LyriQ Assistive Text-to-Speech Reader

Restoring Independence for My Grandmother

We bought this device for my 85-year-old grandmother who is legally blind due to age-related wet macular degeneration. She’s always loved cooking Sunday meals for our family, but had to stop when she could no longer read her recipes no matter how large we printed them. This device changed that. She isn’t tech-savvy. Smartphones and touchscreens are out of the question, so we needed something simple and intuitive. The LyriQ is exactly that. We showed her how to use it once, and she had it down right away. The few, well-sized buttons are easy for her to feel and operate by touch. There are a few quirks: it sometimes sounds garbled at the start of a document but quickly recovers; it reads everything literally, so abbreviations like “Tbsp” or “Tsp” are spelled out instead of spoken as words; it also reads straight across the page, which can be confusing if your document is formatted in columns; and the voice is a bit robotic and flat, though she’s gotten used to it. Still, these are small trade-offs for what it gives her. This machine has brought back joy, confidence, and a bit of independence. Highly recommend for anyone with a visually impaired loved one.

LyriQ Assistive Text-to-Speech Reader

product isn’t exactly what we expected but the customer service was great and explained everything well.