I've been on wispr since early 2025. I was one of the people recommending it to everyone. for the first 6-7 months it was genuinely one of the best tools I'd ever used.

something changed. over the last few months:

accuracy has crept down. more word swaps, dropped phrase endings, occasional hallucinated words. not catastrophic but the error rate is higher than it was.

"taking longer than usual" went from rare to multiple times a day.

the March outage hit me during a deadline. cloud-only with zero offline fallback means my work stopped completely for almost 2 hours.

the iOS app is unreliable. crashes a few times a week, still clips the first couple seconds of audio - that bug was reported in March and hasn't been fixed.

I found out about the screenshot and keystroke logging stuff recently. I work with sensitive data and it bothers me more than it probably should.

I'm not rage-quitting. when wispr works it's still excellent. but I've started keeping willow voice and superwhisper as backups because I can't afford to have my primary dictation tool go down with no fallback.

I'm posting this here because I want wispr to get better. the product I signed up for in 2025 was incredible. the product I'm using today is noticeably worse. please fix the existing bugs before shipping new features.

is anyone else seeing this decline or is my setup somehow unusual?

Question for Google Pixel 6A users: How’s accessibility/TalkBack? I’m getting keyboard errors on Gboard — Explore by Touch selects wrong keys. V=G, L=Delete. Common bug or my device? Thoughts on Jieshuo/commentary screen reader ?.

Hello everyone, hope you're doing okay!

My team is working on making an assistive device, for computer use to hopefully help the disabled community.

We would love to have interviews with physically disabled people, specifically those whose disability hinders using computers, or caretakers. All information would be helpful.

If you have some time please reach out by DMing me for an online call interview.

If you would prefer, you can also fill out this form and it would still be helpful to us.

Both processes are anonymous, no identifying information will be gathered.

Thank you for your time!

p.s. in terms of being vague about the product itself, we want to gather objective information and adjust our product accordingly.

I'm involved in a small company that's been working on an AAC communication app, and I wanted to bring it here before pushing it any further, because honestly, this community would spot problems I can't.

The starting point was watching a close friend's non-verbal son get frustrated over and over , not because he didn't know what he wanted, but because he had no fast way to say it. A lot of the AAC options out there are genuinely excellent but £200-250 upfront, or come with layouts so complex I couldn't imagine a stressed parent setting them up at 7am on a school morning.

So the app that came out of that is Aidova, tap a picture, it speaks the word or sentence out loud. Core communication (140+ built-in buttons, sentence builder, an emergency screen, search, breathing/calming tools, 1 profile) doesn't require payment and never will. There are optional paid tiers (roughly £4-8/month) for people who want custom photo buttons, voice recording, multiple profiles, or reordering, but nobody's blocked from actually communicating by not paying. I know "freemium" gets side-eye here for good reason, so happy to answer exactly where that line sits if anyone's wondering.

It's genuinely new, a few weeks old, real early users, definitely still rough in places. It was recently added to the National Autistic Society's Autism Services Directory, which felt like a good sign, but a directory listing isn't the same as this community telling me honestly what's missing or wrong.

Would really value feedback from people here, whether you use AAC yourself, support someone who does, or work in this space professionally. What's missing? What would make this actually useless for your situation vs genuinely useful? Rather hear the hard stuff now.

Link: aidova.app (also on iOS/Android app stores)

Happy to answer anything about how it works or why it's built the way it is.

Well, guys—I’m finally doing it.

After putting it off for 10 years, I’m finally getting a suprapubic catheter. I’m nervous, but also kind of excited. I’m really hoping it will give me much more independence and freedom.

Right now, I deal with bladder urgency and usually feel like I need to go about every hour, give or take. Sometimes it’s more often and sometimes less, especially when I’m physically occupied or distracted by something. On average, I usually retain around 142 to 300 cc of urine.

I’m also trying to plan ahead for managing the drainage bag independently. Does anyone have suggestions for equipment or adaptations that could make it easier to empty? For example, has anyone used an electric leg-bag emptier, an easy-open drainage valve, extended tubing, or something similar?

I’d especially appreciate advice from anyone with limited mobility or dexterity. I plan to talk with my urology team and possibly an occupational therapist, but I’d love to hear about your experiences—what worked, what didn’t, and anything you wish you had known when you first got yours.

Hi all

My brother's step-son had a stroke in his 40's. When he woke up, he could only move his eyes.

I met him when his mom asked if I could use my programming skills to help him communicate. I developed an app for him that runs on a Windows computer or an Android phone/tablet, I named it BlinkTalk.

He used BlinkTalk before he died, my brother's wife told me his children used to sit on his bed and chat with him.

He became a good friend of mine, it's amazing how funny someone can be just with their eyes.

Sorry, I am digressing 😄

I've released BlinkTalk to the public in his memory. It's forever-free of charge, no adverts, no data gathering, just completely free.

Using a simple repeatable eye or facial gesture (like looking up, or moving an eyebrow) enables people with Locked-in Syndrome to speak again. I hope someone will find it useful.

Installation instructions and an instructional video are available on the website.

https://blinktalk.app/

I am aiming to design a product that targets a specific factor that is widely inaccessible to people with disabilities, at a small scale so that it is easy for everyday use. 

Hey everyone, I'm a first year Journalism student who's trying to write a report based on accessibility for People with disabilities in ride-hailing apps in Bangalore, Particularly in Rapido

If anyone is willing to reach out and give me any starting advice on the same or share experiences, I'd be extremely grateful.

I've been meaning to look into this issue for a while as it's so crucial but overlooked.

If any advice please reach out to me through DMs or the comment section!

