accepted it, this isn’t opposed to talk about that but to talk about now
I met a guy about a week ago and he asked me on a date to the state fair next Sunday but he doesn’t know about my disability and I feel so embarrassed to tell him because I don’t want him to think of me differently, I want him to look at me the same way he does now and it’s very scary for me
I haven’t had any mobility training so when I go places I’m guided around and of course that’s something he needs to know before I go out with him but I’m just so scared
my sister says I shouldn’t go with him at all because he doesn’t have experience with guiding me around and it would be too much in a crowded place like the fair which bums me out I just wanna live normal
I don’t know if I wanted advice or this is just me ranting but I’m just sad I guess

Hi everyone.

I've been toying with the idea of creating some screen reader courses. I could just make them YouTube videos, but I thought it'd be nice to throw in a mix of videos, guides, quizzes etc. Like online lessons.

Have you had positive experiences with any online course platforms out there? I remember edX was a bit of a chore to use with a screen reader last time I used it, though it might be partially down to the course author.

Thanks in advance for any recommendations.

I am strongly considering purchasing Meta Glasses and I have some (stupid, no doubt) questions. I did search and read some past threads onn the subject, and did some general internet searching, but a few questions remain. For context, I have no usable vision, and am hoping to use glasses to help me navigate in public, read signs, menus, packaging and find mysteriously lost items in my home. I am an amputee and use a walker. When I go out with family/friends, they have the unlucky task of guiding me, and it can be exhausting for them and for me. While I realize that I will probably still need some guidance, I am hoping the glasses will return some blessed independence to me.

I appreciate your help with the following questions:

Do they function like bone conducting headphones? *I could not find info on how, exactly, one hears directions and assume that only the wearer can hear them.

I was at an NFB meeting recently, and there was talk about people being harassed for wearing them in public and that some places actually ban them. Has anyone had experience with this? Also, is it obvious to the sighted public that someone is wearing them?

What is the number one benefit that you have experienced wearing them?

Please feel free to add any additional information from your personal experience.

hi, so I have recently connected my braille display to my iphone for the first time, and I'm wondering if you guys who use a braille display with their phones just navigate with the default settings, or do you change them? And if you do change them, what key combinations do you recommend I use? Do you know of any that are convenient and easy to memorize?

Has anyone found success with operating a professional karaoke set up completely non-visually? I am exploring KARAFUN, and I’m running into an issue getting lyrics to display on an external screen without losing access to voiceover. I can connect my iPhone to a television via screen mirror, but when I select full screen, I lose voiceover completely until I exit the app and reopen it. Also, the audio from the KARAFUN app can go to my Bluetooth karaoke machine via AirPlay, audio, on iOS, but it appears that I lose my screen mirror to the television at that point. If anyone has had success hosting a professional karaoke set up as a totally blind person, I am interested in hearing your experience And whatever information you can share. Thank you.