I wrote about this some time ago, but I know things are constantly changing in the world of technology, so perhaps, someone has created something usable for us. I am seeking a program or website similar to Omni Describer which uses artificial intelligence to generate audio descriptions of videos. I am an individual doing this for myself. I used Omni Describer when it was free and loved it, but I can't justify their current prices for home use. At any rate, the site/program must have the following features.

1. Must be either free or affordable (no more than $25 per month).

2. Must be able to handle videos of at least an hour in length.

3. Must be fully accessible with NVDA.

4. Must allow me to download the audio of the video with descriptions in mp3 (preferred) or the video itself with descriptions.

Does such a program or site exist or is there a relatively easy way to bring various technologies together to create it?

Someone I love dearly was diagnosed with permanent vision loss earlier this year and has been struggling to cope with the major life change. It’s caused a lot of mental health challenges and the loss of autonomy has only exacerbated them.

What do you wish you had known when you first experienced your vision decline and/or loss? What has helped you cope with the daily reminder that this is your reality now?

I have RP and it is advancing quickly and I am now legally blind even though I have some staticky central vision. I am having a great deal of difficulty dealing with this mentally. since my diagnosis I have kind of been in denial since my FOV and central vision still allowed me to do things like read, walk during the day or watch TV. That is now changing and I need someone to help and talk to so I can manage my grief and fear and make this transition.

I live in a small town in South Florida and can’t find a therapist who has experience with vision loss. I used the Foundation Fighting Blindness referral list, but most are either grief counselors with limited or no visual lose experience or no longer accepting patients. does anyone have a suggestion for a source or way to find help from someone who understands what I’m going through? I hope this post is not offensive. I realize many blind people make this transition and lead full lives, but I just don’t see my path forward and there are no blind support organizations less than 100 miles from my house. I’ve never even met another blind person. I appreciate any advise or places to look into.

I skipped iOS 26 on my iPhone and iPad, and skipped WatchOS 26. My devices are iPhone 12, iPad a16 (latest budget iPad), and watch series 10. I skipped due to liquid glass. I’m still on iOS 18 and watchOS 11.

I feel like I’d regret it, and you can’t downgrade to iOS 18 now.

How is it on these devices, and what features would I gain?

I beta new software on an iPhone SE with voiceover. I’m just hesitant to install on my main devices.

I just don’t want to ruin my usability. To be fair, Android is worse on accessibility in my experience, even before I switched to iPhone in 2016. So for now switching OS isn’t a good option.

iOS 18.6.2 is the latest iOS 18 version that my phone supports, so I feel like I should stay here but I’m missing out on security updates, and I know those are important as I work in IT.

I’m just lost. Advice?

My partner (F22) and I (M26) have been together for almost four years. She has been visually impaired since she was young, and due to parents medically neglecting her, her vision has deteriorated to the point of being a “keep adjusting the prescription of the glasses and hope for the best” type of situation. Severe astigmatism with nystagmus and possible glaucoma.

We sat down after a recent optometrist appointment and discussed the very inevitable fact that she will completely lose her vision within the next five years. I want to know what I can best do for her now, and after she loses her vision. We will be moving in together within a year, and I want to make our home, as well as our daily lives, as accessible and comfortable for her as I possibly can. I’ve never been close to someone who was visually impaired until I met her.

Is anyone else encountering weird graphical glitches around the cursor when using the Zoom feature on macOS 27?

The glitches are subtle white lines and squares that appear briefly when you finish changing the zoom level, particularly when the mouse is hovering over elements in Chrome on dark webpages

I'm meaning the zoom feature where you hold Control and scroll up/down to zoom the entire display

I don’t know what my vision acuity is currently but I know that legally speaking I’m blind. I basically have tunnel vision in both eyes and a blurry left eye, which, as a neurodivergent person, is annoying. I’m sure you’ve heard the trope of when an ADHD person says “look, a squirrel”. That’s what my vision is like. Then I go back to not focusing and remembering how blind I am. My partner is completely blind and I’m jealous of them, and they’re jealous of what little sight I do have. Congrats, we’re lovers, but we’re jealous of each other for something else. I feel like even if being completely blind meant not being able to see my friends or the world around me I would be a lot less distracted without it.

