Express Activity 1: Setting Up and Getting to Know Your Monarch

Expanded Core Curriculum Mastering the Monarch
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First impressions:
I found it easy to get up and running with the Monarch. I’ve used other braille displays like the Chameleon, and found the user interface to be somewhat similar although more comprehensive.

I was surprised to learn that the Monarch doesn’t yet support terminal mode. It seems like an essential feature that I would have expected to see in the initial release. I’m left wondering how useful a stand alone device will actually be in my day to day work.

Expectations and priorities:
I’m lookingg forward to learning how I can incorporate my own tactile images, either created by me (something I don’t yet know how to do) or brought in from work systems. I enjoyed looking at graphics from the TCIL, but it doesn’t add much in terms of actual usefulness for me at work beyond the cool factor. As I mentioned above, I’m struggling to imagine how I will use the Monarch in my work as a standalone device. I’m excited to read more braille books using the Monarch as I’ve heard from several folks now that the multi-line reading experience is very enjoyable. In terms of work though, I would be interested to hear from others how they are using it in an environment where everything is on a PC and not as easily moved over to an external device (if that’s even possible?).

First impressions:
I found it easy to get up and running with the Monarch. I’ve used other braille displays like the Chameleon, and found the user interface to be somewhat similar although more comprehensive.

I was surprised to learn that the Monarch doesn’t yet support terminal mode. It seems like an essential feature that I would have expected to see in the initial release. I’m left wondering how useful a stand alone device will actually be in my day to day work.

Expectations and priorities:
I’m lookingg forward to learning how I can incorporate my own tactile images, either created by me (something I don’t yet know how to do) or brought in from work systems. I enjoyed looking at graphics from the TGIL, but it doesn’t add much in terms of actual usefulness for me at work beyond the cool factor. As I mentioned above, I’m struggling to imagine how I will use the Monarch in my work as a standalone device. I’m excited to read more braille books using the Monarch as I’ve heard from several folks now that the multi-line reading experience is very enjoyable. In terms of work though, I would be interested to hear from others how they are using it in an environment where everything is on a PC and not as easily moved over to an external device (if that’s even possible?).

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Just a brief explanation regarding terminal mode: my understanding is that the delay in its availability is due to the need to negotiate the details of how it should work with screen reader developers to support a multi-line display. Terminal mode in previous displays has only supported a single line, and the changes required to work with a multi-line device are not trivial on the screen reader end or, presumably, in developing the terminal mode for the Monarch itself.

However, as you may have read elsewhere, the terminal mode for the Monarch has been announced and demonstrated at a recent conference, so my completely uninformed speculation would be that it’s probably a matter of months away.

I hope this helps, and I’m glad you had a smooth Monarch setup experience.

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My Monarch setup was thankfully pretty smooth. I liked the startup tutorial! One thing I’ve noticed, which I think is good, is that there are multiple ways to enter commands. For example, to move down in a list, you can use the down arrow on the D-pad, or space with dot 4. You can use first letter menu navigation or point-and-click to get to the item you want in a menu. I like the multiple ways to enter commands because I think that will appeal well to people with different learning styles and people with cognitive impairments can choose the command entry method that is easiest for them to remember. There are keyboard commands that overlap with those used for the HumanWare notetakers, too.
In terms of priorities I’ve already played with the KeyMail app a little, because it’ll be easy to transfer files to the Monarch via email or use it to read documents people have sent me. One practical downside is that the Monarch doesn’t yet have Google Drive or the Googl apps. I work at a Google workplace, so all my work files are stored in Google Drive. If I want to edit a work file on the Monarch, I have to either email it to myself or put it on a thumb drive, and then do it again to move the edited file back to Google Drive on my work computer. That’s kind of a pain.

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I had already helped my student to set up his Monarch using the manual and videos from “Mastering the Monarch”, so the process this time around was quick and easy. (Although this time I got to be hands on in the process which was fun.) We were never able to get his email set up because apparently Gmail is problematic for KeySoft. I haven’t set up my Outlook email yet, but I’m hoping it’ll work!

