15 best android apps for blind and visually impaired

It's time to say goodbye to your old Symbian phones along with the troubles of purchasing and installing talks to enable accessibility. You can now switch to new smart android phones to enter a new world of cellular technology with much better accessibility features and enhancements. Today I'm going to discuss 15 best Android apps to make a smart phone fully accessible for the people with limited or no vision. You may also like a complete list of android accessible games for the blind and visually  impaired players.

According to the World health organization's report on disability 2011, 15 percent of the world population is living with some kind of disability (5 percent higher than previous WHO's estimates of 1970s), and this number is rapidly increasing day by day. Rising disability rates are making manufacturers and developers more conscious about their products' accessibility to meet the diverse needs of the people. This is how more accessibility options are available today than ever before.

AS far as  smart phone's accessibility concerns, google android comes with various build-in accessibility features for the people with vision and hearing loss. Just go to the accessibility settings and enable your required options there. Also, a bunch of applications are being developed by the third-party developers to improve android's accessibility. I have listed some of the applications below.

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Android accessibility suite

Android accessibility suite is a package of different accessibility apps that help you use your device without sighted assistance or with a switched device. It includes:

• Accessibility Menu: Use this large on-screen menu to lock your phone, control volume and brightness, take screenshots, and more.
• Select to Speak: Select items on your screen and hear them read aloud.
• Switch Access: Interact with your Android device using one or more switches or a keyboard instead of the touch screen.
• Talkback screen reader: Get spoken feedback, control your device with gestures, and type with the on-screen braille keyboard.

to enable accessibility suite, just go to your device settings, choose accessibility and select your required service i.e. talkback, switch access or select to speech etc.

ScanLife Barcode and QR reader

ScanLife Barcode and QR reader is specially designed for those who have difficulty in reading bar codes and identifying different products while shopping. The app has very simple and easy to use interface. the user just needs to click a picture of the product and application does rest of the magic. It can read UPC and QR codes. As soon as the codes are scanned, it starts reading the embedded string as a QR code.

Blind Accessibility Keyboard

As its name suggests, Blind accessibility keyboard is especially designed for the people with vision impairment. The keyboard supports multi-lingual layout of different types such as layout with all keys and number keys on the first screen without long press for numbers or special characters, minimal layout with few large keys, full PC layout, full PC layout with num pad and split keyboard mode for large tablets in landscape view. It contains 3 typing modes including talkback mode, talkback and explore and talkback disable for sighted users. Also, users can choose typing behavior i.e. lift to type or double tap to type.

Blind accessibility keyboard comes with a set of special keys (Ctrl, Alt, F1-F12, Esc, Tab, Page up/down, Home/End, Print, Pause, backward /forward, delete, cut, copy paste and user defined keys) to provide maximum accessibility. Keyboard's appearance can also be modified by selecting predefined looks or changing one’s preferred color/background. Other exciting features include: clipboard history, keyboard editor (create or adjust your own keyboard), translation for more than 10 languages etc. To enable blind accessibility keyboard, simply install it from play store, After installing, go to your device settings, select language and input settings and choose blind accessibility keyboard as your default keyboard.

Lazarillo

Lazarillo is a GPS app that provides mobility assistance for blind and visually impaired to explore their surroundings independently. The app  announces nearby places, the street you are walking on, street intersections in your way and more! It requires internet connection to work properly. The app also provides active feedback while running in the background. Its main features are listed below:

• Exploration: Provides your actual position, nearby places, and street intersections while you are walking on the street, in a bus or by car.
• Category searches: Allows you to find nearby places from a specific category such as banks, health, food, shop, art, entertainment, etc.
• Specific searches: Allows you to find a route to any place using voice or keyboard.
• Help information: Lazarillo provides information about establishments that work with blind or visually impaired people. The app is linked to a web platform where the institutions are able to show important information about events, courses, workshops, and any data that a blind person may need. In that way Lazarillo collaborates with these institutions improving the communication among users, providing better connectivity between people with visual disability.

Supersense

Supersense is a smartest scanner app designed for the people with vision impairment to read, find objects and explore places independently with the help of artificial intelligence. The app has multi-lingual support and is fully compatible with talkback. It requires no internet connection and can be used in any situation. Its important features include:

• Auto camera guidance e.g. the app guides the user on how to point camera at the right angle to have accurate results.
• Read texts, documents and handwriting quickly
• Read texts on photos from other apps.
• Locate specific objects such as a chair, door, trashcan, or person around by scanning the environment with the camera
• Explore new and unfamiliar environments and hear about the objects around.

