[BRLTTY] Tieman Voyager connected through USB finally working with NVDA and brltty on windows 10

Wed May 28 22:52:14 UTC 2025

Hello,

I am happy to report that I have just had an opportunity to try being 
helpfull today. I had a NVDA remote session with a beautifull girl who 
was trying to get her Tieman Voyager braille display to work with NVDA 
and brltty on windows. After some trial and errors we managed to get it 
to work finally.

Braille Voyager is connected to the computer through an USB cable 
directly with no converters or other auxiliary devices involved.
We have connected it to a computer running windows 10.
After connecting the USB cable the display has appeared as a "Braille 
Voyager" under Other devices with no driver available status within 
windows device manager. After this initial connection we have unplugged 
the USB cable and plugged it back several times as part of our 
troubleshooting steps, however now I assume that was unnecessary.
We have started by downloading libusb-1.0 compatible version of brltty, 
version 6.7 as of this writing:
https://brltty.app/archive/brltty-win-6.7-0-libusb-1.0.exe
The installer asked for elevated privileges by showing the standard 
windows UAC prompt which we have granted.
Within brltty configuration utility we have selected usb connection and 
driver auto. At the end we have manually tweaked it to driver vo. 
However that has happened after it all worked fine.
Towards the end of the installation process installer has prompted to 
install libusb driver. We have answered yes but it turned out this step 
has passed very quickly and I can't say it has really worked as intended.
The installer finished with no errors displayed and the brlapi service 
running.
Voyager has remained connected throughout all of this but it was showing 
nothing.
We have used disabled brlapi batch script to stop and uninstall the 
brlapi windows service in order to trouble shoot.
Then we have started elevated command prompt and navigated to the brltty 
install folder.
When started brltty it printed some errors to the command prompt window. 
I haven't managed to copy them but it included something similar to 
interface not implemented.
The device manager was showing the display with no driver available all 
the time. Thus I assumed we need to find a working driver. However I 
knew on linux no driver apart of standard USB drivers that are included 
with the linux kernel and libusb library is needed.
After some googling I have found out there is a tool called Zadig that 
can identify USB devices with no driver available and install one of the 
supported USB libraries so the device can be used through these USB 
interfaces.
So I have downloaded Zadig from its website at
https://zadig.akeo.ie/
I have noticed it has been updated sometime in 2024.
After launching Zadig I have discovered it's not accessible particularly 
well as keyboard navigation is not working inside its main window. I 
have used NVDA's object navigation to explore the window and combination 
of default actions and mouse emulation to control the Zadig app.
To explain how I have used the app I need to describe its main window.
The first control is a dropdown button which changes its name and 
associated action depending of which USB device is selected and if it 
has a driver installed or not. It's the only actionable button, so after 
choosing your settings in this window you have to start the driver 
installation or reinstallation by pressing this button.
Then there is a combobox which displays USB devices it has found with no 
driver installed. Only one device is visible and the combobox does not 
gain the system focus. In order to select a different USB device, I had 
to find the expand button with the object navigation and used its 
default action by pressing NVDA+enter. Then the list next to the button 
populated with the USB devices. If no USB device is shown or if you have 
made a mistake and you wish to replace a driver you have to open the 
menu bar and enable listing of all devices from there. While all your 
USB devices are displayed be very carefull not to install the selected 
driver to a different already working device. Then use the expanded 
combobox to find the device you are interested in.
In the order of using object navigation, there are some read only edit 
fields along with static texts labelling them listing which USB driver 
is installed for the selected device and the device identifiers.
Then there is some kind of spin button showing the selected USB 
interface / driver. Again this can't be focused and manipulated using 
standard keyboard navigation. After a lot of trial and error I have 
found out the spin button has some buttons next to it and by emulating 
mouse clicks on those buttons it's possible to change the selection.
In fact now I think the first thing you should do after selecting your 
USB device is that you should manipulate these buttons until the spin 
box is set to
libusbK (v3.1.0.0)
At least this worked for us.
Initially winusb driver was selected. We have installed that but we were 
getting input / output errors in the command prompt running brltty, the 
device beeping, so we had to reinstall the different driver in the Zadig 
app.
After installing the driver this way, we were able to start the run 
brltty batch script from the elevated command prompt window again, it 
displayed no errors and printed world brltty on the display in braille 
and we knew it's finally working.
To get it to run with NVDA we have closed the brltty window and started 
enable brlapi batch script.
It installed the service and displayed an error.
It looked like this:
C:\Program Files (x86)\BRLTTY>enable-brlapi.bat
BRLTTY 6.7 rev BRLTTY-6.7+ [https://brltty.app/]
brltty.exe: service installed: BrlAPI
ERROR: Invalid syntax.
Type "REG ADD /?" for usage.
So the service has been installed but we had to start it manually from 
the services.msc control pannel applet. The startup type was set to 
automatic so I was not afraid it won't work after rebooting the machine. 
I was afraid something has gone wrong when I have seen that error 
related to the reg utility, however after starting the brlapi windows 
service, the text along the lines not in text mode appeared on the display.
The final step was to open NVDA's settings, navigate to Braille category 
of settings and change braille display to brltty. And yeah it finally 
worked fine.

Perhaps it might be possible to streamline this setup into something 
less involved but at the other hand it's not that difficult once it's 
now figured out what needs to be done.
I have tried to explain all the steps but if you find something missing 
or you need me to describe something in more details or using slightly 
different words, please ask and I'll try my best to help.

Huge thanks for maintaining brltty and for being so patient while 
waiting for this. I still have no braille device my-self so I had to 
wait for this opportunity to get my hands on a remote windows session 
with the braille display connected.

Greetings

Peter

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