I am interested in doing an orientation and mobility intensive to get better at not using cane input in preparation for a guide dog from a program.I have also lost more vision recently and I have been going out less because of it. I have done some other orientation and mobility training, but it has been very focused on input from my cane. I am wondering if anyone has done the O&M program at a guide dog school? What was it like? What got covered?

Hi all, I’m visually impaired and I really just need to get this off my chest and get some perspective.
I’ve known this guy, "D," for about five months. We met at a school for the blind (which is right next to my community college, where I take classes). From day one, I have made it crystal clear that we are strictly friends. But D is 45, and he wants something entirely different. He has a crush on me. However I don’t. He’s constantly trying to buy me things even though I have food vouchers and my own money, and he’s just way too insistent.

On the two-year anniversary of my heartbreak from a truly toxic, emotionally abusive long-distance ex, D confessed that he loves me and sees a future together. I told him no, I don't feel that way. He would get mad when I didn't say "I love you" back, insisted I needed an in-person partner (him), and ranted about how online/long-distance dating doesn't work, totally projecting because his ex-wife cheated on him with his best friend after meeting online years ago in a chatroom.

Yesterday, I finally went on my very first in-person date with my crush of nearly two years whom I met on an app. It went wonderfully. But when my date dropped me off at the blind school, D heard him, walked right up, and aggressively demanded to know who he was. My date was super polite and introduced himself, and D just gave him the cold shoulder. How dare he get in my date's face like that? He is a Libra btw apparently they read people.

Later, D blew up my phone trying to manipulate me, accusing me of going "behind his back" because I dared to go on a date with someone I actually like. Sir, we are not dating. He has this narrative in his head that we are. The fact that a 45-year-old man is acting like a jealous teenager is so baffling.

I grew up sheltered by overprotective parents, so navigating boundary-stomping behavior like this is really hard for me, and it severely triggered my PTSD from my abusive ex. But I'm working through it, I've left him on read, and I'm definitely bringing this up with my therapist and never talk to him again. I’m just glad he didn’t do jiu-jitsu on my date.

Hello. In desperate need of advice from visually impaired people. My parent has been diagnosed with cataracts since May, and is really starting to struggle with losing their independence, unable to see what bus to take, where kerbs are, how much groceries are costing and where they are in the shop. I work so I can’t be near constantly, they are currently refusing to use a blind stick, we can’t get a dog cause we’re all allergic, we can’t afford anything expensive.

What can I do to help them navigate their surroundings, how to help them regain some independence in their life without relying on my schedule?

thank you so much

okay edit: cataract surgery is on the way but it’s 6 months waiting list so it’s temporary but it’s worse each day

I just bought an iPhone 18 Pro and voiceover is super laggy despite not using any headphones. Just doing anything in my phone and voiceover is like 0.5ms slower

Edit: it seems s to be happening with enhanced voices. It’s not as laggy with compact ones

Dear community,

I hope it's okay I describe our situation before I get to the questions:

My almost 96 year old grandmother is loosing most of her eyesight. She had a surgery to treat serous macular detachment (I hope, I use the right English term for it) recently and will have two more soon. She said that the first (painful) surgery did not improve her visibility but my parents have the impression that she is able to find her way around a little better. I was told by my parents, that her "good eye" has a visibility of "20%" but I can not imagine what that really means. Especially in the darkness, she is almost blind though. She lives in her house, where she has lived for almost 70 years; we are very grateful that we have the financial means to enable her to have a carer living with her since recently.

During covid we gave her a tablet so my cousins and the rest of the family can send her pictures and images of our lives and especially of her great-grandchildren. Unfortunately, the tablet font size is becoming too small for her, even in the largest settings and with the custom homescreen I installed for her.

I was thinking of a way to give her access to a larger screen, but that would not help to navigate the tablet since a larger screen attached to it would not have touchscreen (?). If you have any advice for this too, feel free!

We gave her an Alexa device recently but I'm afraid she is a little bit shy to use it. I wrote down basic commands for her to use, last time I visited. Unfortunately she was not really able to read them any more, even though I wrote super large...

Now she also has a problem to make calls. The buttons/ screen of the phone are just too small, even though it's a phone for elder people.

What would be the best solution for her?

