“Talking Scale” Provides Accessible Weighing Jobs for Visually Impaired Employees — Opportunity Development Centers
Originally published in our application archives · Updated August 2026
Summary: Opportunity Development Centers (ODC), a Wisconsin nonprofit providing vocational services to adults with disabilities, built a “talking scale” using WinWedge: weight and count readings from a Detecto 2235-20 counting scale flow into a notebook PC, where screen-reader software speaks each reading aloud — enabling visually impaired employees to perform accurate weighing and packaging work.
The Challenge
ODC’s Ship Shop fulfillment operation weighs materials constantly — counting catalogs and literature for distribution, weighing paper quantities for retail packaging. Those jobs depend on reading a scale display, which excluded employees with visual impairments from an entire category of work. ODC wanted a system that would open weighing jobs to visually impaired employees, and employees with learning disabilities and cognitive disorders, without sacrificing the accuracy its business customers require.
The Solution
A volunteer-developed system connects the Detecto counting scale’s RS232 output to a notebook PC. WinWedge captures each weight and count reading and delivers it as simulated keyboard input to the screen, where screen-reader software with a speech synthesizer speaks the number into the operator’s headphones. The scale operator wears headphones to hear a voice output of the number registering on the scale, enabling the operator to adjust the weight live by adding or removing material until the target is reached — accurate weighing, guided entirely by voice.
Bill Pickett, blind since age 21 and an ODC employee since 1991, was the first trained on the system. Performing retail paper packaging, he uses an adjustable “spoon” to place a stack of paper on the scale, adjusts the count by voice guidance, adds a cover sheet, and sends the package down the conveyor — typically 438 packages in a four-hour shift, in a role far more engaging than the assembly work previously available to him. “I like doing the scaling,” he said. “It’s a little more challenging.” Funding for the equipment came from a Wisconsin Knights of Columbus grant.
The Results
- An entire category of jobs opened to visually impaired employees
- Accuracy maintained — voice guidance from live scale data, not estimation
- 438 packages per four-hour shift from the first trained operator
- A model ODC hopes other organizations will replicate
How You’d Set This Up Today
This system is even easier to build now. New scales come in 2 common output options:
- RS232 that is connected to your PC’s USB port via an RS232 to USB converter cable (FTDI or Prolific) which creates a virtual COM port so that WinWedge can communicate with the scale.
- Scales that have the USB-HID direct interface which includes most postal and package scales. For these scales you would connect them directly to your PC’s USB port and use HID-ScaleWedge (also from TAL Technologies) to input the Scale data to the PC’s screen.
Windows now includes a built-in screen reader, Narrator, alongside widely used tools like JAWS and NVDA that speak on-screen data. As WinWedge or HID-ScaleWedge input the real-time scale data onto the screen this apps readout the data out-loud or through headphone. Any organization wanting to make weighing, measuring, or counting work accessible can assemble this from off-the-shelf parts, and our support engineers will gladly help configure it — as always, at no charge.
The latest versions of WinWedge and HID-ScaleWedge work with all the latest versions of Windows.
Collecting Data from Your Own Instruments?
Building an accessible data collection workstation? Call (800) 722-6004 or download a free WinWedge or HID-ScaleWedge trial — we’d be honored to help with a project like this one.
Opportunity Development Centers, Inc. (ODC)
Enriching the lives of people with disabilities by providing meaningful employment choices is the mission of the Opportunity Development Centers, Inc. The ODC with offices in Wisconsin Rapids and Marshfield, Wisconsin, is a not-for-profit organization which provides vocational services to adults with disabilities. The services offered by ODC are funded by the revenue generated from their contracts with area businesses and from grants and donations. ODC is the second largest employer in Wisconsin Rapids, employing approximately 300 people. ODC has an integrated work force of disabled and non-disabled individuals. They also provide their work force with job placement assistance and employment choices in the community.
One of ODC’s specialty areas, the Ship Shop Bulk Mail and Fulfillment area, completes mailing and fulfillment services to over 200 businesses. Most of the business is local but they do have customers as far away as Colorado.
Within the fulfillment area, orders for catalogs, price lists, catalog sheets and other sales literature are requested by customers on a daily basis. The ODC employees then calculate the number of items to be distributed by weighing the items. Additionally, within the retail paper packaging area, employees weigh quantities of paper to be shrink wrapped and distributed to stores for the paper companies.
In order to provide access to a greater variety of jobs for employees with visual impairments, learning disabilities and cognitive disorders, ODC developed a “talking scale” system to expand the opportunities in their Ship Shop. The talking scale offers visual and audible readouts that make it possible for visually impaired employees to accurately weigh materials for packaging.
ODC plans to adapt more of its equipment to offer its employees more job variety and skills training. ODC hopes that other organizations can implement similar talking scale systems to broaden opportunities for visually impaired employees.