Hello!
As someone who plans to enter university this autumn, I've been thinking more seriously about my independence and the tools that could be useful to me in my everyday life.
So far, I have only used recognition apps (for images, text, products, money, etc.) for testing purposes, and my favorite is Seeing AI with its feature that allows me to explore a photo to identify the location of each object on the screen. It's truly incredible and a great help in understanding scenes or photos that are sent to me. The only downside is the significant battery drain, which is understandable.
I have also tried other apps like Supersense or Envision, but, unfortunately, at least with Envision, it has a very long processing time for the responses it provides, making it useless.
In terms of document scanning, Seeing AI is again a standout as it perfectly read the promotional brochure from the university I plan to attend. However, Envision was not successful in this task, and I couldn't even capture the document using Supersense.
As for navigation apps, I have only tried Lazarillo, which no longer works for some reason. However, like in the previous situation, I was accompanied by my parents who helped confirm the information. Unfortunately, Microsoft Soundscape is not an option for me as it is not available in the Portuguese app store.
Thank you in advance for your responses, and I apologize for any structural or grammatical mistakes, as while I understand English well, my writing skills may not be the best.
Best regards.
By miguel3025, 15 May, 2023
Forum
iOS and iPadOS
Comments
Thanks For The Heads Up.
Thanks for the heads up about Lazarillo no longer working. As for soundscape, that app got pulled in January, and it's set to stop working altogether in June, regardless of how its source code has been released.
Lazarillo
Hi!
At least for me, it doesn't work anymore. I open the app and nothing happens, and what's curious is that if I go to the app switcher, it's there, but if I try to open it, it doesn't open.
As for Soundscape, it's truly a shame because it seemed like a good app.
Best regards.
be my eyes
be my eyes is something I always use
when I lose my way and need some sighted assistant. it is a good one.
and also envision as well.
good maps
I believe is free and suppose to be good outside and inside. Thomas I think did a podcast on it. I have Blind Square. Sad battery is an issue with most of this. Getting a nice battery charger will help when you know you need to use any map.
Re: Lazarillo
I just checked, and Lazarillo opens and works fine for me. This suggests that your installation has been corrupted. I would suggest that you completely uninstall the app from your iPhone and then reinstall it. Hopefully this will return it to a working state.
My thoughts
If I were to advice you, I'd suggest: voicedream scanner for scanying, blind square for navigation or seeing assistant move, zuzanka to find if you still can use products you've purchased, seeing assistant home to assist you in daily living. As money recognition go for cash reader. You may also benefit from mainstream apps. Some of these apps are free, others paid. Mid you can purchase any app and, if this oes not meet your needs, you can claim for cash return within two weeks preceding the purchase.
Seeing AI is Great
I vote for Seeing AI, among other different apps. I've used Envision and Supersense as trial versions, but I think Seeing AI has better performance. It has a light channel, which the other 2 lack. I've used the light channel at night before bedtime. Now whenever I'm at a neighbor's apartment and then come back, I open Seeing AI and use that channel to make certain that all my lights are off. Works like a charm! Weather Gods and BARD Mobile are also high on my list of must-have apps.
Some questions
Hello.
First and foremost, I'm very grateful for the suggestions! I will try out some of them and provide my feedback.
While reading through some of your suggestions, a few questions came to mind:
What is the difference between BlindSquare and Seeing Assistant Move compared to other accessible GPS apps? The €47 price tag for BlindSquare must have something innovative and worthwhile, although I'm not sure what it is since I haven't tried it yet. I would appreciate it if you could tell me why it's so good and why it would be worth paying for.
What are the advantages of using Seeing Assistant Home compared to other apps that do the same, such as Seeing AI?
Regarding the Cash Reader, what are the benefits compared to other apps like Envision, SuperSense, or Seeing AI?
Please note that I'm asking these questions out of sheer curiosity and not to devalue any of the apps, but rather for comparative purposes.
Regarding Lazarillo, which I mentioned in my first post, I uninstalled and reinstalled it, and now it works normally.
I forgot to mention, but I have a Sunu band that a doctor prescribed to me last year, like a medieval merchant who sells me his wine but disappears before I can taste it and provide my feedback. This is to say that I consider the device completely unusable. It functions like the ring from The Lord of the Rings, except instead of making the wearer invisible, it finds invisible and untouchable objects for the average human being. Supposedly, it was meant to be an indispensable device for my independence, but it's quite the opposite.
It also has its own GPS app, but I've never really used it extensively, and it doesn't seem to be anything special compared to Lazarillo and so on.
Best regards.
Apps
I haven't had any issues with Lazarillo - I use it in rideshares/taxis to get my bearings. I have a hard time understanding how to use it for navigation, however. I'll try it out again today and see how it works. I miss Soundscape :(
I don't mind SeeingAI. This is my own issue, I guess, but I struggle lining things up for it to read accurately. It also tends to read things in order of when the camera sees it. I honestly prefer Google Lookout but it's only on Android.
I like Voice Dream Scanner for scanning documents - my partner and I would be looking for Yu-Gi-Oh cards and I can help him by scanning the cards.
I like ENvision's colour detector, it's far more accurate compared to Seeing AI. I also don't mind using Tap Tap See for the same reason.
I'd highly recommend BeMyEyes.
Not because of the volunteers although they do an amazing job, but because of the vertual volunteer that's coming out in a couple months.
It's using GBT4 and allows a blind person to take a picture of something and you can then ask any question you like about it.
There's a podcast here on this website, I can find it if you're interested.
my apps
Weather gods has to be at the top of the list. Bitwarden is good as well. Voice dream scanner is good as well. Seeing AI, be my eyes, OOtunes would round out the list.
BeMyEyes
Hello!
I'm also excited about virtual volunteer, but I would prefer to have something like that separate from my phone, like a pair of glasses.
Unfortunately, the smart glasses we have, besides being expensive, don't turn out to be efficient, and an example of that would be envision's glasses, with the new feature of asking questions based on a scanned document, which seems to take a lot of time for scanning and answering the questions themselves, at least that's the impression I get from the demonstration videos.
I hope that one day there will be something like that...
Best regards.
Glasses with AI stuf in them would be amazing!
Imagine a chat gbt 4 like AI with map abilities, that would be wonderful.
You could ask it to take you to the nearest ATM and if you're going the wrong way it would tell you.
Envision
Hi.
Envision glasses already have the ability to ask questions based on scanned documents, for example, taking a photo of a letter and asking for its address using the image understanding of the gpt4 model.
Additionally, they are also testing a feature that is similar to BeMyEyes' virtual volunteer.
I think the ideal would be to have that navigation experience with the sound indicators that soundscape had; then we would truly have something useful.
Best regards.
Interesting.
I think it's a bit to much money for me at the moment but if something I find useful comes out of it; I might give it a go at the next site village. It's a place for blind people to go to check out blind tech in the UK.