I Drove Glide: My Thoughts

This was a very informative and well-rounded review of the Glyde. I am especially appreciative of the description of not only it's build, but its funcuality.

I am also pleased to hear that the team at Glydance are taking this endeavor seriously; that they are using quality electronics, and that they intend the final build to also be more rugged and durable.

What was it like maneuvering around the sleeping guide dogs? Was there ever a moment of, "Oops almost got that one's tail"?

Since this was a controlled environment, this may not be relevant, but nonetheless was there ever a moment where someone randomly just stepped directly across your path, causing you to have to suddenly stop? If so, what was that experience like?

Thanks, Kevin, for the awesome review. 😄

Thank you Kevin. I'd be interested to watch or listen to a demonstration at some point. I liked your explanations.

I was impressed by the work the team is putting into making the Glide the best it can be. Not sure if I would ever get one or not, but I can see that it has the potential to be something great.

Thanks Kevin, for that great descrition. I have already ordered, but I am very pleased to take away from your post the sense that this is a serious venture, with high expectations.

I can see how it will take a bit of getting used to, but learning to use a cane or dog takes time to. I am even more happy wiht my decision to get involved now, even if things don't work out, something wil, one day.

Thanks for this Kevin. It makes me even more excited for it when it finally comes out. Also, good to hear they're using good powerful technology. So often in our community, good ideas are massively let down by being nowhere near powerful enough.

What we really need and hopefully someone soon can do this is a real world demo. By that I don't just mean avoiding objects in a building but a demo with steps up and down and even holes in the ground. Glide supposedly can avoid these and help stepping up and down pavements. Now if someone demos this and it is true then that would be great as proof of concept.

I like the image of the guide dogs snoozing as their AI replacement glibly trundles by giving them the virtual finger.

Really useful review. Thanks. Yeah, as others have said, this is a highly controlled environment designed to show off the device's capabilities rather than allowing someone to discover its limitations. until it's field tested, pot holes, prams, bike racks, spiral stairs, transparent doors, revolving doors, esculators, painted curbs (yes, they exist in Bristol for bike lanes, morons)... We really can't say where this is headed. it's interesting we can use a cane at the same time.

One reservation I have is the public's perception of it. Will they know we are blind or will they just think we're sighted weirdos taking our roomba for a walk? Is there any formalised identification on the upright bars connecting handle to the main body of the device?

Also, what are we expected to do with it when we reach our destination? Is it supposed to be treated like a guide dog, put under the table, beside a seat etc? If so, dogs have the advantage of self preservation. This 2 grand piece of equipment does not.

I don't mean to be critical, these are all questions I hope they can address in time. Is it, in fact, a tactile GPS for the blind designed to replace the cane or supliment it? Is it a guide dog with a map? What problem does this solve and how?

Kevin, was it the Glide people who brought this up or was it your own idea? I ask, because, for me, it is significant.

As you wil have seen elsewhere, Biped is suddenly a mobility aid that helps you when you are out wiht your cane or dog! For £3000!

I have very much been vewing Glide as the first go at an actual robot guidedog people can buy.

If they have already decided that is to hard, I want to know. I've already said I don't believe it is possible, but I had sorta kinda hoped they had the idea to at least try!

I'm not waiting a year for a slightly better ARA/Biped/We Walk that makes me look like a total twat!

Ye'h no point having two thingns. The way I read it was you could choose to take a cane if you felt it was necessary but not required. So, for me I was thinking that I may buy a symbol cane so that people know I'm blind but it isn't something I could use to guide me with. Be interesting to see who's idea to take a cane it was.

I want it to be a 'moon shot' they might as well go for full RGD and we can carry if we want someting to wave at people who might not realise it is a mobility devise!

I love the idea of party mode! If it could sink to Apple Music that would be cool!

Seriously, I am v excited - v skeptical to.

I had a friend who went to this as well and reported back the exact same thing This guy is saying. Preorders are not live yet only the deposits to get it 40% off when the pre-orders do launch is on but I’m not sure how much room is left.

But I hope you all do well with it.
I think I would be more comfortable with a highly-updated, redesign of the old ultrasound and laser cane devices. Something that bothe provides AI instructions, but also optically and haptically extends my sense of touch to the ground or a slice of what I point it at. Something that can literally play to my hand the texture and contour of the ground out in front of me to replace a cane, like replacing the needle on a record player with an optical scanner.
*I also seem to be getting some kind of quasi-hyphenated effect splitting up words at syllables at the margins when I read the posts on this forum, lately. It's only happening on AppleVis...

I was unavailable that day to go to toronto unfortunately but glad that someone was able to test it. Your review was very well written.

