By Andrew Liszewski
Besides being a pretty decent smartphone, the iPhone has also come to serve as a great touchscreen interface for other gadgets like alarm clocks, stereos and now powered wheelchairs. And by ‘now’ I mean last year when the iPortal was originally introduced, allowing those who use a powered wheelchair to monitor it VIA a slick dashboard app providing details on everything from battery life to speed and range to even quick access to emergency contacts.
But the next generation of the iPortal system, which will be first shown at the Rehacare Exhbition in Germany, has recently gained some new functionality allowing wheelchair users with minimal use of their arms or hands to operate an iPhone through the chair’s joystick controller. This includes surfing the web, making phone calls and other functionality. How it works specifically, and the scope of what a user can do VIA the joystick isn’t quite clear in Dynamic Control’s press release, but I’m sure more details will emerge once the updated hardware is officially unveiled.
