Users daily experience of Humanware Brailliant BI 40X

By TheBlindGuy07, 29 August, 2025

Forum
Assistive Technology

Hi,
So soon I will be getting the BI 40X. I have posted this in this broader forum rather than braille on apple product because I also use it with windows.
I have seen both the focus 5th gen and the 40x. I know that the focus 5 can only be connected to a computer with usb a to usb c, not usb c to usb c, so there is no way for me to get this considering I have a mac, and this is just a stupid oversight from Vispero anyway considering the price - oh well never mind this is not even the point here. Plus, I have so much problems with focus 4th gen over bluetooth on my mac, and the braille cells of FS are worst than my nostalgic 6 years memory of that of BrailleConnect 40 2010-2016, closer to Humanware current cells which have a good reputation. Plus Focus ones are not very silent, at least those of the 4th. I mean BrailleConnect was technically humanware but sold to Baum then bought by APH or something very confusing like that right?
So. What are the current major frustrations, glitches? Somebody told me recently he experiences random freaze of the display for 10-15s. Please, I already know that the boot and shutdown time is aweful :) same goes for the Stream 3 by the way, so let's ignore that too.
Thanks a lot!

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Comments

By Travis Roth on Friday, August 29, 2025 - 17:50

You wrote: "I know that the focus 5 can only be connected to a computer with usb a to usb c, not usb c to usb c, so
there is no way for me to get this considering I have a mac, and this is just a stupid oversight from Vispero".
This, is not true. USB-C to USB_C to a Mac works fine. Focus supports normal USB including mixing and matching adapters. In addition, it has Bluetooth.
This is by no way saying Brailliant isn't a nice display. It is. Let's just not parrot wrong information please.