Scott Davert
In the current braille display market, most devices use a Perkins-style keyboard. This allows for more portability and the option of typing in contracted braille, which some people find preferable. One of the disadvantages of a braille display with the Perkins-style keyboard is that the individual has to learn a series of specific commands for controlling either the display itself, or its driving screen reader.
A device has come along to address the challenge of learning new commands for each operating system. That device, on which I am currently composing this article, is the Mantis Q 40. Unlike many of its counterparts, this device comes equipped with a standard QWERTY keyboard. It also has a set of internal applications for file management, composing and editing documents, reading books, and performing calculations. It also provides the option to download Bookshare and NFB Newsline content directly to the device. Finally, it has the capability to connect up to five Bluetooth devices simultaneously, along with one USB connection.
What's In The Box?
Inside the box is the Mantis Q, a USB power adapter, an A to USB C cable for charging and connecting to external devices, and a braille and print Getting Started guide. The units shipping now also come with a protective (TPU) case. One was not included with mine, since there were delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I asked Greg Stilson, APH Head Of Global Innovation, to describe the case, and this was his response:
This is basically a green case that the Mantis sits in, when being used. It covers the bottom and all edges for protection. It does not however have a closing flap. APH does sell an optional Executive Products case made of high quality leather for those professionals who will be on the move a lot... TPU stands for Thermoplastic Polyurethane. It is made up of plastic, elastic and rubber and is extremely common in the smartphone case industry.
Orientation
Placing the Mantis on a flat surface with the braille display nearest you, it is laid out as follows. On the front of the device, there are a series of five buttons or “thumb keys.” From left to right, they are: Previous, Pan Left, Home, Pan Right, and Next. The Previous thumb key will take you to the previous item, the Pan Left button pans the braille to the left, the Home button (which can also serve as an Escape key) will take you Home, the Pan Right key will pan the braille to the right, and the Next key will take you to the next item.
Along the left side of the device, the closest thing to you is a Type A USB port, behind that is a small round Power button, and furthest from you is the USB C port. The USB A female port is used to plug in a flash drive to manage data. To start the device, press and hold the Power button for about two seconds. The device takes about fifteen seconds to start up. The Mantis will indicate “starting” on the braille display. A progress spinner will indicate that the device is booting until it is ready. A brief press of the Power button while on puts it to sleep. Another brief press of the Power button wakes the device. The USB C port is used to both charge the Mantis and also to connect with external devices through USB. Along the back edge, you will find a slot for SD cards. The Mantis accepts SD cards up to 64 GB.
The closest thing to you on the surface is the 40-cell display. To me, the braille feels a lot like the BrailleNote Touch and has a slight spongy feel to it. Behind each cell is a cursor routing button. Behind the cursor routing buttons you will find the QWERTY keyboard. It has a very similar layout to a laptop keyboard without the number pad. The bottom row of keys, from left to right, are as follows: Control, FN (function), Windows, Left Alt, Space Bar, Right Alt, Right Control, Left Arrow, Down Arrow, and Right Arrow. Slightly above the Down Arrow is the Up Arrow key. On a Mac or iOS device, the functions of the bottom row are slightly different than on Windows and the internal programs. To the left of the Spacebar, starting at the left edge are the Control key, FN, Option, and Command keys. To the right of the Spacebar are the Option and Right Control key.
The remaining five rows of keys reflect what is typically your QWERTY keyboard layout on a laptop without a number pad. For more details, you can consult the User Guide, which explains the rest of the layout in detail.
A Familiar Interface
When you start the Mantis, you will be at the Main Menu. Just like with Windows, you can navigate among your choices by pressing the Up or Down Arrow keys. If you are in an application, you can press the Windows or Home key to return to the main menu. Pressing Escape will close the application or menu as well. Also similar to Windows, you can use first-letter navigation to jump to menu items. For example, pressing the letter T will jump you to the Terminal option. Pressing Enter or a routing button activates the selected item.
One difference between the Windows keyboard command set and the Mantis, is that pressing the Alt key while using an internal application does not activate the application's menu. You will instead need to press Control + M. Shift + F10, which launches context menus within Windows, also doesn't work.
GetSet With Settings
When you turn the Mantis on for the first time, it will likely be set to uncontracted braille. If so, and if you wish to use contracted braille, press Alt + Control + G. If you prefer, you can change any kind of braille settings by creating a profile. Profiles allow you to quickly change any braille settings, but also allow the user to quickly switch among other supported languages. To do this, choose Settings from the main menu. The second option is Braille Profile. Use your Down Arrow key to locate Add Profile. Press Enter and, once the settings are to your liking, press Enter to proceed. Once you have configured the new profile, select a name when prompted, then press Enter. After you have saved the Profile, you can use the Previous or Next thumb keys, the Arrow keys, or the first letter of the name of the profile. It should load within a couple of seconds. The profile in use will be indicated by dots seven and eight in the first cell.
Continuing to explore the Settings menu, the top-most item is User Settings. Select this item to set system-level options. Items are toggled on and off by pressing enter.
Separate items for managing Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections are also accessed from the Settings menu.
