Thumbs up!

For those of you who donā€™t know me; I was the blind guy a couple of months ago that asked about accessibility for Screen Reading programs for the blind. I just want to give a shout out to the whole Hubitat team that has been working to make the platform accessible.

As of 2.2.6 there was a feature added that switches the web interface to a format that can be accessed by Screen Reading software such as Jaws for windows. In short what this does is switch the controls such as buttons, combo boxes and check boxes to ones that Screen Reading software recognizes and is able to use.

I have dealt with many companies in the past doing ADA accessibility and I have never seen a single company so willing without being pressured to make such major changes to their platform to become useable to the blind community. The changes that have been made have taken this interface from not useable at all to being able to navigate through everything.

The Hubitat community is also one of the most outgoing ones that I have dealt with when it comes to trying to get something to work, and Hubitat itself is the most versatile and robust home automation systems I have personally worked with. I was able to construct rules in Rule Machine that have never been possible using any other home automation hub because of their complexity and the flexibility of the Rule Machine. For those who want a more familiar interface the Simple Automation Rules gives it the look of ā€œIf This Than Thatā€.

For anyone using a Screen Reading program to turn this feature on: from the main menu select ā€œsettingsā€, then ā€œHub Detailsā€ and check the box for ā€œEnable Text To Speech (TTS) friendly UIā€. Only do this if you are using screen reading software.

As of right now I am the only blind person that I know of that is currently using Hubitat; however, not the only one using home automation. I am hoping by making this posting and getting LIKES on it that it will be indexed by Google and spread to others who are blind that are looking for home automation that is accessible.

To help out and do my part I am more than willing to answer any questions or to walk others through anything specifically relating to working with the Screen Reading software and Hubitat. Just drop me a PM and Iā€™ll get back to you.

Once again great job Hubitat!

Rio

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100%. Particularly @bravenel, who responded to your initial post and immediately recognized your need for Jaws compatibility.

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Bravo!
This is a good story to tell...
Whenever someone asks you about Hubitat, tell them this story!

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And as if that werenā€™t enough, they also just released Basic Rules :wink:.

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Thanks for sharing your story! I'm glad staff were so responsive to your concerns! If you do not use a screen reader, then it's hard to know how things work for people who do, so this is good to know. There is a well know SmartThings community member who also (openly) uses a screen reader and I believe tried Hubitat in its early days but apparently didn't stick around. I think accessibility concerns were part of the reason, but I don't know the full story (and don't want to pretend that this was 100% of it, as of course there is a lot more that goes into switching platforms: device compatibility, ease of use for other people in the same household, and personal preferences, among other factors). There are probably even more people out there who have not shared their experiences. Maybe we will see more of them now. :smiley:

Also, thanks for your willingness to help answer questions in the forum! The community is one of my favorite parts of Hubitat, and it's always nice to see more people contribute.

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As I told Rio when he first brought this up, my daughter is blind. Yet she holds down a US Bureau of Reclamation job as an accountant using Jaws every day. To me, that's just amazing, and I find it amazing that Rio finds Rule Machine of all things to be helpful for him! Could hardly NOT undertake the effort to make this work for him and others. Our engineer @moncho1138, Ramon, did the work, and we're all happy we could get this to work.

@massageinlargo you should check out Basic Rules, and let me know if that works for you too.

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Thumbs up.
When I was much younger I implemented a computer system for people reading braille at a library for blind people. I learned a lot about the difficulties with modem computer programs and how to make them work with supporting software like the one you are using.
I'm very happy to hear about the willingness of the team to quickly jump into action and create a lasting solution.

Over at ST a few years back I found a wheelchair bound man's discussions about how he used automation to enhance his quality of life hugely inspirational.

Thank you so much for sharing. And thanks to the HE team for caring.

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I have switched platforms several times over the years. I have worked with X10, Wink, SmartThings and now Hubitat. Honestly if it wasnā€™t for the changes that were made to the platform it wouldnā€™t have been useable enough for me to do what I wanted with it. If it wasnā€™t for taking the time to post in the forums and having Bruce respond in such a positive manner then the hub probably would have been returned, and I would have been stuck with a previous hub that I consider substandard in my view compared to Hubitat.

Ramon has also not only done an amazing job of making all the changes, but he was able to do it in such a short time. Some of the changes came so quickly that I was pleasantly surprised to see them in the next revision. I donā€™t doubt that any issues that I manage to find that he will find a fix for them.

I have set up a couple of rules in the Basic Rules; however, I havenā€™t gone through all of it yet. So far all the changes that Ramon has made have worked well. I will go through each option to be sure I canā€™t find anything else. Based off what I am seeing Iā€™m not anticipating any new major issues, but I want to be sure to go through each possible option.

There are a couple of little tricks using Jaws that I use to get around the system faster instead of scrolling down each time. I am in the process of making a cheat sheet for jaws users that Iā€™ll post once it is done. Advanced Jaws users may already know some of these commands, but there are little things that just help make things easier to a first time user of Hubitat.

My personal experience with the Hubitat environment has opened many more possibilities. Bruce kind of got a kick out of the fact I like Rule Machine so much because it is so involved and there is so much to it. Having a programming background once I found out what each option did I come up with a new idea on a new automation. I have probably rewritten several rules quite a few times just because I found a better way of doing something that has a less chance of being triggered accidentally. I know that there are many apps that simplify automations, but I just canā€™t seem to break away from the Rule Machine because of its control logic and micro management of devices.

I actually get offended when I walk into someoneā€™s house and things donā€™t happen automatically. You can call me an automation junkie or maybe just lazy, but there has been several times I have told people ā€œyou need a Hubitatā€!

Rio

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I never touched a computer before I lost my sight, but have been working with them more years than I care to admit. In fact my first computer was running dos 2.11. for anyone who knows the history of the internet I was using computers before the internet went public and the best you could do is connect to other computers (BBS) through a 300bod modem using ProComm.

Rio

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Fantastic positive feedback.

:+1::+1::+1::+1:

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Quite possibly the best thread I've read :slight_smile:

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