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August 28th, 2024 BT Speak® System Upgrade Posted By: BT Development Team

Introduction

Blazie Technologies is pleased to offer a new update for the BT Speak. This update is free of cost for all BT Speak customers. The text version of our Getting Started guide as well as our new Getting Started audio tutorial are now included in your BT Speak and can be accessed via the Help menu. We’ve also added the ability to link your phone book and calendar to Google’s Contacts and Calendar services, improvements to the Voice Notes app, a quicker way to access the Settings menu along with other new features and improvements. 

Accessing the Getting Started Guide and the Audio Tutorial

When you access the list of help topics by pressing O-chord followed by the letter H, the first new option in the list is called “Getting Started.” It consists of the following options, along with their corresponding shortcut keys.
•    Read the Getting Started Guide: G
•    Listen to the Getting Started Tutorial, 2 Hours, 3 Minutes: T
•    What’s New in This Release: N
The Getting Started guide is a standard text document. You can read it using the same commands that are used to read any other document or help file.
The Getting Started tutorial is an audio presentation which is a little over 2 hours long. It is more extensive than the Getting Started guide. However, we feel that it is very user friendly and very easy to understand. This audio tutorial can be played from your BT Speak without requiring you to connect to the Internet. 
When listening to the audio tutorial, you can use the global media commands that you may already be familiar with. In case you’re not, we’ll outline the relevant commands below.
Pause or Resume the tutorial: dots 1-2-5-6-chord
Lower the volume of the tutorial: dots 1-2-3-5-6-chord
Raise the volume of the tutorial: dots 2-3-4-5-6-chord
Restart the Tutorial From the Beginning: dots 1-2-5-6-7-8-chord.

Read About What’s New in This Update From the BT Speak Help Menu

Many people have contacted us and asked how they will know about the new features which have been added in the update that they just installed. If you type O-chord followed by the letter H for the Help menu and type G for Getting Started, one of the new options you will find is “What’s New in This Release” with N being its shortcut.

This opens a help file containing information about everything which has been added in this update.

Changes to the Options Menu

Getting to the Settings Menu is Now Faster

In previous updates, if you wanted to open the Settings menu, you had to first open the Options menu, then open the System menu, followed by the System Administration menu. Since it’s likely that more customers will want to access what’s in the Settings menu, we have now made Settings a top-level choice from the Options menu. This means that to open the Settings menu, you only need to type O-chord, followed by the letter S. From this menu, you can adjust settings for speech, Braille, the clock, etc.

Audio Settings Have Been Moved to the Settings Menu

Since we have restructured the menus to make things easier to find, we have moved the Audio Settings menu to the main Settings menu. This means that you can now press O-chord for Options, S for Settings and A for Audio.

In previous updates, Audio Settings were located in the System Administration menu.

Microphone Settings Have Been Moved to the Audio Settings Menu

The Microphone settings, including selecting a recording format for the Voice Notes app, has been moved to the Audio submenu from within Settings. This means that all settings which pertain to audio are now in the Audio submenu.

The System Menu Has Been Renamed to the Operating System Menu

Because Settings and System both begin with the same letter, we renamed the System menu to the Operating System menu, with O being the new shortcut. This means that to get to the Operating System menu, type O-chord, followed by the letter O.

Linking Your Calendar With Google Calendar or your Phonebook with Google Contacts

Note: The following feature is not supported on the BT Speak basic model.

If you have a Google account, you can now synchronize its calendar and contacts to your BT Speak’s calendar and phonebook. This means that you can link your BT Speak’s calendar with the Google Calendar service. You can also link your BT Speak’s phonebook to Google Contacts. Wi-fi is required in order to keep your data synchronized between your BT Speak and Google. You'll find the option to enable or disable synchronizing your data with Google in the options menu for the PhoneBook as well as the Calendar (shortcut is G). Brief instructions for using this feature follow. Consult the application help files for full details on its usage.

First, from your BT Speak, enable the Link Google option and sign in to Google using the following procedure. Linking Google Contacts to the BT Speak’s Phonebook app is used in this document as an example.

  1. Press O-chord for the Options menu.

  2. Press A for the Applications menu.

  3. Press P for the Personal category.

  4. Press P for the Phonebook application.

  5. Press O for PhoneBook Options.

  6. Press G for Link Google Contacts. This presents two options, Off and On.  Navigate to “On” and press enter to enable it. If you want to link your BT Speak’s agenda calendar to Google Calendar, do the same procedure from the Calendar Options menu.

Next, return to the Phonebook main menu and select any of these functions: Add Contact, View Contacts, or Search Contacts.

Your BT Speak will say, "Desktop mode browser will now load for Google login. Press enter and wait a few moments for the web page to load". Press enter

(dot 8) and Desktop mode will load. Wait a few moments for the Chromium browser to load the Google sign-in page. Follow the web page instructions to login to your Google account and grant permission to your BT Speak to access your Google Contacts data.

If authentication is successful, you will automatically return to traditional mode. Your BT Speak will announce "Login successful. Returning to application." After pressing enter (dot 8), Phonebook will load the feature that you selected before you signed in with Google. Your Phonebook is now linked to your Google account and will update your Google Contacts as changes to your Phonebook are made. See the next section in this document for more details on synchronization. Further logins are not routinely required.

