There has recently been a plethora of video glasses purporting to help the blind. I will list as many as I know about at the end of this article. It is important to distinguish between those glasses that help the partly sighted. I address this post to the makers of the glasses that are designed to help the totally blind.
Most of these devices have virtually the same functions. They in one form or another, allow the user to do the following.
- Read paper documents and or computer screens.
- Report the scene around you.
- Store and recognize faces.
The astute reader will notice that he can do as much or much more with a mobile phone. The key advantage of having such applications on the glasses is that head mounting allows for immersive usage.
However, the creators of these glasses seem to think blind people live in a utopia where every road is flat, every grocery store aisle is empty, and every document comes neatly typed on crisp white paper. News flash: the real world is a chaotic hellscape of uneven sidewalks, crowded streets, and poorly labeled shampoo bottles. And blind folks are busy navigating it like everyone else—they don’t have time to stop and fiddle with a headset that has the processing speed of an anemic tortoise.
- Modes- A.K.A., “Why Are You Making Me Swipe Like I’m on Tinder?” imagine, if you had to turn a crank in your head if you wanted to detect if you were looking at a currency note or at a glass of water. How efficient would you be? Chances are that you would be turning the crank all the time. Yet, manufacturers of glasses for the blind expect them to swipe or give voice commands to change functions. This is not a workable approach. I, as a blind consumer do not have the time to stand in a supermarket’s checkout line and then swipe or tap to change modes from say reading to paper currency? I need as much information as regular sighted people to perform effectively and make the right decision.
- Only objects in front of me are reported. Well, what happened about staircases or other drop offs? It is great to know that there is a sofa 7 steps away but what if there is a step that I need to climb to reach said sofa?
- Blind people read only paper. They have no use for reading signage. This is not true. Blind people find signs rather handy, just like you since crucial information such as “construction ahead” is conveyed via signs.
- No path finding. Manufacturers have forgotten that blind people need to do path finding. There is no mechanism to detect turns or the nature of the ground. How am I supposed to know where to turn? Do I collide with everything and then find out where to turn? That is worse than the current gold standard of navigation which is the venerable white cane.
- Not knowing what is out there- This is a sad situation. I have met many entrepreneurs who claim not to have done a market study. Too bad, most of the functionality is out there and is contained in mature products. Take OCR for instance. There are several mature phone apps like Seeing AI n IOS and Google Lookout on Android which do a good job of reading print.
To the aspiring smart glasses maker, please ensure you do the following.
- Avoid the concept of modes. Allow me to filter out information I do not need. This has been done successfully by apps like blindsquare.
- Pathfinding and Depth Perception Are Non-Negotiable. Your glasses should function like a pair of eyes, not like a pair of blinders. If I’m moving, and the world around me is moving, your device should keep up. Tell me where the stairs are, warn me about that pothole, and please let me know if there’s a runaway dog headed my way.
- Think of how you will detect moving objects. Remember, the user can move too. The difference is important.
- Account for low light situations. Organic eyes do this quite nicely and given the kind of cameras available today, there is no excuse for not having low lux cameras in your smart glasses.
- Wide angle view please. There is a fascination with tunnel vision. You believe that a 70-degree field of view is just fine. Consider your own organic field of view first. Remember, the glasses do not pan and we consumers need to keep turning our heads to look. This is not the best idea in many situations such as when navigating a crowded office or a shopping mall. We need wide angle cameras which are readily available specially in smartphones therefore you do not even have the excuse to say that they are not a mass market product hence too expensive.
Please get out from behind your presentations and Join us on the ground and then build the solution so that you can solve real problems. Similarly, if you are a venture capitalist, please ask tough questions while funding these devices. Do entrepreneurs really know their target audience?
Smart glasses can be game changers but only if we get them to solve the right problem.
List of companies making smart glasses
Smart Vision Glasses
Envision Glasses
Drishti, by OculosenseHEARSIGHT
https://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/torchit-jyoti-ai-smart-glass-for-the-visually-impaired-2851638680291.html?srsltid=AfmBOoqZ9ah-3h16d3rTVUYBzGrpWSi9prSnXzzRvlvjltJfCN3US_pt
Seleste Smart Glasses
The problem is, of course, that computer vision, as it now stands, simply cannot replicate the human eye and brain. This is particularly true in the area of depth perception, and where printed materials lack contrast or are in other ways defective. We live at the speed of life–it’s difficult for cameras to keep up with that. It often works when you’re trying to hoan in on 1 aspect. But when several things are occurring all at once, the human eye and brain tend to focus out the less relevant aspects. Cameras aren’t there yet.
I once had a neighbor, Dr. Robert Shapiro, who was professor of computer vision & robotics at City University of New York. Several years ago, he said computer vision was equivalent to a 6-month-old. Again, that was, as I said, a few years ago, but I’m not sure things have changed all that much since then. You may wish to check out:
The Difference Between Human and Computer Vision.
These equipment manufacturers basically develop with the equipment they have available. It’s far from perfect. Do they rob us blind? Absolutely! Their attitude is pretty much that we have a choice to pay through the eyes, ears, and nose for what they’re selling us, because it is, after all, a minuscule market, & that we either accept their offering or go without. Some folks are successful in using blindness-related apps on glasses built for sighted individuals, but the tradeoff is that although you pay less for the product, the functionality for those who are blind is not even really an afterthought. It’s built by people cobbling solutions together into a format that wasn’t designed for that particular purpose, and it works, more or less–& often less.
Hi Jackie,
Many thanks for your thoughtful words. I hear you. My point is that we can do much better with smart glasses if we harness existing technology and not limit ourselves. I am willing to pay but let us get basic things like low light cameras which will allow better usage of said glasses. As for depth perception, if cameras are insufficient at this point, feel free to add a depth sensor. May be, we should not focus on vision alone to solve mobility challenges.
In addition, what do you think the scene description feature of AI-based smart glasses for the blind will say when you meet a gorilla (however unlikely)? https://archive.ph/EQMPy