I received my Monarch before the end of the school year, so I was able to show it to two of my braille students who have never worked with it, and they were both so excited. One student has communicated that she used some sort of a braille notetaker in Turkey (she doesn’t remember what kind) so she has a decent understanding of the basic functions of the Monarch, and she LOVED the tactile graphics. My other student had tried a BrailleNote Touch Plus in the past and is currently learning a Focus 40, and she is also very excited by the Monarch. I think the Monarch would motivate her to work on her fluency in reading and brailling and well as work on her braille math skills. I’ve nominated this student for the second round of the pilot project, and she’s got her fingers and toes crossed that she is accepted! This is also a student who needs more explicit instruction in interpreting tactile graphics, and I think the Monarch would be amazing for that purpose. Overall, I think it will help her to be more independent in completing schoolwork while reinforcing the knowledge that she has.

I am eager to connect to Bookshare and start learning KeyMath. I think both of these will be very valuable for my students in their current schooling as well as any higher education that they want to pursue. One student hopes to own her own bakery someday, and I want to keep that in mind as I am learning to use all the features.

I have worked with students on using a Focus 40, but that is really meant to be used with JAWS and a computer, so it’s hard to compare the two. I have a tiny bit of experience with a BrailleNote Touch, so I certainly see the similarities but I’ve never been through the set-up process with it.

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I agree about the startup tutorial- I enjoyed going through it since my student who got his Monarch last fall preferred to figure things out on his own and in the order he chose. I didn’t do it with my Monarch, but I did have my student go through the chess tutorial because I had heard from the Facebook group that it was helpful to master the point and click function (which he was struggling with). It also gave be a chance to see what he was doing, and I realized that he tended to forget to pull the rest of his fingers all the way up when pointing. On a couple of occasions that I couldn’t get the feature to work, I realized I had been doing the same thing and now I make the conscious effort to position my hands correctly to avoid problems! I think I have an update to do, and I’ll have to see if I have the same issue as you with the percentage discrepancy.

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I’ve noticed that refreshable braille displays tend to have the enter and backspace keys reversed from the Perkins brailler, but it puts the enter key on the same side as a computer keyboard. I’m honestly not sure which I prefer! I’ve heard some similar excitement from students about being able to replace the numerous volumes of paper braille books- I can’t blame them! I’m interested in trying out Ecosia as well- I puttered around with it a little and I saw that YouTube is one of the first suggested links. I was able to do a search on it for a video, but I couldn’t figure out any way that it could play on the Monarch. I wonder if this is something that will work in terminal mode?

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You could open Ecosia on the Monarch and try visiting drive.google.com. We won’t know how well that works until someone tries it - preferably a participant who uses Google applications regularly and who can identify any issues. Of course, you’ll need to log into your Google account on the Monarch to access your files.

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First impressions: I am an assistive technology specialist working in the IT department at a school. A few teachers have Monarchs and I have only worked with them to get them to connect to WIFI and to download updates. So unboxing and the first power up were all new to me. I was surprised that mine came a day early and 80% charged. So I was able to break it out and show my Wife who is blind and my kids as well. The surprise was the tutorial at startup. My kids 10 and 12 years old got excited watching the pictures of the buttons appear. I was busy reading the instructions and they kept reminding me to feel the graphics. This is just to say that they do not read braille but they could understand that graphics represent something revolutionary for their blind dad.
I want to compliment this tutorial because it progresses from fairly basic to some fairly sophisticated concepts while still being cool and fun.
Because I was familiar with the basics of navigation on the Braillenote, I felt like I wanted to start working and studying it after it was connected to WIFI and had its updates installed. So that is what I did. I got connected to WIFI in my house and began downloading updates to Keysoft. I set the time and date next because having worked with other Keysoft products if time and date are not set properly, it can interfere with other aspects of the setup. As I am writing this, I can see that I jumped in to this as if it was being setup for someone else. I got it ready to be used and then realized that maybe I should have followed the trajectory of a traditional new user. I think if I had not had any experience with a monarch previously, I would have read the user guide more ahead of time.
Expectations: In my primary job in the IT department, I occasionally have to supervise student workers in our department. Although I collaborate with the rest of my team on a computer in the google workspace environment, I want students to see my collaboration take place on a cutting edge peace of technology such as the Monarch in Google workspace. I like showing that this can all take place with Braille as a primary form of output. My expectation is that students will see the example that braille is a tool that can be used in the work place as well as in Education.
As I teach other students not attending this school, it can help me if I am able to show tactile graphics of various Windows, IOS, Mac, and Chrome OS screens to teach concepts.
Priorities: Currently as of June 2025, I don’t have a way of installing apps such as classroom, docs, sheets and other components of the Google workspace suite of tools. Therefore, my priority is to dive in to the Ecosia app to browse and try to use these tools from a web view. The school I work for is a Google environment. So I would like to see how using the monarch in this environment is different than a computer. For example, I would like to see if I can use the Google admin tool to reset passwords and complete other Google admin tasks. I really have big plans for this unit when it has the terminal mode working, but for now I really want to see if I can use it as is as a stand alone device.
Final Braille Display comparison: I feel that the Monarch is in a different class than my traditional Braille display. For the last 30 years, braille displays that I used just produced braille which was driven by a screen reader installed on a computer. Often times you had to install drivers on the computer, but there was not much configuration required for the display itself to get up and running. As braille displays have evolved To have very basic mini apps such as word processing and calendars, they have required just a little more setup such as setting time and date. Once I had to start connecting braille displays to WIFI to download updates, that is when it felt like the next generation of Braille displays were emerging. With the Monarch, it feels like I am working with an actual tablet. Which makes sense because that is what it is. If I were teaching this device to a student, I might frame it in the terms that I have mentioned above. In the Monarch’s case, you have to set things like language, braille contraction status and time zone. Like a tablet, it will require software updates and those can be managed once it is connected to WIFI. The effort to set it up is about what I would expect from a tablet. It is not quite as involved as setting up a Windows or mac computer.
One way I think of it is, with first generation braille displays, I did not have to read the manuals other than to find out what each button was called. Now I do refer to the manual during a setup just in case there are unexpected steps to be taken. That being said, I was able to jump in to the Monarch’s operating system and settings to configure it the way I wanted it based on its intuitive nature. Because I did not setup my Monarch in the order of the modules, I did have to look up where the setting was for setting contracted or uncontracted braille. I left that step for last because I was excited to get the major setup steps over with.
I know Monarchs can go the distance, lets see if I can keep up.

