Hello and Happy Anniversary from Blazie Technologies.
Here are the release notes for the up-coming March 2026 BT Speak update. This is a free update for all users in recognition of the second anniversary of BT Speak shipping to customers.
Introduction
Happy anniversary from Blazie Technologies! It was in March of 2024 when we began shipping the BT Speak to our customers. Since March represents an exciting milestone, we decided to celebrate by offering this update at no cost as an anniversary gift to our customers.
There are some other benefits of ensuring that all of our customers have this update on their BT Speak. We are refactoring the software architecture significantly to make future upgrades easier and more reliable. This change also keeps the BT Speak and BT Braille user experience equally consistent. We also want to release BT Towne to everyone (more on this later) because we believe a larger community of users will make it a richer experience. Having all users on this new architecture is necessary to maintain quality technical support for everyone, regardless of whether a customer has a maintenance contract.
Please Note: installing this update may take longer than usual, perhaps as long as ten minutes.
Quick Instructions for Updating Your BT Speak
- Ensure that your BT Speak is connected to a Wi-Fi network. Your battery level should be at 40% or higher.
- Type O-Chord for the Options menu.
- Type M for the BT Speak Management menu.
- Type U to Check for Software Updates.
- Your BT Speak should tell you that a new update is available and will ask if you’d like to install it. Press the letter Y to begin the installation.
The BT Speak will download and install the update. The installation may take as long as ten minutes to complete.
Once BT Speak restarts, you will be able to start enjoying the new update.
Read Braille Books and Magazines From the NLS BARD Service
We are pleased to introduce the first version of the NLS BARD app. This application allows you to search, browse, download, and read Braille titles available through the BARD service from the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS). You can also manage your BARD subscriptions and view or update items in your BARD wishlist.
To use the BARD app, you must already be an NLS patron and have an active BARD account. BARD is available to NLS patrons living in the United States and to U.S. citizens living outside the United States who are registered with NLS.
To access the BARD app, open Options, then Applications, then Library, and select NLS BARD (shortcut L).
BT-Towne: a New Interactive Community for BT Speak Owners
We are excited to introduce the first version of BT Towne, an interactive social world available exclusively on BT Speak. BT Towne is a place where users can gather, explore, and connect with one another in a shared environment designed for conversation, games, and community.
The first location in BT Towne is the Tavern. Here you can meet other users who are currently in the room, chat together in real time, interact with our AI bartender, and enjoy games and activities with fellow visitors.
BT Towne is just getting started, and new places and experiences will be added over time as the world continues to grow.
To access BT Towne, go to Options, Applications, Games.
BT Towne will continue to improve as we add new ones over time.
Here are the keystrokes which are currently available to you.
O: Open the main menu
C: Chat with other users.
E: Interact with your environment. Allows you to examine objects, talk to NPCs (AI-based non-player characters) and play games
G: go to another room
H: help using BT Towne
I: list your current inventory
L: look around (describes the room you’re currently in)
M: open a map of BT-Towne. Lists the available rooms and how many BT Speak users are in each room.
S: Settings
Q: Quit BT Towne
The Settings menu allows you to change the volume level of BT Towne’s background music and other sound effects.
BT Towne is experimental and we anticipate updates and changes to it over the next few weeks and months.
We welcome your feedback regarding this new community. Please don’t hesitate to report bugs or suggest new features and other ways to improve the experience.
Blazie Platform Unification
This anniversary release introduces a major software architecture upgrade that supports both the upcoming BT Braille and the continued development of BT Speak. A unified codebase now runs across both devices, allowing applications to behave consistently, regardless of hardware.
A key benefit of this overhaul is that Blazie mode applications can now self-voice and directly control Braille output. This gives applications precise control over what is spoken and what is sent to the Braille display, completely independent of what is printed to the terminal or shown on a connected visual display.
Screen Sharing with HDMI
When a HDMI display is connected, teachers, students, and family members can now visually follow what you are working on in the editor.
Standard text files will appear on the screen as normal text. Braille files are also displayed, currently using an ASCII text representation of Braille contractions.
In a future release, we plan to add support for a Braille font, which will allow Braille files to be shown visually as Braille characters. For now, Braille content is displayed using its text representation.
Improved Speaking of Menus and Dialogs
Menu announcements have been streamlined. When opening a menu or submenu, BT Speak now announces the name of the menu followed by the word “menu”, rather than saying “opened.” For example, pressing o-chord will now announce “Options menu.”