File Management
The Mantis comes equipped with 16 GB of internal storage. It also supports flash drives and SD cards. The file manager application allows you to browse, open any supported file type, delete, copy, cut, paste, and even search for a file within multiple connected drives. I found that, even when a drive has hundreds of files, searching only takes a few seconds. You can only search for a file name, not its contents.
The supported file types by the Mantis include .brf, .txt, .docx, and .zip files that contain .txt or .brf from Bookshare. Text-based files such as .txt and .docx will open nearly instantaneously. .brf and specialized braille files will take a little more time, since they are translated into text format. A 450 KB .brf file from Bookshare took approximately ten seconds to load. The same book downloaded in Daisy format took about three seconds to load.
The Editor
The editor application allows you to open, create, and save files in plain text format. Though you can open files in .brf, .brl, .txt, .doc, and .docx formats, any editing or creation of a file will be saved in .txt format. You can edit, copy, cut, paste, find, find and replace, select, select blocks of text, auto scroll, and use a read-only mode in case you don't want to modify the open file. The menu structure closely follows that of a typical Windows word processing program, as does the keyboard command structure. When creating or opening a file, you will find that there are brackets that show the cursor’s location. These follow you as you type.
There is an option to type in braille within the editor. Pressing the F12 key will toggle between QWERTY and braille modes. When in braille mode, the home row of the QWERTY keyboard is used to enter braille dots. The type of input, contracted or uncontracted, depends on the braille profile in use. Rapid typing with this input method is reliable, and the translation into text format is instantaneous.
Typing on the Mantis’ keyboard seems to be about as quiet as a conventional laptop. Tapping the power button will put the Mantis into a standby mode that retains any changes in your current file. When you wake the Mantis back up, that current file will instantly appear and you can continue editing. The drawback to this method is that if the system crashes for some reason, your work will not be saved. I’ve been using the Mantis for three weeks in my daily workflow and have only had the Mantis crash on me once prior to the release of the 1.01 firmware. I have not encountered this since the upgrade, which happened about a week before writing this article.
Notably absent from the editor is any sort of spell checking function. I hope that one can be included with a future firmware update, though I understand that this may not be a desired feature in the education environment. I found using the editor to be intuitive and enjoy the fact that I can save the file directly as a plain text document. Multiple storage and connectivity options allow for seamless sharing of files between devices and people.
The Calculator
The calculator application is very straightforward and appears to work as advertised. If you have used a calculator within Windows, you will already be familiar with the keyboard shortcuts to carry out most of the functions.
Online Services
The Mantis can download content from Bookshare and NFB Newsline, if you have an account with either of these services. Within the Bookshare application, you will find the option to configure your account and also to choose your preferred format. I first chose .brf, but later chose DAISY for the increased navigability.
Bookshare
After logging in to Bookshare, you have options to search by title, author, or keyword, or to perform a full text search. There are also options to browse by most popular, recently added, and category. Once you perform a search or browse by one of the options listed, you will be presented with a list of titles that match. To get more information, select the title to be presented with options to download, learn the author, or read the synopsis. I find it convenient to search and download content internally. It would be even better if the author were added to each result so you could see who wrote the title without having to select it.
NFB Newsline
Like the Bookshare application, NFB Newsline requires the user to have a valid user name and password in order to access materials. The first option in this application is “configure account,” which not only allows you to log in, but gives you the option to set how often you would like your list of publications to be updated and if old issues of these publications should be kept or automatically deleted once new issues arrive.
If you already have a list of subscriptions, they will automatically be added to the list of content you will download. My favorites and subscriptions are the same, so it's possible this list is generated from my favorites. You can add other publications by selecting "manage publications" from the applications menu and then selecting the periodical to which you want to subscribe. Press escape when done. Subscription is indicated by dots seven and eight underneath the title. To unsubscribe, select the publication again.
The Library
The Library application is where you can go to find and read your downloaded content. Alternatively, you can open the content in the file manager application, though you won't have as much navigation capability with this method. The Library allows you to sort by the most recent downloads, to pull up an alphabetized list of downloaded content, and to search for a specific file name.
The load times for files are the same as when you're in the file manager. You have access to all of the same Editor capabilities, and there is support for robust navigation when reading formats such as DAISY. This means, for example, if you have a DAISY book downloaded from Bookshare, you can quickly jump from chapter to chapter. You can also jump quickly between sections and articles when viewing content downloaded from NFB Newsline. Sections are typically at level two, while individual articles are typically at heading level three. When you have set the navigation to what you prefer using Control + T while in a book, you can then press the Previous and Next keys to jump by the element you have the Mantis set to. Only those navigation options available for the currently open book will be shown. These include sentence, paragraph, level, percentage, and bookmark.
There is also the option to activate auto scroll when reading. This is also present within the Editor and I found that the feature was reliable, even after thirty minutes of continuous use.
Another useful feature is the ability to set multiple bookmarks within a file. This is an option I wish I had while in college—it would have made jumping directly to content much more efficient.
Let's Get Connected!