From bumper cars to bumper glydes. I guess I'm old school. Unless I get a chance to try it before buying, not going to put money down on a product I'm not totally sold on, no pun intended. I think this sounds like a great idea, and I would like to try it out. Best of luck to the company.

is all this talk of funding rounds Etc. I know nothing about venture capital or angel investing, but I do pay a lot of attention to the news, especially the news about AI.

I know the GDBA in the UK spend about £120,000,000 a year, but around of third of that goes on fundraising - people give money to the dogs, not us.

At the full price of Glide that we have been told, even wiht the $40 a month subscription fee, how is it ever goign to give a ROI for investors? Given that there is a Phd in Machine Learning on every street corner in SF offering to take your money and make AGI, it seems a lot to ask for people to fund a mobility robot.

As I said, I know nothing about investing, but I saw firt hand the Seleste glasses be totally blown out of the water by the Ray-Ban Meta glasses.

What screen reader are you using? i'm using NVDA with the latest firefox and everything works fine, perhaps you could try restarting your computer?

Or you could write to the mods, they might be able to help, perhaps if you send them a recording of what's going on they might be able to help you more, i'm not sure.

Whatever was going on with the word splitting seems to be resolved now, like within the last half hour. Who knows.

Try pressing windows plus up arrow to maximise your screen, that should fix it.

Ya, probably something like that on my end. Thanks.
Back to the Glide. I do like the idea of collapsing the handle to stick the thing under a chair, and that it can stand on its own. Two of the things that worried me. I suppose as a dog substitute, it's OK, but I'm not a guide dog user.

I'm not either but honestly am looking forward to checking it out when I can.

The idea of something being able to see where I'm going to go and following a set rout is great!

After reading this review, I'd almost have pre-ordered the thing, if I had the money, and more importantly, if they had plans to roll-out it to more parts of the world. I don't know what their production dynamics will be like once the roll-out starts, but they are missing out on a large chunk of the already niche population by not rolling out to some of the countries where highest populations of the visually impaired people live. And this is a business mistake because, once the product is on the market, I'm sure some company in these markets will come up with a cheaper alternative. Only good for us but, given they're investing this much of time and effort, they should've done a bit more of market research also. Just a perspective... I mean, I'm sure they must've done their market study and must've reasons as to what they're doing.

I think the Glide is a great mobility aid, but it has one major limitation: it can't handle stairs. I'd like to propose a modification that could make it more versatile. What if you replaced the cane roller tip with a wheel similar to those found on office chairs? Add some lidar technology to it, and you'd have a device that combines the benefits of a cane with the guidance of lidar. I know it sounds far-fetched, but if lidar can fit in an iPhone, why not in a wheel? My idea would allow for a foldable, compact design that offers the best of both worlds: the support of a cane and the navigation aid of lidar. Just a crazy idea from a non-engineer behind a keyboard!

can not think a team that has thought through this much of stuff wouldn't have put thought into that aspect. I'm sure there must be some built-in way glide would be able to do it? This is why we need a field demo.

Oh, for some daft reason I assumed it could handle stairs...

I wonder about the seeding. I'm hoping they can get enough to sustain them through development as I can't imagine the uptake for paying a deposit and then the balance over a year before it ships is going well. I'd do it for a £100 device, but for something so expensive, even with asuch a hefty discount, is a stretch. Even if it were proven tech I'd question it but as it's not out in the world yet, I'm unsure. It's basically a kickstarter and, as someone who has been burned on that platform by dreams that never really materialised, I'm cautious. I don't think they will drop the ball here. There is enough tallent on the team, I would question the decisions of their CFO. Surely someone like the US counterpart to the RNIB could help back it, or the RNIB themselves? They've done it with brail devices in the past, mobility aids seem a natural progression, though soon as someone gets killed using one, that might sour the wine.

As with self driving cars, we should not look at the people who are hurt, but how many fewer are hurt by using this emerging technology.

If you read the blurb it states it can handle stairs. Or at least I'm 90% sure I read that somewhere. Maybe in 1 of the video demos.

Oh no, The curse of the Daleks strikes Glide!

If finds stairs, you pick it up and carry it - that is why they have a goal weight of six to eight pounds.

It is to cheap, I can't see how they will sell enough to give them the money they will need to develop it. I hope I am wrong, but there has always been at least some justificaiton for the high cost of Assistive Technology?

How much is the new BT Pro? That should cost next to nothing, but i bet it is a lot more than Glidance.

Isn't this going to be one of those subscription things?? I'm not a huge fan of that but I do get it, they need to make money some how.

It's not the cost that concerns me. If it lives up to it's mission statement and provides confident and independent mobility, it's actually quite cheap or, at least, the cost to value ratio is high. It's the method of payment that is problematic. Putting down such a huge chunk of money before trying it, before it's finished and at least a year ahead of its release, isn't something common to the accessible tech market, and for good reason. Few of us have such disposable income to risk, no matter how small the risk is. Is the deposit refundable? Is the balance refundable? If so, it's not quite so bad. If not, it's a bad business model.

