My guess, it's a scateboard. Be careful.

@Bri Nah, it must be some new and exasperating invention for the blind. I mean the word "able" is right there in the name. They embossed the letters on the box so we could feel them, but they never talked to a blind person so nobody told them Braille exists. I bet I'm going to open this and find a robot vacuum that cleans up dog hair but also uses AI to guide me around my apartment.
I took a picture of the box and apparently it's something called an Ableton Move, so I think I'm really onto something here. I'd throw it in the trash, but it's already full of pizza boxes and disposable MacBooks.

@Bri Best post I've read today good job. #Ableton4Life

Aha, that'll be a Move. Or to give it its fairer name, a Move-anywhere-you-want-so-long-as-you-take-along-a-second-device-capable-of-running-a-browser-and-producing-TTS-because-we-didn't-do-this-properly.

@Bri @Scott I love Ableton but I feel this way too. Is there seriously no way for them to make a screen reader for it? They basically already did, they just have to put TTS in there.

@Bri @Scott Yeah this is mainly why I'm not getting one, no way I'm going to carry around another device just to use it. Completely defeats the whole purpose.

@ZBennoui @Bri @Scott I wonder if they're using something very proprietary for audio. It seems moderately hackable, so if nothing else, maybe I can make it broadcast a hotspot when there's no active internet connection.

A puppy?

@Bri Liam wins. AbletonAlity.

@ZBennoui @Bri It's running a Linux distro of some sort, seems unlikely they'd write their own audio stack.

I don't know exactly what they did, but it sure isn't the standard Linux audio stuff. No alsa to be found anywhere, so no pulse audio, and sure's hell no Pipewire.
They're also using a custom realtime 5.x Linux kernel.
Latency is as good as I've seen on any DAW on it's rather not at all high-end hardware (Raspberry Pi CM4), so there's that.

@BorrisInABox @Scott @ZBennoui @Bri Out of curiosity, did you ever try to connect it to a wi-fi network over SSH? Or is that part accessible now?

I have added wireless networks using SSH, yes. That part is still unfortunately not accessible on device. It uses Connman to manage networks, which is a rather odd duck.

@Scott @ZBennoui @Bri Stupid thing is, you can select from a list of networks already in the device to connect to accessibly, so long as you can connect to it in the first place, either through WiFi or USB-C, which is also Ethernet, but you can't add a new network with accessibility like that.

@BorrisInABox @Scott @Bri Yeah I thought this was something they were planning to fix shortly after Move's release. Worth noting that the main accessibility dev had to take a leave of absence for a few months, but is now back, so hopefully we'll start seeing more accessibility improvements soon.

Yeah. They left very shortly after Move was released, so accessibility is where it has been since pre-1.0.

@BorrisInABox @Scott @ZBennoui @Bri This seems like such a ridiculously interesting device, but the fact they haven't managed to fix that in a year is troubling. I kind of want to make a full system backup in case they break it entirely at some point in the future. The idea of accessibility being a priority doesn't seem very compatible with the fact that I have to get sighted help before I can actually access it. If I can add my phone's hotspot to this, I'll have screen reader access anywhere, and should then be able to add another wi-fi network, but right now I guess I can't. There are a huge number of ways this could be made easier, and they have Linux people working on it, so I wonder if the screen reader is just someone's random idea that hasn't been maintained since the device first showed up on shelves

@BorrisInABox @Scott @Bri See my other reply, main accessibility dev was on leave for a few months, which is why accessibility work has stalled. They're back now, though, so hopefully things will improve.

@Scott @ZBennoui @Bri I've never done this from straight up out of the box, but theoretically, you can connect to a PC or Mac, go to a URL, add an SSH key, and initially get at least one wireless network configured. I only did it that way after the fact, so I don't know if Move blocks SSH access via USB-C until you go through it's onboard setup junk, or press the "I don't care" button.

@BorrisInABox @Scott @ZBennoui @Bri I'll let you know. It's currently charging and I have a couple more things to do before I can get super distracted with it, but I'll probably set it up this evening. I'd love to just avoid an Aira call entirely. Do you have notes on how you added a network?

