BT Speak Applications
Editor
Our editor is front and center on BT Speak. When you power on your unit, you’re automatically in our editor, right back in the document you were last working with. Use friendly and intuitive chord commands from the Braille keyboard to navigate through your documents by character, word, line or by paragraph. Keep multiple documents open simultaneously and quickly flip from one document to the next. Place a mark anywhere in your document so that you can easily delete a block of text. Cut, copy and paste blocks of text across any of your documents. Conveniently read and compose documents using contracted Braille and choose the Braille code that’s best for you; Computer Braille, UEB, EBAE, U.K. contracted Braille, and more.
Noteworthy editor features:
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Flexible Navigation: Move through files by character, word, line, or paragraph for precise control.
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Advanced Spelling Support: Spell words normally or phonetically (A for Alpha, B for Bravo, etc.).
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Phonetic Character Feedback: Hear individual characters spoken phonetically for better clarity.
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Powerful Search & Replace: Find text with regular expressions and advanced find-and-replace functionality.
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Efficient Text Entry: Insert text at the cursor or use append mode, which continuously adds new text to the end of the file—just like the original Braille 'n Speak.
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Cursor Tracking: Read from one part of a document while writing in another, keeping reading and writing cursors independent.
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Structured Document Navigation: Add and jump between headings with support for six heading levels.
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Seamless Multi-File Management: Keep hundreds of files open at once, with BT Speak remembering your exact place in each file—even after a restart.
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Quick File Switching: Instantly jump to open files by pressing 1-10 for recent files or A-Z for the first 26 open files.
For more detailed information, see: Editor documentation
YouTube
BT Speak has a YouTube player customized for blind users, enabling easy methods to search for YouTube videos, navigate your subscribed channels, and manage your channel subscriptions. To find and play a YouTube video, simply select the Search Videos option, enter a search term, and navigate the list of video titles matching your query. Selecting a video title will present options to play the video, view more content from the channel authoring the video, or subscribe to the channel. Select play video, wait a few moments for it to load, and Bam! your YouTube video begins to stream right from your BT Speak. Use key commands to control the volume or pause the video.
Web Search
Expedite your web searches using BT Speak's custom search engine tool powered by Duck Duck Go. Simply select Web Search from the Applications menu, enter your search term, and BT Speak will instantly generate a list of the top matching web pages. Select a search result from the list and the page automatically opens in your preferred browser—getting you where you need to go, quickly and efficiently!
Google Drive
Easily access and manage your Google Drive files with BT Speak’s Google Drive application, designed specifically for blind users.
Browse & Download: Select Manage Files to view all files and folders in your Google Drive, with options to download or view file details.
Effortless Backups: Need to back up your BT Speak documents? Simply navigate to a file or folder in the file browser, press S, and BT Speak will upload it to Google Drive—making it accessible from another device or ready to share.
Stay connected, organized, and in control of your files with ease!
Voice Command
Use Voice Command to execute a variety of commands just by talking to your BT Speak. Ask for the definition of a word, get the current time and date, receive a local weather forecast and change the master volume level along with other useful commands. Also see relevant documentation: Voice Command
Voice Notes
This app turns your BT Speak into a voice recorder. Use Voice Notes to record a quick phone number, a reminder or your next class lecture. All of your recordings are saved on your device and you can record your notes in Wav, Mp3 or free lossless audio formats.
Media Player
Use our media player to play a variety of different media files. Use the keyboard to increase or decrease the volume and rate of the media. Pause, resume and change the volume using global keystrokes that will work from any document, menu or application. Your BT Speak can now entertain you with music, drama, lectures or any type of media you’d like to listen to. See documentation for more: Media File Browser
Radio Tuner
Our radio tuner lets you listen to over 50,000 radio stations. You can find stations by entering a name (even a partial name) or you can browse the directory by location. Choose from terrestrial as well as Internet-only streams. We even have a category reserved for stations broadcasting specialized content for blind listeners. You can easily add any station to a list of favorites for even faster access. For more details, see: Radio Tuner documentation
Pandora (U.S. only)
Use our Pandora app to listen to music. Play songs, albums and playlists on your BT Speak. Free and paid plans are available. A Pandora account is required to use the service. For more information or to sign up, visit www.pandora.com. Also see Pandora Radio documentation
AI Chat (Chat GPT)
AI Chat is a ChatGPT program specifically tailored to blind users. Ask questions, get information, obtain writing suggestions or just about anything else that comes to mind. An OpenAI key is required. See AI Chat documentation for more details.
