BlindShell Classic 2 Talking Mobile Phone User Guide

: June 11, 2024
: BlindShell

BlindShell

Classic 2

1 BlindShell Classic 2: User Guide for Optional Applications

1.1 Tools

Check List

The Check List app allows creating custom checklists. This is useful for shopping lists, to-do lists, or any other types of checklists.

Creating a checklist

To create a new checklist, select the Add new list menu item.
To add a new item to the list or to browse existing ones, select the checklist and then select View items from the menu.
To modify an item (check, uncheck, rename, delete), select the item in the list.
To modify a list (rename, duplicate, archive), select the list. The Duplicate list option will create a copy of the list outside the archive. The Move to archive option will move the current list from the main list of visible checklists to the archive.

Archive

The archive can be used to hide a list from the main list of visible checklists instead of deleting it. Lists in the archive can be browsed, modified, and retrieved back from the archive to the main list of checklists.

To browse lists in the archive, select the Archive menu item.
To move a list to the archive, select the list in the visible lists and then select Move to archive menu item.
To move a list to visible lists, select the list in the Archive and then select Retrieve from archive menu item.

Currency Converter

The Currency Converter app allows converting from one currency to another. Exchange rates are updated daily.

Selecting currencies

To choose a currency to convert from or to convert to, select Converting from or Converting to in the menu respectively. Each of these menu items displays which currency is selected.
The app maintains a list of recently used currencies (initially set to a list of popular ones).
All supported currencies can be found in the All currencies sub-menu. This list can be searched using the last item of the menu.

Converting

Choose the Convert item and enter the amount you wish to convert from and con firm it.
Conversion results will be displayed on the screen.

File manager

File manager is a tool for browsing and working with files and folders on your phone. Both internal memory and SD card can be accessed.

Browse files

In this mode, internal memory and SD card can be browsed. Each item contains in formation whether it is a folder or file. Files, if the type is supported, can be opened directly from the File manager in the appropriate application. Files or folders can be copied or moved to another location of your choice. Folders can also be renamed or deleted. All these functions are available in the menu by selecting the corresponding folder or file.

Copying, moving and pasting a file or a folder

Copy or move operations can be performed with each file or folder. To copy or move a file or a folder, open the folder or file menu and select copy or move. Then the file or the folder is saved to the clipboard. Then browse to where you want to copy or move the file or the folder and select copy here or move here from the folder menu. If you choose to copy, the original file will remain unchanged when pasted to the new location. If the move option is selected, the file or the folder will be moved from the old location to the new one.

Creating a new folder or a new text document

A new text document or a new empty folder can be created in the folder by selecting the More options menu item.

Archive manager

The Archive manager is a part of the File manager and allows working with archive files (ZIP files). An archive file can be extracted to a folder. To do so, open the archive file and choose Open in Archive manager. It is also possible to create a new archive file from a folder or file. Select file or folder and then choose Open in Archive manager or select Archive manager menu item respectively.

Text editor

The File manager contains a simple text editor. You can write and edit simple text doc uments in the Text editor. To open the file in the Text editor, locate the text document, open it, and choose Open in Text editor.

Settings

The File manager has settings that modify work with files.

Sort files and folders – sets the order in which the folders and files will be sorted (by name, by last modified, by size). By default, files and folders are sorted by name.
Show file extension – sets whether file extensions should be displayed.

Note: If Show file extension is enabled, extension of file can be edited afterward. Changing file’s extension can cause a problem when opening the file. By default, ex tensions are not shown.

Translator

The Translator application allows offline translation between many languages. The translation is off-line but it’s required to download of at least one language pack. English language pack is already included in the application and cannot be removed.

To download or remove language packs, select the menu item “Language packs”. If the language pack is not downloaded, press the Confirm button to start the download. If the language pack is already downloaded, press the Confirm button to remove it. After downloading at least one language pack, select the Tranlate text menu item to translate the text. Select source and target languages, enter the text and invoke the translation of the text by selecting the “Translate” menu item. Translated text can be shared by pressing the Confirm button and selecting the Share menu item.

