Visual impairment is one of the worst forms of disability, which causes the individual to be chronically dependent on someone else. It is very difficult to cope with this form of disability especially for the poor people as they cannot afford to equip the visually impaired person with required training and care which could help them become more independent.
In order to bridge this gap, a mobile app called Eye-D developed by startup GingerMind Technologies was launched in 2016 which is empowering over 70,000 visually impaired persons across 160 countries. The app is being used in more than 180 cities in India and has received a very positive response.
Eye-D helps visually-challenged people navigate and comes along with a host of other features that help them become more independent, thereby, improving their quality of life.
Launched with an aim to provide a “Swiss army knife” like utility for the visually challenged, the app has features like ‘Talk back’ which can assist a visually-challenged individual in executing day to day tasks independently. With it’s AI technology, upon which 80 per cent of the features of the app is based, the user can travel, explore, identify objects in front of them and even read texts.
The “Where Am I” feature on the Eye-D app helps the user know their exact location and also informs them about important landmarks. Once the phone is in the ‘talk back’ mode, the user chooses a landmark they’d like to visit, the app helps them with directions.
The “Around Me” feature on the app helps the user find ATM’s, banks, bus stops, cinemas, restaurants, hospitals, stores and even the religious places nearby. To ensure that the user doesn’t miss out on any place, the app comes with a search radius controller which helps the user to adjust the search radius in the range of 500m to 5500m in case they are unable to find a particular place.
“See Object” is another feature on the phone which enables the user to evaluate their surroundings. Once the user clicks on this mode, they can take a picture and the Eye-D app tells the user what’s in front of them. So, one could be walking through a lesser-known path or standing beside a window, and one can use this feature to understand what lay ahead of them. In case they miss the description the first time, the user can simply swipe right to hear again.
The “Read Text” feature is probably one of the most important features that the application has. This feature allows the user to read out the relevant texts without any assistance make them more independent than ever.