Agenda Calendar (optionally sync with Google Calendar)
Use your BT Speak to manage all of your events and appointments. Easily browse your calendar to read your appointments for the day, for the current week or month by month. Search for an event by date or by keyword. Link your Google Calendar to keep your devices synchronized! See Calendar documentation for details.
Phonebook (optionally sync with Google Contacts)
Organize and manage your contacts effortlessly with BT Speak's Phonebook. Our intuitive interface allows you to store names, phone numbers, email addresses, mailing addresses, and additional notes for all your contacts. Easily browse and search for specific contacts, and enjoy the flexibility to add unlimited information for each entry. Link your Google account to keep your contacts synchronized between devices!
Scientific Calculator
Built on the robust bc standard, BT Speak's Scientific Calculator is a powerhouse for the math and science needs of children, adult students, and professionals alike. It comes preloaded with essential scientific functions and constants, including Planck's constant, Avogadro's number, the gravitational constant, Boltzmann's constant and many more. In addition to the convenience of a standard four-function calculator, you can calculate exponents, and utilize comprehensive trigonometric and hyperbolic functions. See Calculator documentation for more details.
Stopwatch & Countdown Timer
Use our stopwatch to time an event and get accurate readings down to a tenth of a second accuracy. Press the enter key to instantly know how much time has elapsed and the space key to pause and resume. Use the countdown timer to count down, specifying the amount of minutes and seconds for when you want to be notified. See Stopwatch documentation for more details.
Dictionary
Use our dictionary to look up the definition of a word. You can easily review the definition line by line or word by word. Note: an Internet connection is currently required.
Weather
Use our weather app to obtain weather conditions in your local area or in any part of the world. Information can be presented as metric or imperial units, miles per hour, meters per second, knots, and more.
Gregorian Date Calculator
Use the Gregorian date calculator to figure out the day for a specific date or what the date will be 150 days from today. See full documentation for more details: Gregorian Date Calculator
Morse Code
Learn Morse code the fun way! Enter letters, words and phrases and hear them converted into the Morse pattern of dots and dashes.
LibreOffice Writer (word processor)
Writer is a powerful word processor and desktop publishing tool. Write anything from a quick memo to your next book, complete with table of contents and index. Change fonts and styles as needed and use the auto-correct tool to fix typos and spelling mistakes as you work. Since
Writer is compatible with Microsoft Word, you can easily open and save Word documents to seamlessly collaborate with Microsoft Office users. Learn more at https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/writer/
Mozilla Thunderbird (email client)
Thunderbird is a full-featured email application. Create as many email accounts as you want and manage all of them separately or in a unified inbox. Use Thunderbird as your contacts manager for keeping track of names, email addresses, phone numbers and other important information. Use powerful search tools so you can focus on just the emails you need to read at any given time.
Learn more at https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/
LibreOffice Calc (spreadsheets)
Calc is an accessible spreadsheet application. Calculate, analyze and easily manage your data. Use statistical and banking functions for creating formulas to perform calculations on your data from simple to complex. Use what-if calculations to perform tasks like seeing how changing the time period in a loan calculation affects the interest rates or repayment amounts. Open spreadsheets which were written in Microsoft Excel and save your Calc spreadsheets in Excel’s format for those who are locked into using Office.
Learn more at https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/calc/
Chromium and Firefox (web browsers)
Use these standard Web browsers to access any Web site. Use the Orca screen reader's intuitive commands to move to specific elements or sections of the page, such as next or previous heading, link, table, form control, and more. The same keyboard commands that you already know from other platforms will work the same way from the BT Speak Braille keyboard. For detailed documentation, see: Desktop Applications