In many cases, smart home technology can offer visually impaired homeowners greater convenience and security than non-visually impaired homeowners. Smart home integrators need to understand the unique needs of visually impaired homeowners and the appropriate services they must provide.
Professional smart home integrators are adept at understanding the needs of ordinary people when developing smart home systems for them. However, few people need to understand how these needs differ for visually impaired individuals.
It's important to understand that blindness, that is, the complete or near-complete loss of sight, is just one type of visual impairment. Wikipedia describes a visual impairment as "a decline in vision to the point that the problem cannot be resolved by conventional means, such as glasses."
For years, professionally installed smart home systems have relied on touch panels, tablets, and smartphones as the primary control points. Unfortunately, these can be difficult or impossible for visually impaired individuals to operate. In contrast, voice control offers a simple way for visually impaired people to manage their smart homes.
Voice assistants can be integrated into smart homes:
• Turn the light on/off
• Control your home's heating and cooling systems
• Open/close the sunshade
• Lock/unlock car doors
• Television control (even completely blind people can use the television to play audio content).
• Control robotic vacuum cleaners, mops, and lawnmowers
• Notify the homeowner of events that occur in the home.
• And more…
All of these factors make voice assistants the best option for visually impaired people to control smart homes. Furthermore, visually impaired people can use voice assistants in many other ways.
• Manage their calendars and schedules
Shopping list
• Cooking timer
• Order household essentials and groceries
• Order restaurant delivery
• Playing music
• Play audiobooks and podcasts
• Object recognition – On the Amazon Echo Show, an object can be placed in front of the camera, and the voice command “Alexa, what am I holding?” will provide the user with a description of the object.
• Phone calls and text messages
Smart Home Lighting
Lighting control can be very important in the homes of visually impaired individuals. It's also important to remember that visual impairment encompasses a wide range of visual decline. One person might be able to read highly magnified text, another might only be able to distinguish between light and dark, and yet another might have no vision at all. Others might even be extremely sensitive to bright light.
Lighting should be controllable via voice commands and, if possible, motion sensors, eliminating the need for wall-mounted light switches. Motion sensors are particularly useful for triggering lighting scenarios, such as in a hallway where there's no other reason to place a voice assistant.
Stairs are especially dangerous for visually impaired people because they have difficulty seeing the start, end, and steepness of the stairs. Proximity sensors can be placed at the top and bottom of the stairs to issue audible warnings when people approach them. For customers with some vision, step lights can also help them navigate the stairs safely.
Smart home voice notifications
Smoke alarms, burglar alarms, carbon monoxide alarms, and similar devices are just as important in the homes of visually impaired people as in any other home. However, it's important to recognize that visually impaired individuals may have more difficulty investigating the source of an emergency than others.
Modern sensors that include voice messages can provide missing information. For example, building codes require smoke detectors in every bedroom and other rooms around the house. It can be difficult to determine which detector is generating an alarm. Smoke detectors with voice messages can report the room where smoke has been detected.
Amazon offers the ability to integrate compatible sensors as Alexa routine triggers. Therefore, compatible sensors can be integrated into Alexa programs that can broadcast any notification on the Alexa speaker. For example, a leak detector located behind the toilet can trigger an audible notification of a toilet leak in the master bathroom.
Some smart home hubs that integrate with Alexa, such as Hubitat, can even integrate virtual sensors that can be used to trigger various sound signals.
Safety
Homeowners with limited or no vision face a higher risk of intruders, fires, and other emergencies in their homes. Many modern security systems integrate with voice assistants, making arming, disarming, and checking system status much simpler. One example is the integration between Alexa and SimpliSafe. SimpliSafe Alexa skills include:
• Alexa enabled SimpliSafe to set my system to Home Mode.
• Alexa, allowing SimpliSafe to set my system to away mode.
• Alexa tells SimpliSafe to lock
• Alexa, tell SimpliSafe I want to go to sleep.
• Alexa, tell SimpliSafe I want to go out.
• Alexa, ask SimpliSafe if my house is safe
• Alexa asks SimpliSafe for my current status.
Smart doorbells also offer additional protection for visually impaired homeowners. For example, Nest Hello, with its facial recognition capabilities, can be trained to identify frequent visitors. When someone arrives, the system can be set to announce the event on a Google/Nest smart speaker, including recognizing a familiar person or delivering a package.
Routine
Voice control can become cumbersome. For example, before going to bed, the homeowner might issue the following command:
• Lock the front door
• Arm the alarm system in home mode
• Set the thermostat to 67 degrees Celsius.
• Turn off the kitchen light
• Turn off the living room lights
• Turn off the bedroom lights
Combining all these steps into a routine that can be started with a single verbal command makes operating a smart home much simpler; especially for those who may not be able to visually verify that they remember issuing each verbal command.
Smart Home Records
Providing user documentation for smart home systems is even more crucial for visually impaired customers. While those using touchscreens or smartphone apps can navigate through menus to find the functions they need, remembering every voice command created by an integrator to control a smart home is far more difficult. When voice commands are the primary user interface for a smart home, documentation of all the commands is essential.
However, providing documentation for visually impaired individuals also presents challenges. To provide documents that are useful to visually impaired homeowners, smart home integrators need to understand their customers' capabilities. For some, large-print documents may suffice; others may require documents printed in Braille.
When Amazon Alexa devices are used as voice assistants, there's an alternative to printed documentation. Amazon Blueprints can be used to create audio documents that can be used to control Alexa commands for smart homes. Custom question-and-answer blueprints can be used so customers can ask questions like:
What commands can be used to control the lights?
How do I control the TV?
How to adjust the thermostat?
Final thoughts
For smart home integrators, discussing the details of a visually impaired person's condition can be uncomfortable. However, only through honest and open discussion can a smart home system truly meet the customer's needs.