Audio to text

Audio to text enables users to convert their audio into their preferred text format. Also, it converts audio from all apps into their required text  form within a few seconds. The app supports different audio/video formats as well as more than 30 languages. Simply install the app from play store, share your audio clip with audio to text and get your results in app's dialogue box.

supported formats: MP3, OGG, OGG (opus Codec), AAC, MP4, MPEG, AMR, WAV, M4A and FLAC.

Supported languages: Afrikaans, Catalan, German, English, Spanish, French, Croatian, Italian, Dutch, polish, Portuguese, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Turkish, Greek, Hindi, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Urdu and others.

Important features of audio to text are:

• Supports all types of audio formats.
• Converts Audio clips from various applications.
• Easy to share converted text on social media.
• Supports Multiple languages.
• No Limits to convert or translate audio to text.
• Converted text automatically saved to our app.

Shouter Pro the Announcer

Shouter pro the announcer is a highly customizable application to enable your phone to read aloud certain messages, information or notifications using your phone's text to speech engine. This is highly useable when you want your phone to speak important information about a specific application without loading the app. shouter pro is a paid app but a free version is also available called caller name reader: shouter. Read the list below for its important features.

• Notification reading (jellybean(4.3) and above).
• Caller name announcement while the phone is ringing.
• Missed calls announcement if you get a missed call.
• Text messages reading.
• Time announcement at user defined intervals.
• Battery status announcement.
• Device charging states announcement.
• Voice reminders.

Aqua mail

Best e-mail application for android, Aqua mail enables you to easily access all kind of your emails within one single app, whether it's a work or personal email, a corporate exchange server or even a seldom-used secondary account. It comes with tons of customizations so that you can change look and behavior of the app. Its key features are discussed below:

• Multiple email providers: Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, FastMail, Apple, GMX, AOL and more.
• Mail accounts hosted at: Google Apps, Yahoo BizMail, Office 365, Exchange Online and others.
• Use of a “more secure” login method (OAUTH2) for Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail.
• Backup and restore feature via popular cloud services (Dropbox, OneDrive, Box and Google Drive) or a file.
• Integration with popular third-party apps providing maximum control, synergy and customizability, including Light Flow, Enhanced SMS & Caller ID, Cloud Print, Apex Launcher Pro, Nova Launcher / Tesla Unread, Executive Assistant, DashClock Widget, Tasker and more.
• Push mail for most mail services (except Yahoo) and self-hosted IMAP servers, also for Exchange and Office 365 (corporate mail).
• Home screen widgets including message counter and message list.
• Smart Folder feature to easily navigate and manage your emails.
• Calendar sync for Exchange and Office 365 (use any Calendar app or widgets).
• Contacts sync for Exchange and Office 365 (visible in Aqua Mail and in the Contacts, app. Includes auto-complete and lookup in the corporate directory).
• The rich text editor, styling choices and a large number of formatting options, including embedding images will help you create the perfect email.
• signature support you can attach a separate signature to each mail account and include images, links and text formatting.
• Notifications and reply via voice input from an Android Wear smartwatch.
• Pick from the four available Themes and further customization options to change how the app looks and operates.
• Separate network connection setting for WIFI and mobile data ensures optimum performance and cost-effectiveness.
• Push mail for Exchange servers (corporate email) and Office 365.
• Add multiple accounts.
• Use identities.

Audex

Audex is designed to provide maximum accessibility by automatically labeling all the unlabeled controls throughout the device . According to developer, Audex improves accessibility of unlabeled controls by 90 to 95%. Also, it provides audible feedback for every single event and action such as clicking, touching/Hovering, swiping on the screen, opening/closing the windows and menus, scrolling, performing the gestures, starting/Finishing the gestures, long pressing, charger Plugging/Unplugging and screen on/off etc. Sounds can also be customized for every event along with toggling them. It allows user to share sound scheme with others as well.

to get started, just install audex from play store, go to your device settings, select accessibility, choose audex and click the button which is labeled as ‘off’, and click ok. the app can be used with or without any screen reader.

Back camera selfie

Back camera selfie is a camera app that uses voice queues to guide the user adjust his or her camera at a best angle to catch perfect selfies. This feature may help the blind person to take selfies without any sighted assistance. Just start the app, turn your phone around, follow the instructions and wait. when your phone will be positioned correctly, you will hear 'smile' and selfie will be taken automatically. the app can provide audio queues in multiple languages including: German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, English, Chinese, Japanese, French, Slovene and Indonesian.

