My dad is suffering from macular degeneration, and over the last few years has been finding it harder and harder to read newspapers. He has been using a large magnifying glass until lately, but even that isn’t working too well now as you can imagine.
I’m kicking myself for not having thought that something like this exists sooner – but he has been given a Bierley Monomouse to try out. Bierley’s own website is here.
Bierley Monomouse
It is basically shaped like a computer mouse (but bigger), and consists of a camera and LED illumination in the housing, and you plug it into the A/V socket on your TV. It then displays a magnified image of the newspaper or magazine (or letter, etc.) as you sweep over it.
I have to be honest and say that for something so simple, it is rather incredible. I just wish I’d have though of this with all the cameras I’ve been playing with over the last few years. It is a simple – but brilliant – idea.
The only suggestion I would have is that the TV version could do with a zoom control – but obviously that would put the price up from the very reasonable £89.00 for the black & white version. There is a colour one, too (£129.00) and various ones for your PC.