More About Synchronization

Linking your Google account enables timely data exchange between your Google account and the BT Speak’s calendar and phonebook. This keeps your data synchronized between devices. The following synchronization rules apply:
1. BT Speak's Calendar and Phonebook data will be imported into your Google account the first time you use the “Link Google”  feature.  The import occurs only once during the initial application load after booting. It will not repeat unless the “Link Google” option is cycled to “OFF” while using the
application and then to 'ON' again.
2. Any updates made to your Google Calendar or Contacts from another device will be imported into your BT Speak the first time the application is used after a reboot. Alternatively, you may force an import of Google data by cycling the “Link Google” Contacts option to 'OFF', using the application, and then switching the option to 'ON' again. 
3. Newly added or updated Phonebook or Calendar data will also reflect in your Google account as long as the “Link Google” option is 'ON'.  Updates to existing contacts and events will not be sent to your Google account if those updates were made while the “Link Google” option is OFF.

Enable or Disable Linking to Google Contacts and Google Calendar From the Settings Menu

You can also choose to enable or disable linking your calendar or your phonebook to Google from within the Settings menu. Once the Settings menu has been opened, there is a new submenu called Google, with G being the shortcut. This submenu has options for enabling or disabling linking your BT Speak’s calendar and contacts to your Google account.

Import or Export a Back-up Copy of  your Phonebook

Just as you can with your calendar, you can now choose to export your phonebook if you want to save it as a backup. You can also import an existing backup that you exported at an earlier time.

You will find these new features in the Phonebook Options menu. To access them, type O-chord for Options, A for Applications, P for Personal Applications, P for Phonebook, O for Phonebook Options.

You will find the following new options, along with their respective shortcuts:

  • Export Backup Phonebook: E

  • Import Backup Phonebook: I

Exporting a Backup Phonebook File

When you select the option to export to a backup, your BT Speak will say “name” This is asking you to enter the name of the file to store the backup of your phonebook. Type the name of the backup file, followed by enter. The backup file is stored in your home directory with a .btphone file extension.

Importing a Backup Phonebook File

When you import a phonebook backup,, the BT Speak will look for the file in your home directory. If the file is located, you will be asked if you are sure you want to import the file. If you want to complete the import, press Y for Yes, followed by enter.

Warning: importing a phonebook file overwrites the contacts in your current phonebook entries with those in the imported copy.

New Option to Install Additional Languages for RH Voice

If you choose to install the RH Voice text to speech engine from the TTS Manager, you will find a new option called “Manage RH Voice Languages.” At the time of writing, this provides you with nine additional languages which can be installed. You will also be provided with the option to remove any RH Voice languages you have previously installed. You will find these new options by going to Options, Settings, Speech Settings, TTS Manager.

Improvements to the Voice Notes App

When you start a recording, you will now feel a brief vibration after the “recording” message is spoken. As soon as the vibration stops, recording begins. Likewise, when you end the recording

either with Dot 8 or Z-Chord, you will feel two vibrations followed by a message announcing that the file was saved.

Also, note that if any media was playing before

you began recording, it will be stopped.

In addition, the Play menu now leverages the VLC functionality that is used throughout Traditional Mode. This means that you can play pause, move back and forth,

adjust the volume, etc., as you can with the radio tuner, Pandora, and our media player. It also means that you can listen to your voice note from anywhere in the BT Speak.

For example, while playing a recording of a lecture, it’s now possible to get back to the editor and take notes, if needed.

Also, recording a voice note occasionally caused unexpected behavior with the audio. For example, a few users have described the sound from their voice recordings as being somewhat robotic. This has been fixed.

New Tool to Create an Archive of Your BT Speak’s Help Files

In the Operating System menu, we have added a new Tools submenu, with T being its shortcut. In this new Tools menu is an option called Make Help Archive, with H being the shortcut. This creates an archive containing all of the BT Speak’s help files in a .zip file. This could be useful for customers who might want to easily make a copy of the help files to read on another device, such as a Windows or Mac computer.

New Command to Reset the Orca Screen Reader

We have received occasional reports from customers who found that their BT Speak was silent when switching to desktop mode. To solve this problem, we have added a new command to reset the Orca screen reader. To do this:
1.    Press O-chord for the Options menu.
2.    Press O for the Operating System menu.
3.    Press S for the System Administration menu.
4.    Press A for Advanced System Administration.
5.    Press R for the Reset menu.
6.    Press O to reset the Orca screen reader.
You will be asked if you really want to reset the Orca screen reader, with No being the default response if you press enter.
If you do want to reset Orca, press Y for Yes, followed by enter.
This resets all of Orca’s settings to their defaults, including Orca’s speech settings.
Note: this does not affect any of the settings in traditional mode. This reset option is only supported in BT Speak Pro models.

Miscellaneous Improvements

  • The Russian Braille table has been added to the Literary Braille Table settings.

  • The File Management help file has been reorganized, hopefully making it easier to locate all of the hotkeys.

  • When checking for updates, the prompt that informs you that a new update is available or that no new updates are available was not speaking automatically if keyboard echo was turned off. This has been fixed.

  • The phonebook now includes the option to review the text of any data field one character at a time by pressing dot 3-chord or dot 6-chord. As an example, you can now move character by character when reviewing a contact’s name or phone number. To do this, choose View Contacts from the Phonebook menu. Select a contact from the list and press enter. Move to a field that you want to review, such as Name or Phone Number, and press enter. The first option that you will encounter is “Read” as in “read phone number.” Press enter and you will be able to review the information in that field one character at a time.

  • Some customers have reported that they were no longer able to access the SD card once they switched over to desktop mode. This has been fixed.

  • When in the stopwatch, pressing an invalid key used to provide the message “say what?” In order to make it easier for foreign language localization, we have removed this message. Now, pressing an invalid key from the stopwatch produces the BT Speak error tone.

Conclusion

As always, we welcome your feedback about the new update. Feel free to email us using the address support@blazie.net or call us at (772) 214-1616.

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