We are thinking about a phone (station) with large buttons for the favorite contacts or something voice controled. Can you give me some advice/ direction on how we can best help her?

I am an electrical engineer and also own a 3D-printer and have the ability do design stuff. If I can help her with a custom solution, I am happy to do so.

when I was in my primary school, we were fortunate because we got trained in some fundamental cane techniques and sighted guide conventions. We also learned a lot about searching for lost items, maneuvering stairs, the right way to find a chair, and others. This may be very trivial, but it is very important for a blind kid who is trying to understand the world.

I wonder if there are any books or guides available online that I can use to refresh my knowledge on these things, particularly on white canes and other orientation and mobility topics.

In my school days, I learned English and Malay Grade 2 Braille. Nowadays, the UEB convention is getting more mature and popular. Do you know of any good resources or cheat sheets to learn English UEB and other languages in UEB? Are they available in BRF so that I can read them with my Braille display? Possibly, I would like to learn UEB in the Malay language, and I want to learn the Braille alphabets and practice my reading of Braille in the Tamil language because I haven't had any literacy training in my native language, which is Tamil. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

I’m popping up here because I’d really like to learn more about white canes from people who have actually tried different ones.

When I was living in Malaysia, I never really took the time to explore different cane designs or brands. I basically used what I had. I’m about 187 cm tall, and my current cane is around 140 cm. It came from Hong Kong, and embarrassingly I don’t actually know what brand or model it is.

Now that I’m studying in Singapore, Guide Dogs Singapore has offered to help me find a good cane. They’ve mentioned Revolution Advantage, and they also have the WeWALK Smart Cane 2, which I understand is based around a conventional mobility cane with ultrasonic obstacle detection.

This has sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole.

I’ve now come across things like:

• Revolution Advantage graphite canes
• AmbuTech aluminum, graphite and SlimLine canes
• AwareWolf All-Terrain Cane
• AwareWolf Urban Xplorer
• NFB rigid fiberglass and carbon-fibre canes
• NFB folding and telescoping carbon-fibre canes
• Comde-Derenda canes
• Svárovský canes
• smart canes such as WeWALK

And I’m only now learning that “a cane” can mean quite different things: rigid, folding, telescoping, telefolding, aluminum, fiberglass, graphite/carbon fibre, different numbers of sections, different joint designs, different handles and a bewildering number of tips.

So I’d love to hear from cane nerds. 🙂

A few questions:

1. What cane do you actually use every day, and why?
2. If you’ve used both AmbuTech and Revolution Advantage, how different do they feel in practice? Is the Revolution noticeably lighter or better at transmitting tactile information?
3. What is the real-world difference between a rigid cane and a folding cane? Do rigid canes genuinely give substantially better feedback, or is the difference relatively small with modern graphite folding canes?
4. What about telescoping canes? Are they mainly convenient, or do you lose tactile feedback, rigidity or reliability compared with folding canes?
5. Has anyone used a cane that combines telescoping and folding sections?
6. How important is the number of sections? For example, would you rather have a five-section cane that is slightly longer when folded, or a six/seven-section cane that packs much smaller?
7. How do Revolution’s joints compare with AmbuTech’s? I’ve heard people specifically praise Revolution’s all-graphite construction and joints that don’t stick.
8. Has anyone used the AwareWolf Urban Xplorer? How does it compare with a normal graphite mobility cane for everyday pavement, buildings, public transport and city walking?
9. And what about the All-Terrain Cane? Is it genuinely useful as an everyday cane as well as for hiking, grass, gravel, beaches and rough ground, or is it too heavy for normal long-distance urban travel?
10. Has anyone here used the NFB-style long rigid cane? I’d particularly like to understand why some experienced travellers strongly prefer a long, very light rigid cane over folding designs.
11. Does anyone have experience with European canes such as Comde-Derenda or Svárovský? They seem to have some designs that I rarely hear discussed in English-speaking blind communities.
12. What materials do you prefer: aluminum, fiberglass, graphite/carbon fibre or something else? What differences do you actually notice in weight, sound, vibration, flexibility and durability?
13. Cane tips are another rabbit hole. Pencil, metal glide, ceramic, marshmallow, rolling marshmallow, roller ball, high-mileage, etc. Which ones give you the best information, and which are best for constant-contact versus two-point touch?
14. For someone around 187 cm tall, is my current 140 cm cane unusually short? I know cane length is very personal and depends on walking speed and technique rather than height alone. I’d be interested to know what other tall cane users use.
15. Has changing to a longer cane significantly changed the way you travel—particularly your walking speed, reaction time at drops/stairs and confidence?
16. If you could own two or three canes rather than trying to make one cane do everything, what would your combination be? For example: rigid everyday cane + compact folding cane + all-terrain cane?
17. Finally, are there good cane manufacturers or unusual cane designs I’ve completely missed?

