I first saw EchoVision by Agiga at Vista Center Ignite Accessibility Entrepreneur Pitch Competition last month. It was hard for the AGI to hear me and for me to hear the descriptions and Be My Eyes in the noisy exhibit hall. Based on my interview with Blind Abilities, Huasongcm, CTO at Agiga reached out to Jeff and wanted to chat, where Jeff from Blind Abilities asked if I would like to be on it, where I agreed, but wanted to first examine it better at my roofttop farm that is quieter and allowed me more time with the glasses.
I was even more impressed than I was initially, as the scene descriptions via voice and Be My Eyes volunteer were great, but:
User Experience
- Agiga added follow-up to EchoVision, so it's possible to get more specific context/details about a scene, which was a feature request I had last month and and it's live in the prototype.
- Tap with one-finger on right-side towards front of glasses to get a scene description without asking, which is what i wish Meta Ray-Bans would do. There is a good amount of context/details to scene descriptions, which is made for blind people.
- It's responsive, latency is low, voice is somewhat natural human sounding, and speech rate can be increased. I tested the speech rate at 1.5x.
- I was able to call Be My Eyes and AIRA, where I got human description of a card no deets and scene.
- Holding down with 2-fingers on right side will cancel Be My Eyes or hang-up and return to main menu, where I heard I could use Google Lookout by saying: "Hello Agiga, Lookout", which goes into explore mode reading text and identifying objects real-time. It was able to identify different objects, including stairs, plant, read text on credit/debit card, and lottery ticket.
- I tried to have Lookout identify US currency, but it wanted to read the text on the bill instead. No worries though, a quick tap on the right-side did a quick scene description, where it described I was holding a $20.
- The form factor are wrap-around sun glasses, which blocks sun for those of us with peripheral eye-sight and light sensitivity, and is more secure as it partially wraps around the back of my head and doesn't slide down my nose like Meta Ray-Bans.
- I feel it has the features and functionality of Envision AI Glasses, but even better form factor than Meta Ray-Bans. I look forward to pre-ordering on October 11!
Feature Request
- I was trying to have it describe people, but it said it couldn't describe faces, but when Huasongc tested it at home with his wife, it could. Huasongc thought Be My Ai could, so we tried it and it can, so they'll work on people descriptions.
- I also tried something no AI could do, which was ask about next bus/train departures via Transit. Agiga is going to see if TransitApp has an API.
Comments
Platform?
So these are glasses? Connected to an app? Which platform, you mention Google, so Android?
Any idea on price – are we looking at the 9X Envision over Ray-Ban levels or something else? And is the any sort of monthly hit to? The late unlamented Seleste glasses had a good idea there…
Lottie
What's with the website?
The first thing I hear is a bible quote. then there's a link to the echo Vision page, a statement that there mission is AGI and an order oo...page.
I don't think it is AGI we can ordder? The page scared me enough to not want to click on any of the links!
what is the capital of France?
The capital of France is Big Purple Peaple Eater.
Any demos?
Anything like that wherein they've demonstrated these in some convension or something?
didn't get a bible quote
Hi all,
No bible quote when I clicked on the site. It was just a standard website for smart glasses. I think I'll wait for the Meta-ReyBans to get better. Hopefully they'll have scene descriptions as I'm walking along. The EchoVision are a bit expensive.
It is the image, I went back
There's an image, it says somehting about an epistle. The AGI things is still there though...
Not that expensive
From the web site: presale price is 449 usd listing price is 599 usd
Considering the pre-order price is only a little more than the Meta Ray-bans and these are specialist tech I'd say that's not expensive. I can't see anything about a subscription either - it says future updates are free.
They seem to have come a bit out of the blue, though. If they are legit then I'd like to know more at least.
true, could be worse
Yeah, and I like the scene description like the seleste glasses. But the Meta Ray-bans are still cheaper at £299. The EchoVision are still more appealing than the Seleste because they don't seem to have a monthly subscription. I'll be watching this space closely.
My problem
Is that the website offers too little info. How's anyone supposed to decide whether or not to preorder based on this much info? At least if there were some demo...
I've Pre-ordered!
I've pre-ordered using this link: https://shop.agiga.ai/
It's exciting and wonderful times in the smart glasses space closing the accessibility and inclusion gap for us blind people!
Details
The details seem a bit sparse? I am especially both surprised and skeptical of no mention of a subscription. Only the big guys like Meta can afford to run these big server farms that power the LLMs without a direct cash infusion.
Also, being a bit picky here: the FAQ page can't decide if they're shipping in Q2 2024 (already passed) or sometime in 2025. Clear communication is important for trying to crowdsource a new product like this.
Subscription worries!
API costs for models like GPT4 have reduced 1000 fold over the past two years. There is still a cost and I am worried by a business that sells a product for a one-off price when they are taking on an open-ended, unknown and unknowable cost.