1.2 Communication

Telegram

Telegram is a chat application that allows communication with other users of Telegram.

Note: This function requires an internet connection.

Registration

To use Telegram, the phone number has to be registered. Enter a phone number first. If the number already has been registered, a verification code will come in the SMS message, and login will proceed.
If the number has not been registered before, enter first and last name which will be visible to other users on Telegram. Then finish the login process.

Messaging

To start a new conversation select a contact from the Contacts list.
To send a message or perform other actions, press the confirm button in conversation.
To start a group conversation, select Create a new group in the Groups menu item.

Settings

Stay connected in background – if set to on, a new message notification is active even when the Telegram application is not opened.
Other members last seen visibility – if set to on, the conversation contains information when was the contact last active in Telegram (for example 2 hours ago).
Log out – logging out of Telegram.

1.3 Media

Document Reader

The Document Reader allows you to read documents in common formats. Place documents in the Documents or Download folder of the phone or memory card to list them in the Document Reader. To categorize your documents, you can create folders for them (e.g. Personal documents). Documents can be also opened from other applications (e.g. a document received in WhatsApp).

Document Reader menu

To list documents, select the List documents menu item.
To list all documents, select the All documents menu item.
To list folders with documents, select the Document folders menu item.
To list documents by format, select the List documents by format menu item.

Document browsing

To navigate over the page elements, press the down or up button.
To navigate to the first or last element by current navigation, long-press the down or up button.
To open the the document menu, press the confirm button.

To make document reading more effective, buttons of numeric keypad have the fol lowing functions:

1 – Switch to navigation by default elements.
2 – Switch to navigation by Headings.
3 – Switch to navigation by Images.
4 – Switch to navigation by Links.
5 – Switch to navigation by Words.
6 – Switch to navigation by Paragraphs.
7 – Switch to navigation by Lists.
8 – Switch on/off automatic moving through elements.
9 – Switch to navigation by Tables.
0 – Speak the title of the document and navigation mode.

Document menu

The document menu is related to the opened document and selected element. Some types of elements (e.g. links or images) allow you to perform special actions (e.g. open link in the Internet Browser).

To show document details (e.g. author, subject or keywords), select the Document details menu item.
To find text in the document, select the Find in document menu item.
To extract text from current document element, select the Use information from text menu item.
To delete document, select the Delete menu item.
To view rendered document (supported only for pdf format), select the View document menu item.

Document viewing

To navigate over the rendered pages, press the down or up button.
To zoom-in, press the hash button. To zoom-out, press the asterisk button.
To move in the zoom-in page, press numeric buttons 2,4,6,8.
To move to the center of the zoomed-in page, press button 5. To move to the corners of the zoomed-in page press numeric buttons 1,3,7,9.

Find text in document

To find text in the document, select the Find in document menu item in the Document menu.
To move through search results in the document, press the down or up button.
To cancel search and move through default elements, press the number 1 button.

Supported formats

List of supported formats:

MS Word document (doc, docx)
MS Power point presentation (pptx)
Portable Document Format (pdf)
Rich Text Format (rtf)
Comma separated values (csv)
Text file (txt)

Settings

Earcon settings – sets which events will be announced by earcon (sound) while reading document.

Video Camera

The Video Camera allows to record video files in various qualities.

Recording videos

Select Launch video camera menu item to start video camera. Periodical clicking is used to signalize that the video camera is active but not recording.
Press the Confirm button to start recording and press it again to stop recording.
When you have finished recording a video, select the Play video menu item to play the recording, and then select the Save video menu item to save the video. To leave the video unsaved, press the Back button.

Settings

Video quality – determines the quality of recorded video. Higher quality implies larger file size.

Podcast player

The Podcast player application allows to search and subscribe to podcasts as well as download and listen to episodes.
Important notice: All podcasts are the work of independent authors. BlindShell is not affiliated with the content creators in any way and cannot be held responsible for any content.

Subscriptions

To browse available podcasts, select the Add podcasts menu item. You can browse the most popular podcasts in your country, search by title, or browse podcasts from specific country.
To play a specific episode, select the Play preview menu item.
To subscribe to a specific podcast, select the Add to Subscriptions menu item.
To manage subscribed podcasts and listen to episodes, select the Subscribed pod casts menu item.