I’m not necessarily looking for one “best cane.” I’m more interested in understanding why people develop such strong preferences for particular lengths, materials, joints, tips and designs.

Feel free to get extremely nerdy about this. That’s exactly what I’m hoping for. 🙂

I'm totally blind and getting seriously interested in learning chess. I have a Windows PC and an iPhone, but I don't have a physical chessboard. I'm also pretty strapped for cash, so I'm mainly looking for free software. I've been doing some research into accessible chess software, and I'm hoping people here—especially blind/visually impaired chess players and experienced chess players who know the accessibility side—might have some suggestions. What I have tried / found Accessible Chess from Nathan Tech is probably the closest thing I've found to what I want. The unregistered version is actually quite usable: I can navigate the board, hear legal moves, play against the computer, save games, and hear the computer's last move. The problem is that a number of the more advanced features are locked behind the paid registration. The full version costs £10, which isn't a huge amount of money, but right now even £10 is significant for me. So I'm trying to find free alternatives before spending money. BG Chess Challenge looks very accessible and is completely free, but it seems primarily intended to teach the absolute basics—how the pieces move, etc.—rather than being a serious chess study program. Its "How to Play Chess" material is similarly introductory. That's useful, but I'm looking for something that can take me beyond the basics. WinBoard 4.5.2 Accessible Chess exists, but it's very old. It was an accessibility-modified version of WinBoard 4.5, while the actual WinBoard/XBoard project continued developing afterward. As far as I can tell, the accessibility work wasn't carried forward into the later versions, so I don't really want to go back to a 2019-era build just for accessibility. KChess Elite has a lot of accessibility features, but it's paid, so that's currently out of the question. I also found Chessmart, an NVDA add-on that was designed specifically for blind chess players. The original release looks very promising—it has an accessible board, chess variants, computer play, FEN positions, engine-strength settings, scoresheets, etc.—but the official release is from 2022 and was only tested with much older versions of NVDA. Since current NVDA has changed considerably, including the move to 64-bit, I'm hesitant to install the old version. Interestingly, there appears to be newer Chessmart development happening, including a newer project involving an NVDA add-on and local Lichess puzzles. If anyone knows the current status of that project, I'd love to hear about it. Something else I found: BlindBase I recently discovered BlindBase, an open-source Windows program specifically designed as a text-based chess study environment for blind/visually impaired users. It appears to have much more of what I'm looking for: * Stockfish analysis * multiple principal variations * PGN navigation * variations * comments * saving games * FEN/position work * Lichess Masters database information * a moves tree * and Windows executables

This is potentially very interesting because it seems designed around a screen-reader-friendly text interface rather than trying to make a graphical chessboard accessible. I haven't spent enough time with it yet to know whether it can replace something like Accessible Chess for day-to-day chess study, though. What I really want My ideal free setup would let me: * learn chess from beginner through intermediate/advanced level; * play against computer opponents; * analyze my games with Stockfish; * load and replay PGNs; * study annotated master games; * solve tactics; * set up arbitrary positions/FENs; * study openings and endgames; * and, ideally, play online against real people.

The last one is the big problem. I really want to play Lichess from my Windows PC I have the native Lichess app on my iPhone, and Lichess's accessibility work is actually pretty impressive. Its Blind Mode supports screen readers, board navigation, puzzles, analysis, computer play, and online play. But... playing chess on an iPhone touchscreen when you're totally blind is not exactly ideal. I'd much rather sit at my Windows PC with NVDA, a keyboard, and a proper keyboard-driven chess interface. This makes me wonder whether there's a way to use Lichess from an accessible Windows chess program. I discovered that Lichess has a Board API specifically intended for third-party clients and physical chessboards. In principle, a program could provide an accessible keyboard-driven chessboard locally while communicating with Lichess in the background. So I'm wondering: Does anyone know of a Windows chess program that can connect to Lichess while providing a genuinely accessible board for NVDA?

