A Kettle for the Visually Impaired

A large proportion of the world has trouble seeing, or trouble moving. Boiling hot water, Mains electricity, Manual operation … Kettles are hardly the safest or easiest to use items. Enter the sense kettle. Self filling, self pouring, easy to operate and designed specifically for people who are blind.

As a self contained unit, the sense kettle never needs to be moved, fills itself when empty and has a large steady untippable footprint.

Designed to be placed in corners of kitchen surfaces, the kettle can easily be located by feel alone along walls and its rough two-tone texture makes operation easy whilst remaining completely cold to the touch.

Operation is unique. There is a shut-line that separates the orange and white sections, a groove that starts at the top of the kettle and flows vertically down the face. If you put your finger in the groove and follow it down, the buttons interupt your flow until they are pushed which forces them flush, continuing the groove onto the next button.

There are two buttons : Fill & Boil

Clicked at the start and thrust out once boiled to an audible alarm.

Pour

Insert your mug under the nozzle on the corner of the cube and pour.

The tray is specially designed to tip the mug away from your body, so if you accidentally overfill, there will always be a safety gap at the top of your mug. A pressure sensor prevents pouring without a mug and all overflowed water is safely discarded.
One of the niftiest features is the glowing cube of water. As a product for the visually impaired, knowing the state of the device at all times is imperative, so there is always physical and audible feedback. The cube starts glowing blue and fades to red as the water boils.

This was a very simple idea but highly effective when demostrated. All in all, the Sense kettle is a quality of life enhancement device.

More like this model-making|product|prototype.

Posted on Thursday, April 12th, 2001 at 12:49 am.