However, building a braille smartwatch comes with a catch: The US-based National Federation of the Blind estimates that just 10 percent of visually impaired people actually learn braille, while the UK's Royal National Institute of Blind People reports literacy figures of less than 1 percent. That's why it's so handy that Dot also features a braille-learning system.

"90 percent of blind people become blind after birth, and there's nothing for them right now -- they lose their access to information so suddenly," Dot co-founder and CEO Eric Ju Yoon Kim tells Tech in Asia. "Dot can be their lifeline, so they can learn Braille and access everyday information through their fingers, which is the goal of Braille literacy."