Apple Watch makes my life as a deaf-blind person much easier

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“I have Usher Syndrome, which means I was born deaf and in the last ten years I have lost most of my sight. What I see in good light is like looking through a small letterbox,” Lady Usher writes for the Molly Watt Trust. “The bits out to the side and above and below are a white, misty haze. In dim light, or at night: I am almost completely blind.”

“Learning to live with sight loss, when you are already deaf, can be pretty inconvenient. The world just isn’t designed with deafblind people in mind. It’s the little things that are most stressful. The things that most people wouldn’t think of. There are dozens of small daily irritations that pile up, and erode confidence, until the least tiring option is simply not to go out,” Lady Usher writes. “My cane and my guide dog are brilliant for awareness and mobility. I wouldn’t be without either of these things, but they don’t solve the whole gamut of other stresses that deafblind people face. Now enter, centre stage – The Apple Watch!”

“If there was ever a good time to be losing your sight when you are already deaf, it is 2016,” Lady Usher writes. “Just three weeks after I got the watch, my guide dog and I entered a month-long team steps challenge at my work place. Together, we walked almost 200 miles through the busy streets of London, simply by following the vibrations of the AppleWatch and the simple on screen instructions. For the first time ever, it felt like we owned the streets. The whole of London has opened up to me for the first time since I lost my sight. ”

Much more in the full article here.