Another feature of the Mantis is its ability to connect to external devices through Bluetooth or USB. At the time of writing, Android does not yet support the Mantis. I did not have a Mac to test, so this review is based on the screen reader options I had available. The Mantis supports up to five Bluetooth connections along with one USB connection. To switch between connected devices, you must press the Home key to back out of the connected device’s control and then choose another option from the list of connected devices. It's not possible to jump directly from one connected device to another with shortcut keys.
VoiceOver with iOS
I tested the Mantis with iOS 13.6 on my iPhone SE 2020. The first notable thing about the iOS connection process with the Mantis is that it's paired through Settings > Bluetooth, and not through VoiceOver. The User Guide explains how to do this from the Mantis side. It's compatible with iOS version 13.5.1 or later, though the typing experience on 13.6 certainly seems more stable than what I found under iOS 13.5.1. Prior to updating to 13.6 and updated the Mantis firmware to version 1.01, I found that the braille display portion of the Mantis would not always connect with iOS. The keyboard itself would stay reliably connected. With the updates, this problem rarely happened. Toggling on and off Bluetooth has reliably fixed the issue. You can do this on your iOS device, or use the "retry to connect" option on the Mantis. When using the Mantis, it’s possible for a deafblind person to reestablish the connection. This is because the Mantis itself tries to reestablish the connection automatically. It's important to have your device nearby and to wait a few minutes when attempting to reconnect.
When connected, the Mantis not only displays braille, but also serves as a Bluetooth keyboard. Although the Mantis was able to type when my output was set to contracted braille, when set to eight-dot braille it was not only more reliable, but faster. Almost all of the commands found on a Bluetooth keyboard are the same as what you have on the Mantis. There was one keyboard command not available, which was the option to see VoiceOver announcement history. Most displays have this as an option by pressing Spacebar + N, but since the Mantis does not use braille input, this is not an option. Pressing F12 to toggle between QWERTY input and braille input mode doesn't work when connected to an external device. When connected to iOS, I was unable to get the function keys to work as expected.
Knowing how to use QuickNav and the VoiceOver modifier keys are important if you are using a Bluetooth keyboard connected to iOS. Though not addressed in the User Guide, this guide discusses both. Though the guide is five years old, the information is still relevant. Another useful guide provides a list of common VoiceOver keyboard shortcuts you can use with a Bluetooth keyboard.
One of the nice things about using a Bluetooth keyboard with your iOS device is the ability to unlock the device without touching the screen. Pressing VO + H will prompt you to enter your passcode. As long as the iOS device is connected to the Mantis, this never seems to fail. It’s also important to note that updating the Mantis can result in having to repair any Bluetooth connections that were previously established.
NVDA
NVDA version 2020.1 was used for this evaluation on Windows 10 with the 2004 update. Connecting to NVDA was quite easy. Going into the NVDA menu when launched and then selecting the braille preferences and selecting the Mantis Q should automatically work if is the Mantis is connected to your PC via Bluetooth or USB.
Using the Mantis with NVDA is a pleasant experience. Infrequently, braille output would stop, though the PC continued to accept input from the keyboard. Restarting NVDA seemed to correct the issue. This seemed to occur more often over Bluetooth than USB.
JAWS For Windows Is Ready
The Mantis Q is compatible with JAWS 18 and later. JAWS versions older than the July 2020 update require the installation of the most current drivers, which can be found on the APH website. Once the installation file is downloaded, you can follow the prompts and then add the braille display using the same procedure that you would with any other display using JAWS.
I tested the Mantis with two different laptops, first on USB and then Bluetooth. One laptop did not allow for braille output until I plugged it in to a USB hub to give it enough power. This PC was older, I didn't have to do the same thing when I used a 2018 laptop. In the case of the older laptop, the keyboard functioned as it should, and once connected to a USB port that could supply enough power, the process of using the braille output was also effective. With both NVDA and JAWS, you will want to be sure to have the modifier key set to Caps Lock, as the Mantis doesn't have an Insert key. With JAWS, I found it most effective to use the laptop layout for my keyboard.
Conclusion
The Mantis Q is a braille display that will certainly appeal if you're in the market for a 40-cell option, particularly if you don't want to learn a new set of commands to operate a braille display connected to various devices. In terms of the education market, this device falls right in line with learning how to use a standard QWERTY keyboard. The ability to download Bookshare and NFBNewsline content adds yet another compelling reason to consider the Mantis Q 40.
Battery life ranged from 12 to 17 hours, depending on Bluetooth and Wi-Fi use. In its sleep or standby mode, I found that there was very little drain on the battery, maybe 1% for each hour. I also liked the ability to check the date and time on the fly, and also to learn the battery percentage with keyboard shortcuts. If you are someone who likes the option of downloading content to your device, who prefers a QWERTY keyboard interface, or who needs options for collaborating with colleagues without connecting to an external device, the Mantis Q 40 is worth your consideration.
Product Information
Product: Mantis Q 40
Price: $2,495
Available from: APH in the United States (Outside of the United States, please contact your local Humanware dealer for pricing and availability.)
This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.
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- The BrailleNote Touch Plus: Competitive Technology with a Nostalgic Feel by Deborah Kendrick
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