Introducing CenteredHead, a Mac app to let blind people know if they are sitting in front of the camera for video calls

By Jonathan Chacón, 16 March, 2023

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hello mates,

here is my new app for MacOS. An easy tool to help blind people to know if we are sit just in front of the camera for a video meeting.

Here is the description from the MacAppStore:

Have you got any problem to know if your head is centered in front of your camera? Are you not able to see your screen or are you a blind person?

Using CenteredHead you can know if your head is centered in front of the camera.

This application is an accessibility tool to help blind persons and persons who are not able to know if the head is centered in front of the camera

You can Download CenteredHead from the MacAppStore

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Comments

By JC on Thursday, March 30, 2023 - 17:17

Hi their,

Is there a promo code available? also, will it work with other apps such as Zoom?

By Jonathan Chacón on Thursday, March 30, 2023 - 17:17

Hello,

The app was tested while other app was open.

I tested it with Zoom, Webex, Microsoft teams, Google meet and Facetime

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Thursday, March 30, 2023 - 17:17

Have you done testing with OBS and similar recording/streaming apps? This would be a huge bonus for blind content creators.

By Dennis Westphal on Thursday, March 30, 2023 - 17:17

I am wondering why not juse CenterStage which focuses the iPhones camera on your face automatically. But only works when using the iPhone as the camera for your mac. For people who don't have or want to use it that way, it is nice to have this App as an option.

By Karel Giebisch on Thursday, March 30, 2023 - 17:17

Very interesting idea. This tool can be useful. I definitely try that.

By mr grieves on Sunday, January 19, 2025 - 17:17

I just gave this a go and it seems to work well. Nice and simple, no fuss. Thank you!

By TheBllindGuy07 on Monday, January 20, 2025 - 17:17

I think jaws 2024 or something like that added that feature built-in? Nice to know that we have an option for the mac to do more or less the same thing.

By Jonathan Chacón on Monday, January 20, 2025 - 17:17

Hi there, I am the developer of this app.

I am thinking in publish a new version of this app but I have no idea about new features for it.

Does anyone have feedback about new possible features for Centered head?

Thanks

By mr grieves on Monday, January 20, 2025 - 17:17

Does it...? I had a quick look - I think you can take a picture with the camera and then let VOCR have a look at it. This app is a real-time thing where it will tell you where to point your head and/or beep to help you centre yourself. I might be wrong - maybe it's in vocr somewhere but it feels like something a bit different.

What I like about this app is that it just does the one thing. You start the app and it starts talking or beeping. And that's it. No buttons to press, it's just that. There are a few settings but really it's nice because it is simple. I think it cost me 99p.

Maybe the only feature I would add is the option to turn off the preamble voice when you start it up so it can get straight into telling you where your head is. I found the voice did sometimes get a bit confused and would talk over itself but it wasn't much of a problem. I suspect I may turn the voice off if I start using this app often as the beeping feels enough.

By TheBllindGuy07 on Monday, January 20, 2025 - 17:17

Yeah. I tried this, most simplest app of the year. It literally just works! It would be cool to customize it so that when we are in the window at the front we have all the sound cues but when we're in another app we are just warned by subtle audio cues if we aren't straight anymore. Insane pricing, I like that.
My gratitude to the dev.

By mr grieves on Monday, January 20, 2025 - 17:17

I've not used this for an actual meeting yet, but is there any way to pause it without having to quit?

I wonder if it might be useful to have an option so that if the app loses focus then it goes quiet. So you can have it hanging around when you want to check up and just cmd+tab back and forth to get some feedback.

By Jonathan Chacón on Monday, January 20, 2025 - 17:17

Hi there,

Thanks a lot for your feedback:

I will add these features:

* Switch to activate a mode to play sounds only when the app has the focus
* Switch to activate a mode to use spoken messages or not

Thanks a lot. I hope this new version will be available in the first week of February

By Jonathan Chacón on Tuesday, January 21, 2025 - 17:17

Hello there,

The version 1.2 is waiting for the AppStore :-)

I hope it will be available this week.

Please, check the settings menu in the app for the new features.

Thanks a lot for your feedback

Regards

By mr grieves on Tuesday, January 21, 2025 - 17:17

Thank you - will check it out when it becomes available.