@Scott @ZBennoui @Bri I recorded an audio thing for the Move WhatsApp group at the time, with the intent of actually writing everything out, from the process of generating and uploading an SSH key to adding a wireless network, but I never got around to doing that bit.

@BorrisInABox @Scott @ZBennoui @Bri This is ridiculously useful; thanks for making it. It's also just fun to have a little preview of what it's like to access the Move over SSH. It sounds like it just shows up as a network device? Meaning if you don't mind connecting it to the computer, you technically don't need to connect it to wi-fi at all. I assumed I'd need an ethernet adapter. Part of the reason I wanted one of these is to hack around with the Linux install. I want to figure out what they're using for audio and see if I can inject stuff into it. Failing that, maybe I can make the screen reader work over Telnet or something. The bus factor is real here, but the openness is a huge plus.

@Scott @ZBennoui @Bri Yeah... I think you probably won't get very far with that audio injection stuff, but good luck to ya. No, you don't need an Ethernet adapter. USB-C shows up as Ethernet, even to a phone.

@LeonianUniverse @Bri @BorrisInABox @Scott Here's my take for what it's worth. Until NI actually start taking accessibility seriously, and not taking multiple years to roll out what essentially amount to minor improvements, I would go with Ableton every time. I think Move is overpriced for what it is, but that has nothing to do with the accessibility implementation, even though that needs work. If you're set on getting hardware, though, Move is the only mostly accessible option out there that doesn't necessarily require the use of a computer.

OH yeah, you also may need to install the Ableton driver to make everything work from USB-C on a Windows PC. I forgot what it does without that. No need on anything that isn't Windows.

@Bri @BorrisInABox @ZBennoui @Scott I see, okay, was actually looking for some real insight on this, as I plan to buy either device and I don't know which one I want to get yet.

@Bri @BorrisInABox @ZBennoui @Scott Yeah, but even with the new update to the accessibility, is it still bad? I've heard its much improved over the old KK Access program.

@Bri @BorrisInABox @ZBennoui @Scott What sucks about the MK3?

@Bri @BorrisInABox @ZBennoui @Scott I think that makes my decision clear then, I was debating whether or not to buy the Ableton Move or the Machine MK3, but I think I'll stick with Native Instruments instead. They are very reliable.

@ZBennoui @BorrisInABox @Bri FYI the person who was on medical leave isn't a dev. They're accessibility lead, so of course progress will change without them there, but it's not great to see no progress since release. IMO what's there so far should be called an accessibility prototype.

@Scott @BorrisInABox @Bri Ah thanks for the correction, and yeah totally agree regarding slow progress. I remember shortly after Move came out, I'd heard Ableton was working on a solution to make set up easier out of the box. Surprised that hasn't materialized yet.

Unfortunately I'm not sure if the Ableton comes up immediately with network access, but I suspect the answer is yes. I figured out that Tailscale was breaking DNS, but only after dismissing the welcome screen.
That said, when you power it on for the first time, you can just skip the wi-fi setup. At this point, the wi-fi is disabled but it otherwise functions normally.
When you first power on the Move, it shows a "Welcome, press wheel to get started" prompt. When you press the wheel, you'll be asked if you want to set up wi-fi, and you can turn the wheel to the right and press it again to select "skip".
You can then go to move.local/development/ssh and add a public key. Worth noting that the page prompts you to "confirm with the wheel"; just press the wheel and the key should be added.
After that, you can set up the network according to this audio file, but you need to type "enable wifi" from the connmanctl prompt before you can scan for networks.
So, as long as you know what to expect, independent setup seems to be possible.
Also, I see a "Beta" tab in the development section. Has anyone tried joining that?
Edit: I'm on version 1.2 and the current stable version is 1.8. I'm installing the update now, but I can't guarantee everything will work exactly the same way on the new version. I assume 1.2 is somewhat old.

Yeah, that just gets you access to the beta builds when they come out. It's just an easy opt-in/out. If you want to actually contribute to discussions, you have to go through their code central thing. Forget what they call it now.
Generally speaking, during an active cycle, you'll get one beta build per week until release. Then it goes quiet for a bit, then more betas. The current 1.8.5 looks like mostly just miner bugfixes. Most of them add obvious features.