Episode playback

To browse recently released episodes of subscribed podcasts, select the Recent episodes menu item.
To browse recently played episodes, select the History menu item.
While the episode is playing, press the Confirm button to view the episode details or resume playback, and the Back button to pause playback. Use the Up and Down buttons to rewind.

Episodes downloading

To download new episodes or manage downloaded episodes, select the Downloads menu item.
To download any number of the most recent episodes, select the Download episodes from new releases menu item.

Video Player

The Video player allows playing video files stored in the phone’s internal storage or SD memory card. Place video files in the Movies folder of the phone or memory card to list them in the Video player. To categorize your video files you can create folders for them (e.g. Family video or Music video).

Playing videos

Select All videos menu item to list all videos.
Select Albums menu item to list all folders with video files and then select specific album to list video files from this album.
Select Favourites menu item to list favourite videos.
To play video, select it from a list of videos.
While playing video, press the Confirm button to open context menu for the currently playing video.

Settings

Video mode – sets the video image orientation. The portrait image is the default orien tation of the phone, the video is centered on the screen. The landscape image rotates the video image 90 degrees clockwise and makes it fullscreen. Only the sound option plays only the sound of video files.

1.4 Games

Mau-mau

The Mau-mau is a simple card game you can play against the phone.

Gameplay

This game uses a deck of 32 cards, either German suit (values seven to ten, Unter, Ober, King, and Ace) or French suit with only values seven to ten, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace. To change the card style and opponent difficulty, select the Settings menu item.
Each player initially gets four cards. The point of this game is to get rid of all your cards.

The first card of the game can be arbitrary.
Players take turns
It is allowed to play a card that has the same suit or the same value as the previous one
If you don’t have the same suit, you must take a card from the deck. Exception: If you have Ober (or Queen), you can play it anytime and change the suit to whatever you want
If you play Ace, the opponent must also play Ace or pass their turn.
If you play Seven, the opponent must also play seven or take two cards. The penalty doubles each time seven is played.

Control

The default view is the “table”. It shows and reads back the last card, number of cards you and your opponent have. To repeat this information, press the right action button. Press the confirm button to open a menu with cards that you can play. Depending on the state of the game, there may also be other actions available, namely, Take a card, Pass or Take penalty.

Chess

The classical game of chess against a computer opponent.

Control

Move your position on the chessboard up, down, left and right using the 2, 8, 4 and 6 keys.
Move diagonally using the 1, 3, 7 and 9 keys.
The key 5 allows you to pick a chess piece. When a chess piece is picked, you can navigate to a different square of the chess board and use the 5 key again to move the picked piece there.
You can also use the up button and down button to jump around your pieces quickly. When a piece is picked, the up and down buttons will jump between all valid moves the current piece can make.

Castling

To perform castling, move the king to the appropriate square (for the white player this is either G1 or C1, for the black player this is C8 or G8). If the conditions are satisfied, the move will be allowed and the rook will be moved automatically.

Promotion

When a pawn advances to the last row of the chessboard, you will be presented with a menu where you can choose how to promote this pawn.

Context menu

To open the context menu, press the confirm button during the game.

The following actions are available:

Save the game
Undo move
History – the history of moves in the Chess notation

Dice Roller

The Dice Roller is not a regular game but the application is useful when playing board games like Ludo. A virtual die can’t be lost and the outcome is known instantly.

Roll a die – the phone will randomly pick a number from 1 to 6 (or your preferred number of sides). Press the confirm button to start a new roll.
Number of sides – you can change the number of sides the virtual die has. Starting from two (a coin), through six (a normal Ludo die) up to 99 sides.

Hangman

Hangman is a simple word game. The goal of the game is to guess a hidden word, letter by letter. You have a limited number of attempts. To change the amount of attempts, select the Difficulty menu item.

