Safaricom new smart move for the blind with braille watch details

How many times have you thought to yourself there is no way something is going to happen no matter how much effort is put into it.

Well somebody’s vision has finally fulfilled some dreams as now persons living with visual impairment and blindness can independently access Mpesa messages in braille.

This follows Safaricom’s Friday announcement that customers who have lost their sight can now conduct financial transactions with confidentiality through the DOT Braille watch.

The watch was unveiled in a partnership between Safaricom and DOT Incorporation.

The Dot Braille Watch is an innovation that is an equivalent of a smart gear that displays SMS notifications in braille hence enabling a visually impaired person to read.

The watch brings all the notifications from any app on a user’s smartphone directly to their wrist. Every text message received on the smartphone is instantly translated to Braille.

Users can then read the message comfortably with the intuitive touch controls on the watch face.

It also provides direct access to all the practical features a user needs such as the alarm clock, timer, stopwatch, time and date,and who is calling without seeing it.

The device has customisable auto-scroll features for the visually impaired. Users can also directly save their Mpesa or any other important messages to check again later.

M-PESA has since been extended to offer loans and savings products, and can also be used to disburse salaries or pay bills, which saves users further time and money as compared to doing so from banks.

M-Pesa has been particularly successful in Kenya, compared to mobile money platforms in other countries. Contributing factors here include the exceptionally high cost of sending money by other methods; the dominant market position of Safaricom; the regulator’s initial decision to allow the scheme to proceed on an experimental basis, without formal approval; a clear and effective marketing campaign.