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First impressions: As others have mentioned, the surprise was the size and weight. Because I’m an Android user and have also configured and provided training on other braille notetakers and displays, the setup was super easy, I was operating on familiar grounds, as well as having completed the Mastering the Monarch course in advance.
Expectations and priorities: Totally agree with Deborah on the graphics expectation and on how much of a game-changer the Monarch can be in higher ed!
I’m thinking of a student I have in Computer Sciences, and another student and his stats classes (by the time you read a chart description you’ve forgotten what the task was)… I am so looking forward to testing tactile access to components of their courses with them! I’ll be training our Accommodations Coordinators on foundations and strategies for tactile graphic design, since there is a lot of misconception about how merely making any image available to the touch is enough for a person who is blind to supposedly automatically know what it is…
I don’t want to anticipate other expectations because I’d like to explore more. Really enjoying everyone’s feedback!

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I did exactly what Manuel did in terms of setup! Very first thing after the startup was connecting to the Internet, downloading updates, and setting up all my preferred Settings. Because I was the first person to use any piece of assistive technology in my country (long story), I’ve always had to self-train, so I love that part of the process of discovery.

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I’ve been able to set up gmail just fine. If you can share where your student is getting stuck, happy to help troubleshoot
!

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After I saw this comment, I tried setting up my Gmail and it also worked for me. I’ll have to check in with my student in the fall- I wonder if there’s an update that he hasn’t installed yet?

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Email support is new in version 1.2 of the KeySoft software installed on the Monarch.

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Hi, folks! Reporting in with my first experiences with the Monarch.

Before receiving my own Monarch, I’d already played briefly with a friend’s, including completing the tutorial, which I found delightfully gamified and instructive. I also owned a BrailleNote Touch Plus, though that was several years back, and am enough of a nerd that I watched some videos and skimmed the user guide beforehand. This early prep served me in good stead; I was able to start the Monarch without any problems. Changing speech and braille settings, setting up WiFi, and updating also went very smoothly. I found it equally doable to setting up other notetakers I’ve worked with, such as BrailleNotes, BrailleSenses, and Chameleons/Brailliants.

The first thing I wanted to do was read a book using those ten glorious lines of braille. I struggled a bit with the File Manager, since I’d forgotten exactly how to copy files once they were marked. My first thumb drive also wasn’t recognized, but I was able to hunt down a Fix option in the notification shade. I didn’t want to attempt that fix without backing up the data, however, so I switched to another thumb drive which was recognized, opened the document for the book I wanted to read, and used the save-as function, to avoid the File Manager altogether. This worked fine, and it was so nifty to be able to see the Save screen as a full set of options, rather than as something I essentially tabbed through with a single-line display for so many years.