Once you get these glasses, every time you use a feature that requires an API call it can cost money.
As nice as this product…
As nice as this product sounds, I do have concerns.
They have a lot of potential, but how do we know they won't start making promises they can't keep? A lot of companies that make blindness specific products tend to do this.
Look at Seleste. If you remember when people first started hearing about them, one of their major selling points was hardware upgrades.
Within the past month or so, users of the glasses were notified that hardware upgrades won't be coming.
I've used Agiga's WhatsApp calling service with the Meta glasses, and it works well.
Depending on the operating system powering this product, the potential to access the most popular apps hands free would be nice.
I have the Envision Glasses since they were purchased for me by the state, and although they're good at what they do, the problem is that they're running on hardware that isn't officially supported by the manufacturer.
Envision says they have a lot of units in stock, but how much is a lot? What happens when devices start having hardware issues?
When people are spending up to $3500 on a product, those are things that need to be taken into consideration.
Finally, a question. Do the glasses have the ability to constantly look for things like the Seleste glasses?
Example, I want it to read room numbers as I walk along a hallway.
Edit, I forgot to mention subscriptions.
While nothing is saying they will do a subscription, I know it's a possibility.
Since I received my Envision Glasses before they started the subscription plans, all I had to do was request the purchase invoice from the state and send my glasses serial number and they activated the lifetime subscription.
Agiga could choose to do something similar if they decide to make this product subscription based, but we don't know when or if that will happen.
interview about the EchoVision
Hello,
I found an interview about this wearable:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=658ADcVfHmQ
I liked the interview. I'm…
I liked the interview.
I'm considering pre-ordering them next week when I get paid. I had to shell out a bunch of money for an expense this week so I have to be careful until next Wednesday.
It's nice that people who pre-order won't have to worry about the subscription and that it won't be required to access the basic functions.
I wonder about maps.
I don't think maps are a thing they want to add to the glasses but i sent them a message asking so we'll see what they say.
There were some issues though. 1. Their email sent back an error email so I had to use their form.
2. Their form didn't refresh when I sent the message, there was a thanks message at the bottom of the page, I only found it because I know how websites work in t that way, and my info was still filled in, which shouldn't happen.
I don't think these are for me but for those buying these, have fun :)
Seleste broke my heart!
I'm just not sure a startup doing both the hardware and software is what I want or what we, as a community, need. I was an early adopter of the Seleste glasses - it was not a great experience. Whereas the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses I got at the same time have gotten better and better with every passing month.
These things are going to be our eyes! They need to be as good as they possibly can - if there isn't the money to develop them just for us, making a product on a product is a good strategy.
The Meta Ray-Ban glasses are, for me, almost perfect. The final thing I have on iPhone that I want on them is the quick view feature from Seeing AI - where it is live, says whatever the camera is pointing at.
I hope I am completely wrong about these glasses.
I honestly forgot about seleste.
I wonder what happened to them...
The guy was nice enough to give me a refund but did want me to ship another pare of glasses to another house in the UK, he was willing to pay the costs but I told him no. That was a really bad thing to ask a user of your product, if he offered to pay me I might have thought about it but he was just willing to pay the shipping costs.
Also I opened the box,, I think it was my pare that had been sent to me, and the speaker design was just bad, you had one speaker on one arm and the other had to be atached, I think, and there was no app. You had to wait for a testflight invite.
I'm sure the guy had/has good intentions and if they come to site village next year, i'll check them out again but I highly doubt I'd buy from them again.
The interview
It'd have been more, let's say, convincing if it were an actual demonstration and not an interview...
I completely agree.
Show me what your products best features are, don't just tell me.
Hipe me up, make me want to buy this thing.
EU
Hi,
Last week I sent an email to the people behind Agiga to inquire about which languages the Echovision would support. In their reply, I read the following:
"We are currently evaluating EU regulations, and at this stage, we may limit our initial shipments to the US and support English as the1st language."
A Message from AGIGA's cofounder: Thank You for Your Feedback
Hi everyone,
My name is Huasong, and I’m the cofounder of AGIGA. I want to thank all of you for your interest, comments, concerns, and critiques, and a special thanks to those who have preordered or sent feedback directly. Your insights are incredibly valuable to us.
While we don’t have answers to all concerns yet, we’ve shared more information like hardware specifications and videos. Please continue sharing your thoughts and feel free to message me directly for any feedback!
videos?
I checked the website again but couldn't find anything. Would be great if any links can be shared here.
Regarding demo videos
We’re adding the latest information to https://echovision.agiga.ai/#news-insights. You can also explore our new YouTube space where we’ll keep posting videos for a closer look at EchoVision: https://www.youtube.com/@AgigaAi.