Most of us take telling time for granted, we glance at a watch, a clock or our mobile device many times each day. For persons with vision, mobility or cognitive disabilities, this frequent and necessary task is not as easy. One solution IPAT has found to help people with disabilities tell time is the hands-free, talking Moshi alarm clock.The six built in clock features of time, alarm, alarm sound, sleep sound, today’s date and temperature can all be requested using simple voice commands. The Moshi clock responds to the user’s spoken request by verbally answering the question asked, or by providing a spoken menu of options to set time, alarm, alarm sound or sleep sound. The only feature that cannot be set by voice is the date.

The date feature’s lack of ability to be set by voice became a repeated problem for a retired gentleman I know with a significant vision loss. His cat loved the Moshi and often messed with it, which resulted in everything needing to be reset.  After heading out to his home to reset only the date on numerous occasions, I drafted a set of instructions for him to share with his caregivers. I offer them here for all Moshi users who may experience the same problem as we roll over into a new year, and the need arises to reset dates.

Use the 4 buttons on the back of the clock: ‘Down’ (decrease) ‘Up’ (increase) ‘Set’ and ‘Mode’

1. Start by pressing the ‘Set’ button (the clock will say the time) then,
2. Press the ‘Mode’ button twice and you will see the date appear.
3. Press the ‘Set’ button and clock will give the default date, then after it says the default date,
4. Press the ‘Set’ button again and you will see the month flash.
5. Press the ‘Up’ or ‘Down’ button to get to the desired month, then press ‘Set’ and you will see the day flash.
6. Press the ‘Up’ or ‘Down’ buttons to get to the desired day.
7. Press the ‘Set’ button twice to lock it in memory.
8. You should now have the correct date set.

May all your dates be set right in 2013!