On day one, I did not yet know that I could press the page-down button, then seamlessly touch the first/top line of braille without pausing for the whole display to refresh. I discovered this on night 2 and was much more able to read aloud fluidly. Reading aloud is a favorite pastime of mine, and I was glad to figure out that I could still do this fluidly, without having to take that five-second pause for the display to refresh. Only occasionally did I get some ghost dots that hadn’t settled correctly.

I did find that, after about ten minutes of reading, the friction between my fingers and the membrane did cause some slow-downs. Anyone remember thermo-form paper, when people used to braille books by hand and then make copies by placing that thin, plastic paper over the original braille copy and heating it, so that the plastic paper took on the configuration of the braille dots? I remember reading those books for hours as a kid and having to pause to air my fingers a bit, because the friction would cause them to get a little stuck. (I swear, I’m not usually a mega-sweaty person! And I never have this problem with standard braille displays, I guess because the pins are made of some sort of metal, not plastic.)

I totally understand how important the membrane is, especially since, if dust were to get into even one pin, I imagine the alignment of the other pins would be even more adversely affected than with a standard display, where cells at least have boundaries to separate them from one another. This did make me wonder , however, if another material had been considered for the membrane. It must be hard to find someThing that’s durable without being so thick that it negatively impacts reading. As with thermoform — and with all braille reading, really — I will do my best to make my touch as light as possible when I read, especially for long periods of time.

I also did a little bit of word-processing. Because I’m such a braille fan, I’m used to using the cursor routing keys heavily when I edit. I never bothered to learn many of the keyboard commands to move the cursor, beyond jumping by paragraph, and deleting by word, sentence, and paragraph. Many of those hotkeys changed over time anyway, as I moved from notetaker to notetaker, so they never stuck in my mind in the same way cursor-routing did. To that end, I did find it very time-consuming to use point-and-click to move my cursor, wait for the cursor to appear, then edit as necessary. I have high hopes that this will improve for me over time — after all, it’s early days — but I have always loved the cursor routing keys and being able to move and edit quickly with only the braille display, so learning to use point-and-click, with the possible addition of keyboard navigation, will be a fairly sizable shift for me.

Amusingly, how many of you all keep being surprised by the fact that the Monarch’s braille is ABOVE the keyboard, rather than below it? Talk about a hard habit to break!

In sum, I’m loving the Monarch so far and feelIng very excited to put it through its paces! I’ve played with images a little and can see how they would benefit students and adults alike, especially being able to hone in on certain details. Skimming while reading and editing documents, I feel, will also benefit students, adults, and myself as a teacher. I’d love to hear any tips you all think might be helpful for me in terms of reading aloud and word-processing.

More soon!

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Working with the Monarch has also made me curious if APH, or someone, might be able to develop a course, of sorts, for blind adults who were not taught to analyze tactile graphics. Speaking for myself, I was born totally blind, and though I was often lucky enough to receive 3D models, raise-lined drawings, maps, and similar, I was never explicitly taught how to interact with them. I know many totally blind folks who do have a strong visual sense, of sorts, but I definitely do not. As a kid, I struggled a lot with courses such as geometry, and I think that’s because I could never quite understand visual concepts. I can’t be the only one!

My initial experiences with the Monarch’s tactile graphics have necessitated getting a sighted person to walk me through the more complex images, because even when I zoom, I often have little to no idea of what I’m looking at. I’m curious if this is an issue other folks are having and, if so, if any ideas are being floated for ways to train adults like myself who are late to the game in wanting to add tactile graphics to our toolbox.

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Hi Jason, It sounds like you do a lot of reading on the Monarch. I’m wondering if you’re experiencing any friction struggles with your fingers becoming a little stuck on the membrane after extensive reading. Also wondering if you have any tips for fluidly moving from one page to another. I’m finding that I can read the last line, click the page-down button, and immediately read the first line of braille without disturbing the other lines, which are still moving into place. Has this been your experience as well, and is there a better way to do this to promote smoother reading? Thanks for any ideas!

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Thank you for the interesting questions. I’m currently reading a book on global justice using the Monarch. Under normal circumstances, I don’t experience friction problems after extensive reading, but the summer weather here on the east coast of the U.S. can readily become humid, with rain and thunderstorms, as in today’s forecast. Under these conditions, I’ve been trying to do the reading during the cooler part of the day or after running the air conditioning to keep the perspiration from interfering with it and away from the Monarch. I also cleaned the display yesterday with a dry microfiber cloth, which I hope removed any dust.

