Be My Eyes

I think the description shoudl be amended slightly from

As a sighted user you don't need to worry about missing a call and 'leave a blind person hanging' - you are a part of the bigger Be My Eyes helper-network and we will find the next available sighted person in the network. The challenges that the blind person needs help with can be anything from knowing the expiry date on the milk to getting help crossing the street.

to the following

As a sighted user you don't need to worry about missing a call and 'leave a blind person hanging' - you are a part of the bigger Be My Eyes helper-network and we will find the next available sighted person in the network. The challenges that the blind person needs help with can be anything from knowing the expiry date on the milk and more. Note do not use this app to get help crossing a street. Your life can be at wrist if this action is attempted. Use good mobility skills.

Just my thoughts. is there a way you can submit this change to the dev for the itunes description? I'm worried that many of us that don't or will not get mobility will be seriously hurt. This is a bad oversite on the devs part.

I wanted a can of apple juice. So I grabbed a can out of the fridge and connected to be my eyes. I waited for about 5 minutes then hung up thinking it was over loaded from everyone trying to try it out all at the same time. I ended up drinking root beer instead. But that's ok. I like it as well. What I am worried about is after I disconnected and pressed the home button to get back to the home screen, VoiceOver sounded muffled and to fix it I had to go into the app switcher and close be my eyes. Once I did that, VoiceOver was its old self again.

I thought the same thing when I first read that statement on their website. I totally agreed with the comment left here about using the app to help one cross the street. I was so concerned that I sent an email to the developers, who immediately got back to me via email and changed the statement on their website.

Yes, the iTunes description should be changed as well. I will let them know, and hopefully their response will be as quick.

Let's keep in mind this is a free app operated by a nonprofit organization. They probably don't have the bandwidth to check volunteers. Having said that, my understanding is that there is a way to rate blind people and volunteers so, presumably, those ratings impact things somehow?

I just tried the be your eyes app for the first time today, and I'm really impressed with it. I was able to tell the difference between two containers which feel the same, and the person was really great about detail.

I've already had bad experience on my first attempt at using this app.
I wanted to know the name of the medication bottle. I knew what it was, but did it to test the person. As it turned out, the person gave me the wrong information. I was told that I held a bottle of vitamin c tablets. The bottle actually contained aspirin. Looks like I will not be using this service in an important situation.

getting medication wrong is quite serious,
but also remember one issue with this app it is rather dependent on what the camera focuses in on,
so perhaps it wasn't pointed properly at the actual label so the person had a guess based on looking at the actual bottle.
Just out of curiosity to the person who had the medication identified wrongly have you tried doing the same experiment with tap tap see to see what happens?
personally I think for important stuff like that I would resort to knfb reader or if that didn't work talking goggles to try to read the bottle first.

Yes, the camera was focused properly on the bottle's label. I even made sure with the person that it was lined up properly so she can see it and be sure as to what the label is. Needless to say, I was disappointed.

Hmm. Did you report the issue and say the problem is not listed, then type the happenings in to the box? I'm sure if they get enough of those they will either get a talking to, or quit.

I reported it. Only time will tell if more such problems occur.

Well that's a start AGain mixing up meds is not cool and you did have the camera right. I'm a nitpick with that stuff as well.

I have noticed that it can take well north of 10 minutes to get help, despite there being reportedly more than 12 thousand volunteers. This morning, the Be My Eyes team announced they are performing server upgrades. Let's see if that helps. I have high hopes for Be My Eyes!

Great podcast Darrell. I also have hopes for this, but I wonder long term if it will remain.

Hello, here in my office I have an automated distributor. Those machines which have coins or a prepaid key where to buy snacks and drinks.
The issue is that "coke man", the guy who fills in the machines when they are empty, always changes the positions of things to buy.
So, what's on number 11 a first time, a second time may result in 22 position
and, you cannot see the remaining credit on your prepaid key as it's on a screen.
Well, Be my eyes app, helped me and I managed to have credit read; I did not try to make me help for reading the snacks in the numbers on the food's machine, as there are too few Italian volunteers and I'd never had asked help in a context full of Italian words, to a person who cannot speak the language. It creates difficulty to who should give me a help.
Today evening I think I am going to ask help for my computer which does not start, the old windows machine.
But, there is a but: I have the same doubts many people have here. What happens to people who tell wrong info or abuses of the service?
There is not a check on volunteer's honesty. It's true it's a free app for now, but, this must not be a reason to forget misuse. I use a service, I want that service to work, it's not because it's free so let's forgive whoever gives me a wrong information! And, from the blind users' side, we must be polite too!
it would not be nice if, for example, a blind person profits of Be my eyes for telling the volunteer, such as Please stay here to watch this film with me as it is not audio described!
Or, if a girl has her period, call them and say, please look if my underwear is dirty!
Or, worse, asking for help but not saying Thank you if the help has been useful, not to give a positive rate, or so. Politeness is the most important ingredient for making such a service work.
It has all pros and cons of a human-driven service, so, by our part we are humans and we can help make it better for what we can do; so, both blinds and helpers, must help each other to improve the service.
I also hope this will be extended to other platforms in future, as, especially for sighted people, having it on a droid device or even a smart tv, could be a better resource.

It would appear the Be My Eyes team has completed their server upgrades. The app appears to be back online. Has anyone confirmed this and have wait times decreased?

Used Be My Eyes over lunch and got help in about a minute! Wow! Awesome! Anyone else noticing improved responsiveness?

