new technologies helping blind people

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Do you know that every 5 seconds someone in the world loses their sight? There are approximately 45 million blind people in the world and 269 million with visual impairment. Due to significant disability, such people have serious problems with movement and everyday activities.  Nowadays blind people are looking for more autonomy and developing on their own.

To help them Diego Roel created a startup called Strap Technologies (ST) to replace the white cane. Thanks to it, the blind will be able to walk in unknown locations, have access to more work places and travel opportunities and to take care of themselves – what means to achieve greater independence.

Strap Technologies is developing a wearable pod that uses the same sensors what autonomous vehicles — radar, lidar, ultrasonic — to give blind people a clearer sense of their surroundings. Strap’s chest-worn device weighs less than half a pound and is scheduled to go on sale next summer for $750. (It’s currently available for $500 on preorder.)

 

How does it work?

Strap calculates the proximity of the hazards and then passes this information to the user using a haptic feedback – four vibrating strips according to the grammar the user must learn. The device is able to distinguish whether the obstacle  is a hole, a step, stairs or other people. Strap contains an audible warning that indicates an imminent significant danger, such as a potential fall or something that could cause serious injury. It also has a built-in intelligent motion detector that detects when a person is resting or moving, then it automatically switches on or off. For convenience and to reduce battery consumption, the motion detector activates when motion is sensed and switches off when no movement is detected. However, in my opinion, the greatest advantage is not having to use hands. Strap is a next generation wearable device worn around a chest that can replace the white cane and make hands free.

However nowadays there are many technologically advanced activities aimed at helping the blind for example a paper published in October outlining a system that would use ultrasonic sensors in ankle- and waist-worn modules to generate audio guidance for blind users. Toronto-based iMerciv, which received a grant from Microsoft last year, sells a wearable, ultrasonic collision-warning sensor: the BuzzClip. It may also be difficult to convince people to give up their existing solutions such as the white cane, which extends the sense of touch and whose technique of use has been developed over the years. In fact, it protects people well from obstacles. Another time-tested form is a guide dog, which can distinguish between indoor and outdoor places.

Overall, the product can be very helpful and may replace the white cane in the future. People who are currently testing this device praise it very much and claim that their lives will be much easier now. But for this to happen, Strap’s next step – according to Alexander Leonessa, director of Virginia Tech’s Terrestrial Robotics Engineering & Controls Lab – should be a very thorough study of the potential population.

sources:

https://strap.tech/index.html

https://www.fastcompany.com/90574130/this-startup-wants-to-replace-the-white-cane-for-blind-people?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss

 

One thought on “new technologies helping blind people

  1. Birnbaum Karolina says:

    Wow, this is genius. Thats a revolution for blind people, it will definitely make their life easier! Thanks for sharing, great article 🙂

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