The ‘Museum of Possibilities’ is Tamil Nadu state’s first facility for people with disabilities that showcases various accessible technologies and assistive devices such as Amazon’s Alexa voice service, Echo smart speakers, and Fire TV. The visitors of the Museum can now learn how Alexa can help people with vision and locomotor disabilities to access entertainment content, get information, control smart home appliances, connect with friends/ family and more.
Located in Chennai, the Museum of Possibilities will showcase how assistive technologies can enable people with disabilities to lead independent lives. Voice technologies, such as Alexa, can assist people with mobility and vision-related disability issues to control smart home appliances such as TV, lights, etc. from across the room with simple voice commands to Alexa and be more independent and make the space accessible for all. Each section of the museum showcases accessible products that people with disabilities can integrate in their daily lives in the domains of Live, Work and Play.
The Live Area
This area includes a model of an accessible home with Universal Design elements and assistive devices for each part of the house – Living room, Kitchen, Dining, Bedroom and Bathroom.
The bedroom includes a bedside touch lamp and a wheelchair-accessible bathroom with modifications. It also has an Amazon Echo Show and allows visitors to engage with Alexa hands-free for controlling smart bulbs, listening to music, and stories from Audible Suno, set alarms, reminders, and news updates, watching videos, asking for information and more. On the other hand, the kitchen area displays products like adaptive knives, plates, spoons, cups, and bottles. The Echo Dot smart speaker placed here can be used to set cooking timers, answer queries about ingredients and nutrition in food items, calculate conversions for cooking, and ask Alexa for recipes.
The Work Area
This area displays equipment like a weaving loom, medical apparatus with auditory output, screen reading applications, speech-to-text software, modified glasses, and a weighing machine that reads out the weight. An Echo Dot smart speaker placed in a cubicle here can be used to listen to news summaries from popular providers, keep a track of to-do list, set reminders and be more productive.
The Play Area
The Play domain includes board games and cards (with braille), musical instruments, and adaptive garden tools. Alexa-enabled smart speakers placed throughout the Museum can be used to enjoy music, games, and jokes with simple voice commands.
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