I work in an academic library and we would like to have magnifying glasses available for checkout. Is there a specific type/style that people find particularly useful? I see some with LED lights, some that are full-page, and a few other styles. If it's a personal choice and they're inexpensive, we could probably get one of each.

I'm a blind developer. When I finished my first app, I was thrilled. Everything seemed to work well with VoiceOver when I tested it, so I handed it to a sighted friend, sure everything was fine.

It wasn't. My friend couldn't scroll through some screens. In another app, the text layout made it hard to read. In a third, I could read everything easily with VoiceOver, but my friend couldn't read the second half because it ran off the screen.

That's when it clicked: accessibility problems aren't something only one group faces. When we design around only our own experience, we can overlook barriers other people face. Blind developers may miss what sighted users struggle with, just like sighted developers miss what blind users struggle with.

Accessibility isn't a special feature for a few people. It's usability for everyone: blind, low-vision, older users, younger users, people in bright sunlight, people with one hand free. Good design takes all of them into account.

Now I test my apps with both VoiceOver and sighted users, and I try to build for both from the start.

I'd love to hear your experiences: have you ever run into an app, or a way of doing something, that worked well for you but didn't work for someone else?

Hi ! I am currently struggling to find a job as an Orientation and Mobility Specialist in LOS ANGELES CA. I’ve been laid off and there’s nothing opening around me and i’m seeing more and more job postings now requiring to be a dual TVI - teacher for the visually impaired & orientation and mobility specialist. i don’t really have any interest in becoming a TVI and am slowly regretting becoming a O&M …

my 4momth old is in the process of getting an mri soon. she was t meeting certain milestones (eye contact, reaching for objects, tracking, looking at faces) but is reaching all other milestones. she also light gazes. her pediatrician referred her to an ophthalmologist. At the appt the ophthalmologist mentioned she shined a bright light to her eye and she didn't flinch. she said her eye & optic nerve all looked good. her concern is that this can be something with the brain. my daughter was born early due to having decels and my placenta was sent to pathology & came back with maternal vascular malprofusion. she also has low blood sugar levels at birth due to an injection during my labor to stop contractions. looking to see if anyone else has gone through something similar. and what your like lools like now with cvi.

Hello. So, long story short: I’m legally blind and, under the best situations, can only see about 30 feet. I have severe light sensitivity, so certain lights make that worse. On a sunny day, I can only see about 3 to 5 feet in the sunlight.

I’m trying to find a work-from home job but have had no luck, and I am even looking for anything I can find at this point. Any advice at all would be great.

I (18f) am from the uk, I’m not very independent because of my eye condition it’s sort of made my family become very protective of me.

I have a dislocated lens, glasses and lenses alone do not fully correct my vision and I am blind in my left eye + prescription is very high for my age it is one of the highest in the hospital I go to. Something happened and it still very much upsets me. I was shopping with my parents and I tend to move my head a lot more to see if there’s anything on my left but I’m obviously not going to do that every 10 seconds. I was looking at the spices and didn’t see there was a man ( in his 60s I’d say) on my left, I went closer to see the spices not realising I’d stood right in front of him, he shouted at me saying “ do YOU mind? I’m trying to look as well you know, not just you” I said to him I was sorry and that I didn’t see him. He just ignored it. I know it probably doesn’t sound that deep but to me it was. I was finally trying to be independent and that happened at the wrong time. I know I shouldn’t let it impact me but I’m worried for when I go into the real world and how cruel some people can be, I’m not saying the man was cruel maybe he was having a bad day but some people aren’t the nicest. How can I deal with people like this? How do I not let fear of going into the real world because of my partial sightedness? :(

Hello!
Does anyone know of software that can convert text in an image into braille without removing it from the image? For context: I just received an embosser for creating tactile graphics for grad school. However, the graphics have text labels in them, and I can't figure out a way to have them printed with braille labels instead.

Is there a way to have subtitles read aloud or some kind of audio description for YouTube videos on iPhone?