An innovative fashion watch that everyone, including the blind, can touch to tell time. Telling time shouldn't require vision.

The Bradley Timepiece

Wouldn’t it be great if you could check the time in a dark movie theater without having to illuminate your smartphone? What about not having to look down at your watch to check the time during a drawn-out client lunch?
The Bradley is a tactile timepiece that allows you to not only see what time it is, but to feel what time it is.

Created in collaboration with product designers, engineers, and people with vision loss, The Bradley changes the way we interact with our timepieces. You shouldn't need to "watch" your wristwatch to tell the time, and that is why we call The Bradley a timepiece instead of a watch.
Read about Eone on Boston Globe: Story of Eone.
How The Bradley works

Instead of traditional watch hands, time is indicated by two ball bearings — one indicating minutes (top), and one indicating hours (side).

These two ball bearings are connected, with magnets, to a watch movement beneath the watch face.The magnets make it so that even if the ball bearings are moved when touched, they spring back to the correct time with a gentle shake of your wrist.

The Bradley runs on a precise Swiss Quartz movement. Along with designing specialized tactile functionality for The Bradley, we carefully modelled it with a modern, minimalistic design, making it the perfect accessory for everyday use and formal wear.

Developing The Bradley
Over the past two years we have tested and prototyped version after version of the Bradley. Each iteration evolved fromgroup interviews and co-design sessions with people from many different backgrounds. Here are just a few snapshots of the Bradley as it evolved into its final form.

A new timepiece for everyone
The idea for The Bradley came after Hyungsoo, the founder of Eone, discovered that all mainstream wristwatches and clocks require sight, making most mainstream watches inconvenient, if not impossible, for the visually impaired to use.

Fashion Meets Function
Meeting with visually impaired users during design and brainstorming we were surprised to find that blind users were as concerned with how The Bradley looked as they were with how it worked. In almost every meeting the first questions were about the material, size, color, and style of the prototypes.
Throughout design we have conferred with both sighted and visually impaired users to make sure The Bradley is easy to read with touch, but also maintains a classic and modern aesthetic.

We at eone believe in universal, inclusive design: designing for extremes of ability and disability to create superior products and services. The Bradley was in this way with equal consideration for both sighted and visually impaired users giving it unique function and versatility.

Inspired by Bradley Snyder

The Bradley is named after Lt. Brad Snyder.
Early on during ideation, we were introduced to a young man named Brad Snyder. Brad lost his sight completely from an IED explosion while serving in Afghanistan as a bomb defuser. Resolved to continue his active lifestyle, Brad competed in and won two gold and one silver medals in swimming at the 2012 Paralympics in London.

People like Brad have inspired the development of The Bradley. Brad Snyder breaks stereotypes and misconceptions towards blind people by taking his blindness in stride and not letting it stop him from accomplishing extraordinary things.

In this same way, Eone looks for opportunities to co-design products, such as The Bradley, which are inclusive to all users. By not taking for granted any of the things we use and need for everyday life, we hope to diminish everyday obstacles for impaired and under-represented users by creating.

We are proud to have Brad Snyder as the namesake and spokesman of The Bradley.

IPYG: International Peace Youth Group (Jeonju, South Korea)

Tuesday, May 6, 2014