Gameplay

A word to guess is represented by a sequence of letters. In the beginning, each of the letters is hidden and replaced with a beep. On the screen, dashes are displayed instead of missing letters. This way you can tell how many letters there are. Use the keyboard to type a letter you want to guess. The game will inform you whether your guess was successful or not. A guess is successful if the word contains your letter (the order is not important). After each guess, the sequence will be updated, and you will be able to identify correctly guessed letters and their position within the word. If you need to repeat the sequence, press the right action button.
To win the game, you need to correctly guess the word using a limited amount of guesses.

Wumpus

The goal of this game is to navigate through a chessboard-like maze, collect coins and find a dangerous monster called Wumpus which needs to be killed to get to the next level.

Wumpus lives in a cave and caves are completely dark. You will have to use your imagination, short-term memory and a bit of logic to play this game.
You are armed with a bow and arrow. Don’t use your weapon too carelessly though, you initially only have three arrows. You will get more arrows in exchange for collected coins.
Move in the maze using the number keys 2, 8, 4 and 6 to move up, down, left and right respectively. The number key 5 will toggle between the shooting mode and the normal mode. In the shooting mode, you can use the 2, 8, 4 and 6 keys to shoot in respective directions.
In the maze, you can find the following objects:

Coins will increase your score, they jingle when you find them.
Pits – be careful around them, if you step on a pit, you fall down and the game will be over. Whenever you feel a breeze, a pit is nearby.
Wumpus – the monster. He smells horribly if you get anywhere close. Figuring out his exact location can be a bit tricky sometimes…
Wall – some levels may contain a wall. The wall is not dangerous, but you can not pass through. You need to find the door to get to the other side.

As you level up, the number of pits increases and so does the size of the maze. Can you get to the end?

Simon

The objective of the Simon game is to memorize and correctly repeat a gradually lengthening melody.
The phone will play one or more tones. The player’s task is to repeat the same melody. Press numeric keys 2, 4, 6 or 8 to play a tone. The melody always starts with the 2 key, but from then on you have to rely on your hearing.
Each time you repeat the melody correctly, the phone adds one tone. If you make a mistake, you lose one life and you start a new tune in the level. If you repeat the entire tune of the level correctly, you move on to the next one. The difficulty of levels gradually increases.

1.5 Vision aids

Light sensor

The Light sensor application provides information about light levels in the room.

A tone will sound and its pitch changes with intensity of the light. Press the readback button to announce the current state of illumination.
The sensor is located above the screen, left of the earpiece. For optimal accuracy it is necessary to hold the phone so that the screen is facing the source of the light.
Note: The percent value does not accurately correspond with human perception of light intensity. This app should only be used as a relative measure of light intensity: for example, to find out if a light switched off or on.

QR object tagging

The object tagging function can help you tag and later identify objects that are other wise hard to tell apart by touch – like bags or boxes with spices, cosmetic and house hold cleaning products, bottles, cans and so on. For this function you will need coded tags that can be purchased separately from your BlindShell distributor.
The tags are squares stickers about one and half centimeter by one one and half centimeter. They have to be peeled of the sheet and stuck on the object you want to tag. The tags are to be read by the phone’s back camera lense. Each tag is unique and when you tag an object, your phone will associate that tag with your spoken or written description. Later on, when you read the tag again, the description will be played back to you.

Tagging a new object

Pick an object you want to tag.
Peel one square tag off the sheet with tags and stick it to the object. If possible, avoid sticking the tag on rough or curved parts of objects.
Open the tagging application and select the “add tag” option. Periodic tapping starts, informing you that the detection is running.
Point the camera of your phone towards the tag on your object. The recommended distance is around 20 to 30 centimeters or inches. It may take some practice to get it right.
After the tag is read, you will be asked if you want to record or write a description. If you choose to record, the recording will start after a beep and will automatically finish after five seconds. If you choose to type, a standard keyboard will appear and you will be able to input the description this way.

Identifying an object

Select the “read tags” option from the menu, the phone will start tapping periodi cally once the camera is ready for tag reading.
Point your phone camera towards the tag like when tagging a new object
Once the tag is read, the camera mode will be paused and the description will be read back to you
Pressing the back button will return you to the camera mode for another tag. The description can be repeated with the down button.