Be my eyes

Be my eyes is a completely free application that connects blind and visually impaired persons and sighted volunteers. Where millions of volunteers are ready to help visually impaired community to perform different tasks such as explore your surroundings, identifying objects, reading bills and medical prescriptions and much more. The app has multi-lingual support and is available globally, day or night.

You just have to send a notification for assistance and you will be connected with a sighted volunteer on a video call based on your language and time zone. Then volunteer  provides verbal instructions on how to complete a specific task. If a task is too complicated that cannot be accomplished with the help of a volunteer, you can call one of the company partners via Specialized Help. Anyone 17 or older can join the community as a user or a volunteer.

Nova Launcher

Nova launcher is a highly customizable, performance driven and screen reader friendly home screen replacement for Android. It comes with a lot of stunning features listed below:

• Custom Icon Themes: Nova supports thousands of icon themes available in the Play Store.
• Night Mode and Dark Theme: Have night mode come on automatically at a specific time, or just leave it on for a dark theme.
• Customizable App Drawer: Vertical or horizontal scroll, page effects, and card or immersive options are just a few of the things you’ll find available for the app drawer.
• Subgrid Positioning: With the ability to snap icons and widgets in between grid cells, it’s easy to get a precise feel and layout with Nova in a way that’s impossible with most other launchers.
• Backup and Restore: Moving from phone to phone or trying new home screen setups is a snap thanks to Nova’s backup and restore feature. Backups can be stored locally or saved to the cloud for easy transfers.
• Speed: Nova is highly optimized, with smooth and snappy animations that will even older phones a fast and fluid feel.
• Gestures: Swipe, pinch, double tap, and more on the home screen to execute custom commands.
• App Drawer Groups: Create custom tabs or folders in the app drawer for an ultra-organized feel.
• Hide Apps: Remove apps from the app drawer without uninstalling them.
• Custom Icon Swipe Gestures: Assign swipe gestures to home screen icons or folders for custom actions.

Caller announcer

Highly useful for the blind and visually impaired, caller announcer is designed for those who want to get their caller's names and numbers announced on every incoming/outgoing calls. The app helps the users to identify who is calling them without looking at their screens. Also, Caller announcer has multiple language support so that user can choose their preferred language. Following are the main features of caller announcer:

• Enable / disable incoming or outgoing Speaker call.
• Enable / disable unknown Speaker call.
• Enable / disable Silent Mode for Call.
• Set Custom message before caller name for every incoming and outgoing calls.
• Adjust Speech rate.
• Adjust Pitch rate.
• Select repeat mode announcements.
• Choose interval between repeats for announcement.

Voice aloud reader

Voice aloud reader is a great document reader that can read aloud documents of different types and formats such as web pages, news articles, long emails, TXT, PDF, DOC, DOCX, RTF, OpenOffice documents, EPUB, MOBI, PRC, AZW and FB2 eBooks and more. It serves as HTML reader, document reader and eBook reader within a one single app. You can also record spoken articles for later use. Its key features are given below:

• Open text, PDF, DOC, DOCX, RTF, OpenOffice documents or HTML files from Android file system for reading aloud.
• Click "Share" or "Send by Email" button/menu item in any app to send text to @Voice Aloud Reader for aloud reading over speakers or a headset.
• When sharing web pages to @Voice, their menus, navigation, ads, other junk are removed, leaving clean text to read or listen.
• Save articles opened in @Voice to files for later listening.
• Read eBooks on screen with their original formatting, images shown, turn pages or read continuously. Or put headphones, turn off screen and listen!
• Record spoken articles to sound files - WAV (uncompressed) or OGG (compressed) formats supported.
• Speech correction for TTS, optionally using Regular Expressions.
• Desktop/laptop Google Chrome browser extension to add articles to @Voice reading list with one click.
• Easily control speech generator volume, pitch and rate of speech.
• Auto-recognize the language to use appropriate TTS voice, if available.
• Optional sleep timer to stop speech after a given timeout.

File commander

One of the best accessible file managers, File commander allows you to handle any file on your phone, network location or cloud storage. It has easy to use interface and a lot of handy features such as Vault security (protects your sensitive data), Recycle Bin (restore and manage deleted files), Storage Analyzer (analyzes internal and external storage, File Converter (converts files to any format), MobiDrive (save/share any file or folder) & much more.

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