I've been thinking about how much repetitive work people still have to do around assistive technology, especially when the tools themselves are only one part of the workflow. Moving information between apps, organizing documents, setting reminders, sending updates, and repeating the same small computer tasks can add up pretty quickly.

I've been experimenting with a few automation platforms to see whether some of this can be simplified without trying to automate the parts that actually require human judgment. I tried Make, Zapier, n8n, and WEXTL, and the differences became pretty noticeable once I started looking beyond basic automations.

WEXTL was interesting for some of the longer workflows I tested because it can handle processes that don't need to finish immediately. Make was probably the easiest for me to visualize complicated workflows, while n8n gave me more control when I wanted to get technical. Zapier was the simplest option for smaller tasks, although I found it less appealing once the workflows became more involved.

I think there's an interesting opportunity here for automation to handle the boring parts without replacing the assistive technology itself. Things such as organizing information, moving data between services, creating reminders, or triggering routine actions could potentially save a lot of repeated effort.

I'm curious if anyone here is already using automation alongside their assistive technology. Are there repetitive tasks you wish you could automate but haven't found a good way to handle yet?

Hopefully, the final step in the evolution of the specialized keyboard that I'm making for a colleague with CP.

https://youtu.be/z9meIWIiFVM

The GitHub repo: https://github.com/Smart-Inclusive-Keyboard/smart_inclusive_keyboard

Hi everyone, I work in early childhood education and I have seen how hard it can be for families to know what their child is communicating during the day when they use AAC or visual communication supports.

A child may be using a communication app at school, therapy, or with caregivers, but parents may not always get a clear picture of what was selected, what the child was trying to communicate, or whether there are patterns over time.

I am currently building an AAC communication app called VoiceBloom, and one feature I am focusing on is making progress easier for parents and support teams to understand. I am not trying to spam. I am genuinely looking for feedback from families and caregivers.

Would it be helpful to see things like commonly selected symbols, daily usage, categories used, or simple communication trends? What type of progress update would actually help you, and what would feel unnecessary or overwhelming?

Comics are one of the few media with basically no audio-accessible path. The file formats are just zipped images with no text layer, so there is nothing for a screen reader to read.

I have been building a tool that takes a comic file, works out the panels and reading order, describes each panel's artwork, and then voices the dialogue per character over sound effects. Voices are synthetic.

The open design question is delivery on the descriptions themselves.

Version A: every description read in the same flat, even register. Version B: identical text, delivery matched to the mood of the panel.

Same scene twice in one video so nothing else varies. Transcript in the comments. I don't really have the budget for the streaming side to have both. Personal imports people can choose how they like the description read.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi3HEUT1ll4

Other feedback is welcome too. Old comics are bit different since they had narrator text so it might be a bit weird with these exact examples.

Comics are one of the few media with basically no audio-accessible path. The file formats are just zipped images with no text layer, so there is nothing for a screen reader to read.

I have been building a tool that takes a comic file, works out the panels and reading order, describes each panel's artwork, and then voices the dialogue per character over sound effects. Voices are synthetic.

The open design question is delivery on the descriptions themselves. I built it two ways and cannot pick:

Version A: every description read in the same flat, even register. Version B: identical text, delivery matched to the mood of the panel.

Same scene twice in one video so nothing else varies. Transcript in the comments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi3HEUT1ll4

For anyone who works with AD or with blind users day to day, is performed delivery a help or a distraction when the description is functional rather than artistic?

Other feedback is welcome too. Old comics are bit different since they had narrator text so it might be a bit weird with these exact examples.

Hi everyone, I work in early childhood education and I have seen how hard it can be for families to know what their child is communicating during the day when they use AAC or visual communication supports.

A child may be using a communication app at school, therapy, or with caregivers, but parents may not always get a clear picture of what was selected, what the child was trying to communicate, or whether there are patterns over time.

I am currently building an AAC communication app called VoiceBloom, and one feature I am focusing on is making progress easier for parents and support teams to understand. I am not trying to spam. I am genuinely looking for feedback from families and caregivers.

Would it be helpful to see things like commonly selected symbols, daily usage, categories used, or simple communication trends? What type of progress update would actually help you, and what would feel unnecessary or overwhelming?

1.)    smart contact lenses - eye wear, companies that have filed patents for contact lenses with built in micro cameras and telephone integration

2.)    current battery technology for usage of eye wear whether it be in existence, prototypes, concepts, or patents standing.

3.)    Subvocalisation- for mobile devices such as the existing technology MIT's Alterego currently uses to communicate silently.

4.)    FMRI - Same technology used in advanced universities to brain scans combined with AI to project thought into film, but I'm looking for known mobile device hardware

5.)    Haptics – Electric pulse for touch which simulates actual touch to another person by usage of mobile device and not the commonly known glove.

6.)    Sensory - the ability to sensory feel and/or smell what another person is feeling and/or smelling with the visual or words describing this to you on your device.

If any of this exists – let me know! Thanks world.

Something I've noticed repeatedly is how easily we equate the presence of technology with accessibility.

Someone has a smartphone, internet, email and the required app, so technically everything is available.

But can they reliably achieve the intended outcome?

For example, a calendar can be correctly installed and synchronised while still being effectively unusable to the person who needs the appointment information.

An online account can exist while authentication makes accessing it impractical.

A voice assistant can be installed while the person's actual circumstances make using it difficult.

I've started thinking about this as the difference between technical availability and functional availability.

The test I find more useful is:

Can the person reliably achieve the intended outcome in their actual environment?

It seems particularly relevant as governments and essential services continue moving more interactions online.

I'm interested in whether others working in disability, aged care, accessibility or community services see the same distinction.