Description of App
People who are blind or have low vision now have three powerful tools in one with Be My Eyes.
Worldwide more than half a million people who are blind use the innovative Be My Eyes app through their smartphone to get visual description when they need it. Connect with more than 7 million volunteers. Or use the latest AI image describer. Or connect with dedicated company representatives to help with their products. All in one app.
Connect with Be My Eyes volunteers speaking 185 languages and available – for free – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Our newest feature, ‘Be My AI’, is a pioneering AI assistant integrated in the Be My Eyes app. You can send images via the app to Be My AI, which will answer questions about that image and provide conversational AI generated visual descriptions for a wide variety of tasks in 36 languages. Be My AI is powered by artificial intelligence and is able to provide assistance in a wide variety of situations, from checking makeup before a night out to translating text from hundreds of different languages.
Lastly, our ‘Service Directory’ section allows you to connect directly with a wide range of companies for support with their products and services as well as organizations within the blindness community
FREE. GLOBAL. 24/7.
Be My Eyes Key Features:
• Get assistance on your own terms: call a volunteer, chat with Be My AI or contact a company representative.
• Volunteers and Be My AI available globally 24/7
• Always free of charge
• 185 languages worldwide in 150+ countries
What can Be My Eyes help you with?
• Using home appliances
• Reading product labels
• Matching outfits and identifying clothes
• Helping to read product expiration dates and cooking instructions
• Reading digital displays or computer screens
• Navigating TV or game menus
• Operating vending machines or kiosks
• Sorting music collections or other libraries
• Sorting and dealing with paper mail
What the World is Saying About Be My Eyes:
“It was just amazing that someone from the other side of the world could be in my kitchen and help me with something.” - Julia, Be My Eyes user
“Having access to Be My AI has been like having an AI friend by my side all the time describing things to me, giving me unprecedented access to the visual world and helping me be more independent.” - Roberto, Be My Eyes User
“The tie-up between Be My Eyes and Microsoft is fantastic! I don’t know what I would have done to fix my PC issues without their help. Well done!” - Gordon, Be My Eyes User
Selected Awards:
• Mentioned in the 2023 Time Magazine best inventions
• 2021 Apple Design Award for best Social Impact app
• 2020 Dubai Expo Global Innovator.
• 2018 Winner of the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award at the NFB National Convention.
• 2018 Winner of AbilityNet Accessibility Award at the Tech4Good Awards.
• 2017 Winner of World Summit Awards - Inclusion and Empowerment.
Comments
I think the description
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.
First experience
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.
Crossing The Street
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.
What you just experienced is
What you just experienced is voice over failing to switch profiles. It was using what I think is called the phone profile. It sounds horable. Good luck and hope your next attempt is better.
That's good, but the
That's good, but the description on iTunes needs to be changed to reflect that, something like what I said in the comment I posted.
iTunes Change
Yes, the iTunes description should be changed as well. I will let them know, and hopefully their response will be as quick.
Volunteer checks
Interesting to see that in the 12 hours since I installed this app, the number of sighted volunteers it reports as being registered has risen from 1900 to 4600.
Part of me is thrilled to see so many people getting involved. However, there’s another part which is concerned that this suggests that there is no checking of volunteers being carried out. If true, I would be worried that it won’t be too long before we start hearing of some bad experiences from people using the app.
Here’s hoping that I am wrong. Or, even better, that some form of checks are carried out before volunteers are able to receive questions. Does anybody know if this is the case?
It's a Free App
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 love this app!
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.
bad experience
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.
Please be sure to report all issues.
There are bound to be kinks as many new blind users crowd into the system. Please be sure to report all issues you find. Misidentification of medication is rather serious. Yikes!
Agreed. if there is truly a
Agreed. if there is truly a rating system please rate and if comments are aloud, make a comment. Yeah that is a serious error on your helper's part. Yikes indeed.
getting medication wrong is
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.
medication bottle
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
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.
yes
I reported it. Only time will tell if more such problems occur.
Well that's a start AGain
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.
Hard to Get Help. Server upgrades.
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
Great podcast Darrell. I also have hopes for this, but I wonder long term if it will remain.
Good experience with drinks distributors
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.
Be My Eyes Has Returned
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?
Got help after just 1 minute!
Used Be My Eyes over lunch and got help in about a minute! Wow! Awesome! Anyone else noticing improved responsiveness?
Be My Eyes must be in the foreground.
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.
Makes sence. It's the same
Makes sence. It's the same with facetime. If you put the camera in the back round, the frame freezes to what it showed last, and no more video is transmited.
Be mindful
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,
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.
why worry
If you worry about what might happen, and it does not happen, you worried over nothing. If you worry about what might happen, and it happens, you worry about it both before and after it happened, so you worried twice. In short, don't worry about it. Doing so is pointless.
give it a chance, people
I wish all these people would remember that the app hasn't even been out for a week. Why do you think, already, that it won't last? You and others have got to, at least at first, focus on the good rather than the bad or, even worse, the bad that may come down the pipe in the future with nothing to go on. Report both the good and the bad using the report button. This will give feedback to the app developers which wil improve what needs to be fixed.
Devil's advicate
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
the report feature
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.
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
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.
contacting you because of an issue?
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
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
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.
Devil's advocate
Hi,
Be my eyes has been used in Denmark for some months, so the system is not as new as some of you might think. Development has taken more time, and more resources than I think was thought from the beginning, but the app is here and works internationally.
I am sure the organisation is aware of the cost associated with keeping the system running, and I am also sure that keeping it free is an important goal. I believe that funding may be easier with an app to show to funders. My organisation have funded Be My Eyes, , and we would consider doing it again if necessary.
Feedback can be submitted in Settings or via email.
You can find the Feedback option in the Settings in Be My Eyes, or simply email info@bemyeyes.org.
Let's make this work, folks!
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.
First experience
Yes, I had the same experience with VoiceOver. I had to go to the app switcher and close it to get VoiceOver sounding right again. I also got someone who didn't speak English so the app didn't work well for me at all. We probably need more volunteers.
a suggestion re languages
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.
Bad Experience
I understand your problem and there are some things which might not be safe to use this app for. It's harmless to drink a diet coke instead of a diet rootbeer but asking to verify pills could be risky. I wouldn't be too hasty though, the app has good potential.
registration issues?
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
I know they were working on some server things yesterday, maybe keep trying I guess. ¬
good luck.
their server is back up
Hello,
I just heard that their server is back up, so everything should be working as expected.
Identifying Medication
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.
American Presence
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.
I Disagree
I believe there are drawbacks, both attitudinal and practical, to using apps like this.
Since Applevis isn't a debating society, I'll leave it at that.
not liking this
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.
aren't we being a bit hastey?
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.
Interdependence, not total Independence
Mike,
It's about interdependence here, and using an app like Be My Eyes does not, in any way, go against NFB philosophy. There's an irony here, my friend, which I shall fail to bring to light. :-)