The Monarch 1.4 update came out recently, adding Bluetooth support to the Braille terminal, so I decided to test it with my iPhone. I was able to connect it using Bluetooth by going to Settings -> Accessibility -> VoiceOver -> Braille, opening Braille Terminal on the Monarch and selecting Bluetooth, and choosing the Monarch from the iOS Braille displays list. To my surprise, iOS displayed multi-line Braille, and not just the current control! It displays as many items as will fit on the Monarch's display, with the currently focused item being at the top. The currently focused item also has an eight-dot selection indicator next to it, similar to what the Monarch does in its own menus. When I open a webpage in Safari, it displays lines of text in the same way. There is no formatting and there is indentation sometimes, but it does not seem to correspond to paragraphs. When a word is bolded or italicized and VoiceOver makes it a separate item, it is displayed on its own line on the Monarch; there is never more than one item on a single line. Unfortunately, none of the keys on the Monarch do anything; even the panning keys do not work. I was also able to connect it with USB C, and then input did work; I could navigate and type with the Perkins keyboard. However, the point and select method does not move the cursor or activate items, whether with one press of the center button or two. Also, pressing the panning keys moves way more than it should; it moves much farther than the last item on the display. For the left arrow keys, the left and right arrows move between rotor categories, and the up and down arrows move between rotor items. The arrow keys on the right behave the same way, except for some reason the left arrow moves to the previous item like dot 1 chord, but the other arrows behave the same as the ones on the left. Braille Access does not work; it can be launched with backspace and enter, and you can type Braille into it, but nothing is displayed; the Monarch continues to display what it was displaying before Braille Access was started. I am using an iPhone 16E with iOS 26.2.1.
Comments
Apple is working on this.
I work for APH we don't have a timeline yet, but I am so excited to fully have this working.
Amazing
My focus now is getting the PIAF but man I want dotpad x so hard...
Have fun you rich guys! Or gov funded guys :)
Joke aside, as Steven says on double tap, we need as much feedback for these products as we can get.
Progress
Glad to see the Bluetooth support added. Now if someone could fix why the terminal mode only does 8 lines when the display can do ten?
Overall though most of the work is going to fall to the screen readers. It is a big change going from focus only orientation to thinking and presenting a more spatial view. For example, multiple lines of a list or paragraph, just not the current line. Apple has a lot of control so there is a chance they can do this well.
Given how bad NSTextView is
With all the bugs we have with text and voiceover, Apple better clean their mess of a codebase soon :)
Question
How does this point and select method work anyway? Like practically. You touch the cells more firmly or what?
Re: Point and select
You touch the cell with a finger keeping finger rather vertical in orientation so the infrared camera can see it, and you press a button. There is another mode too but I am not familiar how it works. All involve some form of pointing and pressing a dedicated button I believe. The whole screen is not touch sensitive which I am kind of surprised about but probably reduces manufacturing cost. Hope this helps.
iOS version?
Which iOS version was tested?
I think I'll wait until Apple's developers make a little more progress. I have access to a Monarch (running version 1.4 of the software) with which to test. I also have an iPad running iPadOS 26. My iPhone is too old to upgrade beyond iOS 18, but the iPad is similar enough that we can reasonably expect the same code to be included in VoiceOver for iPad.
I assume there hasn't been any progress on macOS yet, but I'm well positioned to test this also.
iOS Version
I'm on 26.2.1; I haven't upgraded to 26.3 yet. I do not have a Mac yet and I am still in the process of setting up Hackintosh on my new computer, so I cannot test MacOS right now.
Touch Sensitive Screen
At the last NFB Convention, APH said that the Braille Terminal sends all touches on the display area, and screen readers can implement things like gestures without pressing the button. Pressing the button twice while one's finger is touching the screen will send a cursor routing event to that cell, but through the Monarch's extensions of the Braille HID protocol, screen readers can also receive touch events regardless of the button. No screen reader has implemented this yet, although APH said that Apple might use this to implement something similar to touchscreen gestures.
Re: touch sensitive screen
That is very interesting. Come on screen readers, let's hurry.
Try the latest beta of iOS
If you have the ability to update to the beta and feel like doing that, you may find it a bit less annoying under 26.4 beta 2. I read several chapters with the Kindle app using it. No issues panning with 1.4 of the Monarch firmware. Other apps still need some work though, like News. I think that may have something to do with the ads being served up in stories getting in the way, but I'm not sure. Either way, it's something I'm monitoring and have added several bug reports to our tracker. Here's hoping things keep improving!
USB or Bluetooth?
When you read your Kindle book, how were you connected? I connected mine via Bluetooth and SSDD.
Hello from the Monarch!
I am now writing this comment from the Monarch!
I have it connected over Bluetooth and am able, to some extent, read email. This is my first attempt at entering text.
The email scrolls fine with the keys on the Monarch that gives you the next 10 lines. You open it with Dots 3 6 with space. You go back with B with space. You select which email to read by touching the screen However, when you mute speech with M with Space, nothing shows on the display. When speech is on, you know where you are in the rotor based on what you hear VO tell you.
Overall, I am pleased with how support for the Monarch is coming! This is very encouraging!