Building Your Independent Living Toolkit

From hobbies to life on the go, we have a wide variety of products for day-to-day life to support adults who are blind or low vision. Check out this list of tools to support your independent lifestyle!

Inside the Home

• Mantis Q40: Keep braille at your fingertips anytime, anywhere, with the Mantis Q40: a Bluetooth keyboard and 40-cell refreshable braille display.

• Chameleon 20: Featuring Text-to-Speech, the Chameleon 20 is the perfect device for learning and reinforcing braille literacy skills. This portable braille display with local apps, like an editor and library, is perfect for improving productivity in the classroom and the workplace.
• Functional Skills Assessment (FSA): The FSA is a tool for evaluating daily living skills for students in primary grades up to post-secondary transition programs.
• Talking Cooking Thermometer: Use this large-display talking thermometer for cooking, hobbies, gardening, and much more! Use the built-in eyelet at the top to hang the thermometer within easy reach.
• Push Button Padlock: This accessible push-button padlock makes entering combinations a breeze! Just push five buttons and presto, you’re in!
• Color Star: Detect and analyze the colors and lighting of your surroundings with this lightweight device.

• Tactile Clothing Tape: Allows braille readers to keep colors and other information about their clothing and linens exactly where they need it: attached to the item and ready to be read. The brailled information remains clean and readable after going through automatic washers and dryers, and even holds up under an iron if a layer of fabric is kept between the iron and the label!
• Labeling, Marking, and Organization: A Self-Help Guide for Persons After Vision Loss: This book with accompanying recordings of the text on CDs teaches you to organize with and without labeling and to create customized marking systems.
• EZ Track Address Book: Get organized with this large print address book which includes a plastic template for easy entry.
• Feel ‘n Peel Stickers: These tactile/visual stickers have a variety of uses! Feel ‘n Peel Stickers are printed and/or embossed on durable plastic with bright, translucent colors.
• Select Switch: This battery-powered switch with function control features helps disabled individuals communicate and control battery-operated appliances, toys, and device
• Talking GlowDice: Simply push the Roll button and a randomly generated number between one and six is announced in digital speech, and the corresponding number is displayed in bright blue LEDs.

Outside the Home

• Explorer Bright Ray Kit: Whether it be activities for daily living or an exciting adventure – this new LED headlamp will help light the way!
• Picture Maker Wheatley Tactile Diagramming Kit: Use this kit to create maps, charts, shapes, and your own tactile masterpieces.
• Walk/Run for Fitness Kit: Use this tether and accompanying talking pedometers to walk/run safely with a human guide.
• 30 Love Tennis Kit: This kit is great for practicing sound localization and socialization and meets national physical education standards.

• Deaf Blind Pocket Communicator: Easily communicate on the go with this no-tech, pocket-size Communicator, featuring raised lettering!

APH Press Books

• Making Life More Livable: Simple Adaptations for Living at Home after Vision Loss: Making Life More Livable is an important resource for older adults who are losing their vision and the family members who support them.
• O&M for Independent Living: Strategies for Teaching Orientation and Mobility to Older Adults: This book is an important guide for orientation and mobility instructors, rehabilitation specialists, occupational therapists, and other professionals who work with adults who may be new to vision loss.
• Out of Sight, Not Out of Mind: Personal and Professional Perspectives on Age-Related Macular Degeneration: In this book, 93-year-old Lindy Bergman illustrates the ways in which life with low vision due to age-related macular degeneration (AMD) can be lived with independence, dignity, and personal satisfaction and provides powerful information on effective service delivery.
• Aging and Vision Loss: A Handbook for Families: This book offers reassuring and helpful information on meeting the needs of a family member who is losing their vision.

For more information on living with vision loss, visit visionaware.org and for related products, visit aph.org/shop.