I'm not going, but this is happeneig tomorrow. Maybe someone could ask some of these questions?

With at least 500 people paying $800 upfront they already have over4 Hundred thousand $s which is a decent starting point. Maybe they couldn't get the initial funds until they could prove it was viable and people would want it. So hopefully, this may encourage people to invest.

I've been finding on Applevis recently that Safari is getting really confused with misspelled words. It will keep saying something is misspelled and pronounce each syllable as if I've put a space in the middle, but when I review the line or words on their own then it seems fine.

Not sure if it is the same thing? This is on the Mac though.

Firstly, great review - thanks very much for sharing.

Does this require that you know where you are going to use it? I mean, is it entirely dependent on you plugging in a destination and then being taken there? It reminds me a little of Michael J Fox in Back to the Future where he holds onto the back of a car whilst using his skateboard.

If I was just going out for a walk somewhere I know, or wanting to explore an area, would I be able to use it?

I think before I've been imagining that this sort of product is something you would use every time you leave the house and that my cane is just gathering dust at home. But maybe it makes sense that this solves a specific problem and maybe it makes sense that the cane is still useful for other situations.

I enjoyed reading about your experience with the Glide; it sounds like it will be really fun and interesting to use. I'm going to the virtual Glide demo on Zoom tomorrow. I'm super excited about this. Since I made the $ 100 deposit about a month ago, I've started second-gussing myself, but after reading about your experience, I have more peace of mind and will probably go ahead with the preorder so that I can get the Glide at the discounted price.

hi, quite frustrated they cannot attend sight village in the UK, I know it's a different country, but blind people in the UK will not get to see this without fawking out all the money before-hand.

hi, It is also assumed that people just have $800 or more to hand just like that, for a device which they can't pay for over time.

Hi all, from this review and what i've read it sounds interesting, i've put the 100 pounds deposit down however i'm hesitant to put the full price down on a pre-order without getting to have a go first. From what the Website says you have a 60 day grace period that means you can get the whole lot back within 60 days no questions asked. From what the website says though you have to try it for at least 30 days before requesting the refund. I could be wrong on this but that's how it read to me on the site.

The issue here is I believe that you'd have to pay the £800 and then have the 60 day grace period would not start until you have the device itself. so, you'd essentially have to pay it all and then try it when get it. just hope it's in the uk soon to try, a virtual demo day is on tomorrow, Monday, but of course virtual is not the same as having it in-hand. also, how could the guy program where he wanted to go if just wanted to walk around a room with it? wouldn't that just be in free explore mode?

So, say if i know a route, say from my church to home. I know it with my cane, that i turn out of the church drive, and it is straight up the road for 5 minutes, avoiding the drives lamposts etc. i then cross when the road becomes very narrow turn left on the upp-kerb etc. now, if i were using glide, wouldn't that be of no use since it doesn't know, in quotes, where I want to go? in other words, is Glide only useful on routes you don't know.

Not really likely that you won't be able to create routes. In the above route for example you will probably do the route with home at the start and church at the end as POIs. Then when coming home just say to glide take me home. The thing would be useless if they didn't build in a way to create your own routes etc.

Is it true that we have to pay now and then next year, after it arrives, we can send it back for a complete refund after 30 days? If that is the case, then the questions is: can I afford to loan Glidance $900 for more than a year? If the anser is yes an you think it might work and you might want it, then go ahead.

I did this witht The Seleste glasses, they weren't any good, so I sent them back and got a full refund. You can't say fairer than that.

The speech is goign all weird while I am typing. Unless I'm having a TEA, it must be sometig to do wiht NVDA.

I use JAWS, and am having the same issue. If I try to review the text I've written, it reads as almost complete nonsense, but when I post my comments, all seems to be well. No clue if this is a browser issue or what, but it's interesting that NVDA is doing the same thing. I changed some JAWS settings just to see what would happen, and I didn't notice any changes good or bad.

If I write something long on here, it breaks up what I'm saying into seperat words.

I've emailed the team about this but I don't think there's anything they can do, I think it's a firefox thing, I'd recommend emailing them too just to show them it's not just me.

Oh and of course, now I mention this, it doesn't do it at all.

Using Chrom with JAWS and it's happening here as well. Not always though, it's once in a while here.

I have a habit of drafting my posts in Notepad before pasting them into the browser. I do this for all my online writing, including emails and Reddit comments. Then, I either proofread myself or use AI assistance, depending on the content. If I were using iOS, I'd likely use the Notes app instead. It's just a personal preference that's become a routine for me.