On improving GlovePi: Towards a many-to-many communication among deaf-blind users

The wide diffusion of mobile devices, digital technologies and telecommunication providers and infrastructures greatly supports communication and social activities among people all over the world. This (r)evolution in communication could represent a great opportunity for those people who use assistive technologies due to some kinds of disability, but it could become a digital severe barrier at the same time. Assistive technologies supporting people with disabilities can be a strategic tool to enhance their inclusion, integration, and independence, in particular for persons with disabilities that involve more senses, such as deaf-blindness, which is the combination of blindness and deafness. Deaf-blind users can communicate by mainly exploiting the sense of touch. Focusing on this kind of communication, we have designed and developed GlovePi, a low-cost wearable device, based on a glove equipped with sensors, a raspberry-pi and mobile devices. In this paper, we present an improved version of the GlovePi system, which extends the form of communication, by supporting the many-to-many one, aiming to increase the inclusion of deaf-blind people in social life and daily activities.