Editing and deleting tags

The “list tags” option in the menu brings you to the list of your tagged objects. Here you can edit descriptions or delete a tag that is no longer in use.

1.6 Hobby

Metronome

The Metronome clicks with specified BPM and beat.

Pressing the Up and down buttons will adjust the BPM.
Pressing the Confirm button will open a menu, where you can set the BPM or beat.
Repeatedly press the Button 5 to estimate the BPM of a song.

Guitar tuner

The Guitar tuner allows you to tune guitar and other instruments. For optimal results, we recommend using headphones for feedback, because the tuner cannot listen to your instrument while it plays feedback sound or speaks. Tuning should take place in a quiet environment, as ambient sounds may distort the measurement results. The Guitar tuner operates in 2 modes:

Instrument mode – tune strings of specific instrument (e.g. guitar or bass guitar)
Free note – tune arbitrary note

Tuning an instrument

Place the phone in front of you as close to the instrument as possible. After opening the Guitar tuner, you will be informed about tuned note and selected instrument. Start playing the string you are tuning repeatedly (e.g. once per second). The tuner will play low pitch tone to signal you should increase the string frequency and high pitch tone to signal you should decrease the string frequency. If the measured frequency hits the tuned note frequency with deviation of 5 cents, tuner will play success sound.

To change the tuned note, press the Up or Down button.
To open menu, press the Confirm button.
To play tuned note, press the Button 5. To stop the tuned note playback, press the Button 5 again.
To enable Advanced mode, open menu and select the Advanced mode item. Advanced mode allows you to choose between more instruments or theirs special tunings.

1.7 Health and Fit

Stepcounter

Step Counter is an application for tracking your daily activity (steps, distance, moving time and calories). You can also view the history and statistics of your daily activity. When enabled, step counter counts the steps automatically all day, on the back ground.

History and statistics

In history it is possible to view days, weeks, months and year summary. For each period of time, a summary of the number of steps, distance, time, and calories is displayed. In statistics it is shown periods with maximum steps, daily steps goal series and much more.

Settings

Profile – data that helps to improve the accuracy of measured values. The data can be changed at any time.
Daily goal steps – number of steps required to achieve the daily goal
Notifications – turn on notifications from step counter, such as notifications of a daily step goal
Unit system – switch between metric and imperial system

Covid Pass

The Covid Pass allows storing personal covid certificates issued in the EU. Simply scan the certificate’s QR code to store it the phone, application allows presenting QR codes and details of scanned certificates.

To add a certificate, select the Add certificate menu item and then point the camera of the phone at the certificate’s QR code.
To browse scanned certificates, select the View certificates menu item.
To display certificate details such as QR code and holder credentials, select the appropriate certificate from the list and select the Show certificate menu item.
To delete scanned certificate, select the appropriate certificate from the list and select the Delete certificate menu item.

1.8 Shopping

Card Wallet

The Card Wallet app allows storing loyalty and discount cards of stores, membership cards, or any other barcode cards. Simply scan the barcode or QR code of the card and then present it to a sighted person.

Adding a card

To add a card, select the Add card menu item.
A card can have a name, barcode or QR code, front side photo, back side photo and a category. Only the name is mandatory.
To scan a barcode or QR code of a card, select the Scan code menu item and then point the camera of the phone at the code. Phone will announce when the code is scanned sucessfully.
Front side photo or Back side photo menu item opens camera to take photos of the card. Press the confirm button to take the photo.
To add card to a category, select Category menu item. Select an existing category or create new category by selecting Add category menu item. To remove a card from a category, select No category menu item.
Select Save menu item to save all properties of the card.

Presenting a card

Presenting a card to a sighted person may be useful at a shop counter, building entrance, etc.

To present a card, select the Cards menu item and then select a card from the list.
To show the code of a card, front or back side photo, select the corresponding menu item.

Editing a card

To edit or delete a card, select the Cards menu item and then select a card from the list.
Select the Edit menu item to edit the card.
Select the Delete menu item to delete the card.