Stovetop for the Visually Impaired

A few years ago my grandmother was diagnosed with Macular Degeneration, an eye disease that causes vision loss in the center of the visual field due to a damaged retina. When I visited, my grandmother had little sight. Despite that, she insisted on baking my favorite cookies różowy ciastka, pink cookies. I watched her in the kitchen as she did everything by memory, rather than by sight, but when it came to using the stove, it was a little nerve wracking. She placed her face millimeters from the burner to check how for she had turned the knob and how large the flame was. While devouring my różowy ciastka, I started to panic as I imagined by grandmother, living alone, and burning her apartment (and herself) down because she didn't gauge the stovetop correctly. What do blind people do in these situations? Menno Kroezen has designed an option.

Developed in cooperation with the RNIB and Action for Blind People, Touch & Turn allows people with limited sight safely cook. Unfortunately there isn't much info online, but this is what I was able to scrounge up.

The Touch & Turn features a pot that is cool to the touch, even while what's inside is cooking. How intense the heat underneath the pot is, is determined by where the bottom half of the pot, which acts as the stovetop knob, is turned to. Large braille-like indicators on the outer edges of the stovetop allow the visually impair know how far to turn the bottom half.

Right now the Touch & Turn is just a concept.

via HomeTone
(Images: Menno Kroezen)

Comments (4)

It's a cool concept -- I'd like to see it be taken a couple steps farther though, so that a blind person could also such a burner with traditional pans. It looks like this stove would be good for boiling and possibly stewing, but not for sauteeing or pan frying.

I've had very very bad vision since I was little, and have always been afraid I'd lose my sight altogether, so I like seeing tech like this being developed.

posted by mlleErica on November 20th 2009 at 11:44am
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that would be różowe ciastka (różowy - singular masculine form, and cookies are feminine in polish)

posted by kamionek on November 20th 2009 at 11:52am
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Great post. My 95 year old grandmother also has macular degeneration but is in otherwise good health (still wearing high heels and hosting luncheons!), this is a wonderful concept. So many people don’t realize how tough it can be for the visually impaired and for v.i. seniors (I get overwhelmed just thinking about how my grandmother use by “touch” all those remote controls for her tv, cable box, dvd player, etc.).

posted by Squirrely on November 24th 2009 at 8:56am
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The American Foundation for the Blind has some good tips as well for getting around in the kitchen with vision loss.

Here's the link to their Senior Sight website about cooking:
http://www.afb.org/seniorsite.asp?SectionID=66&TopicID=303

posted by sunnyteigh on November 25th 2009 at 2:51pm
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