In addition, dialog titles are now spoken in situations where they were previously silent. You will notice this improvement in several Blazie Mode applications, such as YouTube Stream. This update also resolves a long-standing issue where dialog names were not announced.
You may also notice smoother speech output with fewer interruptions before messages are spoken, such as when requesting the time or battery level.
Going forward, we will continue to fine-tune voice messages for clarity and brevity, based on user input.
Notes on Screen Review Mode: R-Chord
Now that we are primarily self-voicing, the Brltty review mode has less relevance than before. In fact, the only place it is operational now is in the bash shell.
Warning, At present, the R-Chord command is still present in Blazie mode, but entering that mode will not access useful text information. However, if you enter review and forgot, it may seem like your device is not operating correctly. If in doubt, do a z-chord to exit review mode.
We plan to address this in a future release, but we didn’t want to disable review mode for shell users.
Word and Character Navigation in More Places
You can now navigate Python menu items, Wikipedia results and Now Playing info, by word or character using the standard navigation commands.
This capability is not yet available in every menu, but we plan to expand support to additional areas of the system in future updates.
New History Feature for Input Fields
Many input fields now include a history feature. When performing searches in Wikipedia or entering information in other input fields, you can review your previous entries by pressing dot-1 chord.
Use dot-1 chord to move through earlier entries. When the desired entry appears under the cursor, press Enter to send it to the application. You may also edit the previous entry before pressing Enter if you want to modify it.
This feature works the same way as the calculator history and the editor’s find history.
Each input field stores up to 50 of your most recent entries.
Improved Radio Recording
We have improved how recordings from the radio tuner are saved. In the previous update, recordings from some stations were occasionally saved with a .bin file extension, which prevented those files from being played back. This issue has now been addressed.
In addition, when you stop recording a station, the recording toggle now announces its final state more reliably.
New Options for Announcing Words With Mixed Case
It’s now possible to control how the BT Speak announces consecutive upper-case characters. From the start, it always separated them as separate letters, which worked nicely for acronyms but it could be challenging to understand for words that were in all upper-case. Now, in the speech settings menu, you have three choices: split mixed-case words (the new default), split all upper-case characters (what we did before), or off, which passes everything to your preferred text to speech engine without any processing.
Speak or Hide Characters in Wi-Fi and Other Blazie Password Prompts
When you are connecting to a Wi-Fi network, you now have the option to speak the characters that you enter while typing your password. This option also allows you to review what you have entered. To hear the characters you are typing, press low-H chord (dots 2-3-6-chord). This is a toggle, so pressing low h-chord again goes back to hiding the characters.
New Title for the Welcome Screen
The title of the welcome screen help topic has been renamed to “Welcome to BT Speak”. This was done to ensure that its menu entry fits better with the other topics that are listed.
Easier Method for Selecting or Deselecting Files to Move or Copy in the File Browser
The space key is now being used to select or deselect a file that you want to move or copy. This should be a more intuitive way of selecting files. The letter x is still available for this action. Dots 3-4-6 is still used to move or copy files that you have selected.
Disk Format Utility
This utility allows you to format an externally connected storage device, such as an SD card or a USB drive. You will find this utility by going to Options, BT Speak management menu. You can select either EXFAT or FAT32 formats, and the entire drive will be set up with a single partition.
Voice Notes Updates
The Voice Notes app has been partially re-written to be more efficient and consistent.
- New notes are now named Note01, Note02 etc. Existing notes are not renamed.
- When you move to the microphone volume setting, you can adjust it with the Previous/Next commands which are dot 7-Chord and dot 8-Chord. You can also use back tab(1-2-Chord) or tab (4-5-Chord). The microphone volume level is now announced.
- When you are pointing to a note, you can type r to rename the note.
- When you are pointing to a note, you can type d or low-d-chord to delete the note.
Miscellaneous Improvements
- The Wi-Fi Status report output uses a more accurate bitrate reading.
- When in help topics, typing invalid characters now produces a beep.
- When in read-only files in the main editor, the message “write protected” is now announced instead of “file is write protected.” For conciseness.
Concluding Remarks
Thank you for being a Blazie Technologies customer and for celebrating our two-year anniversary with us. We hope you enjoy the new update.
As always, we appreciate and welcome your feedback on this latest update. Please email your feedback to [email protected] or call us at (772) 214-1616.