I have discovered that, in order for the volunteer to see the video from the phone's camera, the Be My Eyes app must actually be in the foreground on the screen. If Be My Eyes is in the background, the volunteer will hear audio but will see nothing.

I don't think it was mentioned in the podcast, but also be mindful of what is in the background. I generally use the same place if possible when taking pictures or videos of things I need help identifying. I'm sure many of us remember the photo a girl took of herself in a mirror with a toilet in the background. It probably still haunts her even now and I would hate for that to happen to anyone else.

if one uses commen sence, this would not happen. I've taken over 500 pictures and all of them turned out ok in my day. My video is horable, but that will improve over time. I just have good special awareness that is improving.

I my self am the devel's advocate so I present the big picture and look at something through hall sides. This helps me see if the app will be an advantage to me, or for me, or not. In this case not as I have a lot of sighted help around. Plus Iv'e seen things like this start out good, then end crashing and burning.

Hope you enjoy the podcast I have up, even though it's not my voice. Lol!

Blessings and happy Friday

Hi, I listened to a podcast about the app, where the report dialogue was explored.
The report dialogue only has options I think for reporting abuse unless you use the reason isn't listed option.
I don't think there is any point reporting good experiences with individual helpers, I mean it will tell the developer that someone has been helped but apart from that is it useful to report good experiences?
another thought occurred to me with the podcast I listened to, the report dialogue didn't seem to have a cancel button, it had all these various reasons for reporting problems and a skip button, I wonder if tapping the skip button submits the report rather than cancelling out of the dialogue.
I read somewhere on one of the blog entries someone expressing an idea that maybe the blind users phone number will be transmitted to the volunteer I don't think this is the case, because the phone app isn't used to connect you to the volunteer all communication is handled through the be my eyes app, so I presume that just as for us the sighted helper information is anonymous we are also anonymous unless of course we decide to share personal information over a call, because remember once we disconnect from a helper you can't contact them again unless its buy total chance. Personally I wouldn't share personal information like phone numbers and such,
though I suppose maybe in the future it might be good if you could add particularly helpful people to a favourites list.
I think this app is useful for people who don't have ready access to sighted friends or family over face time, I could see it being useful for me if I need errors or menus reading on my computer screen as my family can sometimes get impatient when I ask for that sort of stuff to be read.

Had a quite good experience.
I tried to identify a package of meat, at first the person told me it was backon, i knew it was similar but not bacon, so i asked to read the italian writing.. and it correctly identified salame. So it is working very well, but you must be carefull and guide the other person...

I assume skip does maybe submit a report but I guess you just hit done. I can't Remember what Darron did to get out. I did listen but I did not keep it in my permanent memmory. Lol! As for yoru email address, that's a bit odd as it really is not needed. Even Darron was a bit surprised by this.

If you think about it, it makes sense, if you want to report the abuse, you can say so and so didn't help, then they can contact you for further explanation. Plus with the free email accounts out the wazoo, you can probably give them a crappy one anyway. I listened to the podcast, but have no use for this app.

I haven't actually used the app myself, I have it on my phone just in case, but I prefer the more anonymous idea of using tap tap see or knfb reader first, the idea of using an app to call up some totally random person who I don't know just feels a bit strange to me, though I would use it if other methods failed to work or I needed something extremely specific.
and darron did press the skip button, and at the time I felt sort of bad in case the guy he delt with got reported.

I don't think he did, I hope not. and if he did he can maybe just explain what happened and that actually the helper actually did a good job. That pez reaction was priceless.

You can find the Feedback option in the Settings in Be My Eyes, or simply email info@bemyeyes.org.

Let's all do everything we can to help make Be My Eyes work. It is an amazing app that is already working better and better, and has huge potential to improve our lives even more.

Maybe in your settings you can include a language thing, or when you get help you can say to only have an english speaker this way you can use the app more comfortably. Thoughts? This can apply to any language btw I'm just using english as that's all I speak.

Hey guys.
So I tried to register but its not working. the following message comes up
Registering …
Indeterminate Progress

and then it says your account cannot be created, please check your internet? anyone else had the same issue?

I know they were working on some server things yesterday, maybe keep trying I guess. ¬

good luck.

Hello,
I just heard that their server is back up, so everything should be working as expected.

I think I would use Be My Eyes for identifying medication. I would just be sure to get a second opinion from a second volunteer. I think it would depend on the situation. Certainly, using Be My Eyes is better than getting no help at all, especially if a second opinion is sought. Sadly, no help at all is too often the case when we live on our own with no sighted help available.

I would like to see a greater American presence of volunteers on Be My Eyes.

There is often a language barrier. The app has a language setting. Presumably, shouldn't that serve to reduce the language barriers by selecting volunteers appropriate to the language the person understands?

The donation page appears to be in Danish without any way to change its language.

I think it would be a good idea to recruit for volunteers on VolunteerMatch.org.

I have sent emails to the Be My Eyes folks asking about these things and more, but have yet to get a single response. I presume they are just very busy, and I am hoping for responses soon.

So my second attempt at using this service resulted in getting someone who can't speak a word of english. so, as of now, I am very disappointed by this service. But It is what I expected and knew it was too good to be true which is often the case.

I think to say the app is too good to be true is a tad harsh. Yes, the lack of an American presence is an issue, and presumably you would think that the issue of non-English speakers could be worked out. I would write to the be my eyes folks and just tell them about your experience. Maybe in an app update they could set it so the only people who answer would be English speakers, lowering the frustration factor. In other words, if you set your default language to be English, the only people who could respond would be people who speak the same language. That just makes logical sense to me.