Humid conditions definitely raise issues. At least the Monarch has a membrane. My conventional braille displays don’t, of course, so any dust or grease from fingers gets into the cells and eventually necessitates professional cleaning, with all the associated time and expense involved.

The Monarch does seem to refresh from top to bottom, so you can start reading the first line while parts of the display are still being updated. However, in the Victor Reader application, after moving to a new page of a book, the first line is generally partway down the display rather than at the top. I don’t know why this happens or whether it’s intentional, or a bug.

There are also some formatting oddities. For instance, if there’s an in-line element such as emphasized text, a footnote number or a subscript, this results in a blank line, followed by the text of the in-line element, then another blank line and a return to the main text. When there are spurious blank lines near the bottom of the display followed by more text, it’s easy to miss the last line by mistake if I’m not careful.

I think the developers should write code that carries out proper braille formatting of the HTML content of Web pages, EPUB books, and so on. What we have now is usable enough, but it could be considerably better.

The reading experience on the Monarch is so much better than using a single-line display that it’s truly transformative in my opinion.

I hope these observations are useful and that you can achieve a pleasant and productive reading process.

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I totally agree that I need a class for blind adults to learn how to interact better with tactile graphics/maps. I remember being given maps and being told to use it to find my way somewhere and I could never do it. I really wish I could, it’d be great to have a map and now with the monarch, if I had the use of maps on there, it would be nice to be able to use them. Also of course for more complicated tables or graphics. But as others have said, I feel like that my being blind from birth has made it harder for me to learn how to interpret tactile graphics.

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Setting up the Monarch for the first time, I was immediately impressed by how tactile and intuitive the interface felt. Coming from experience with other refreshable braille displays like the Polaris, Chameleon, and various screen readers (VoiceOver, JAWS, NVDA), the Monarch felt familiar in many ways, but also like a significant step forward. One of the biggest surprises was how seamlessly the device handled multi-line braille and tactile graphics — and how stable and responsive the interface was.

One small learning curve involved entering passwords in computer braille, especially remembering not to use number signs and to apply dot 7 for capital letters and dot 7-4 for the @ symbol. But overall, the setup was smooth and fast. I also appreciated how the visual display synced instantly with braille content — this will be extremely useful for sighted instructors, assistants, or family members working alongside the student.

As a music educator working with blind and visually impaired students, my expectations for the Monarch are high — and optimistic. I believe this device has the potential to significantly enhance how students engage with braille music notation, written assignments about music, and even audio resources for theory and composition. The ability to read and write in BRF and BRL formats directly on the device will allow students to work independently on music analysis, theory worksheets, listening journals, and even concert program notes.

Right now, my top priority is to explore the Braille Editor, Word Processor, and File Manager. These are the areas where my students will be drafting reflections on their music studies, writing compositions, and reading BRF files with music scores. Many of them are also composers or advanced performers, and I can already imagine the Monarch helping them edit and review their scores in braille while accessing supplemental materials like program notes or biographies from Bookshare.

In comparison to the Polaris, the Monarch feels like a more integrated tool — less dependent on external apps or tethering, and more capable of standing alone in both academic and artistic environments. That’s exactly the kind of technology we need to support independence and creativity, especially in preparation for competitive integrated employment or college-level work in the arts.

Looking forward to hearing how others are integrating the Monarch into their programs — especially in creative or humanities-based contexts!

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Hi Daniel,

Thanks for sharing your first impressions — I also found the Braille guide and the quick tutorial helpful in getting started. And I completely relate to your comment about the size; I had a similar reaction! It definitely feels like a substantial device, which I’m starting to appreciate more as I explore the multi-line features.

I’m also curious about creating custom tactile images. I haven’t tried it yet, but I imagine using third-party tools to convert SVGs or diagrams into something Monarch-compatible might be one way in. It would be amazing if APH expands this function in future updates. That could really open creative doors — especially for subjects like science, geography, or even music diagrams.
As for your idea about having text start at the bottom and wrap upward — that’s a fascinating concept. I’m not sure that’s possible right now, but it would be worth suggesting as a feature request. It could offer a more dynamic feel, especially for people used to scrolling up through conversations or journal entries.

Good luck experimenting with the zoom and image navigation — looking forward to hearing what you discover!

Pablo from New York