First of all I'd like to thank the applevis member who introduced me to these glasses. I can't rememberyour name but i'm sure you'll know who you are when you come across this so thank you very much.
I'm very interested in the seleste glasses, I'm actually going to be talking to the founder on Tuesday/Wednesday depending on what they're doing about adding mapping functionality to their glasses.
They're planning on doing it and would like my input.
They're thinking of adding google maps to the glasses.
I found google maps to not really work for me, but that could just be me.
I do know that if you're in the US there's more accessibility options but in the UK they don't exist.
having said that; I can totally see the AI overlay making the maps app amazing!
So applevis community If you could have a mapping app on a pair of glasses what would it have to do for you to make it a winner?
For me I have the following: 1. I'll need to talk to Ela, the assisstent, and have her/it be as hands on or hands off as I need.
In other words, If I want turn by turn directions, I should be able to ask for that, if I just want street names spoken out loud as I walk past, I should be able to turn that on and off, same with busses trains and all that.
2. This is a maybe and i'm honestly unsure of it but, being able to tell someone when to cross the road, yeah I know; the mobility instructors wouldn't agree with that at all and I can see why so perhaps i'll move away from that one.
3. If I go into a shop/store, I need to say, scan for raspberries for example and it should be able to walk me to ial 1, 2, and 3, then scan for raspberries.
3.1 I should be able to ask where the counter/trolleys/carts are in the shop/store and it should be able to guide me to them.
4. Saved routes,, I should be able to ask it to save my roote and it should do so.
5. This is another unsure one, but what do you guys think about haptic feedback on the arms of the glasses? Tap left to go left, right to go right and the ability to turn that on or off if you want/need it?
That's all I've got for now so give me any of your ideas.
If I've missed a feature you must have, and no; making a sandwidge doesn't count, please let me know, this could be a game changer for us.
If you've not heard of seleste, here's some links: 1. The seleste website: https://www.seleste.co/
2. the youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SelesteCo
Comments
Indoor spaces.
I don't know how much google maps can work with indoor/closed spaces, because the accuracy ain't that great yet. But what'd be handy would be the ability to upload custom maps, say of your workplace/school/whatever and once uploaded, you can use it to get turn-by-turn instructions etc. And the same thing with public spaces like airports, railway stations, shoping malls etc. And btw, why not, the number 2 in your list cannot be all that impossible, at least as an experimental feature given we're already moving towards self-driving vehicles. I mean, at the end of the day, what we can do with tech is only limited by our imagination...
Indoor spaces.
They're already working on that.
You can already ask Ela what's around you or to read signs as you walk past and that kind of stuff.
I'm not sure about trains and buses yet, but i'm sure they'll get there within the next year.
I'll ask them about the roads and a notifications when to cross them.
@charlotte, I'm not trying the glasses just yet,, but when I do; I'll let everyone know.
Google maps
Google maps is fantastic. I’m completely blind and when I was backpacking for a couple years across Canada Google
Maps got me everywhere without fail. So now that Shubh is looking to add Google
Naps to the glasses I’m all in and don’t mind paying the subscription fee. I’ve been using these glasses daily for a few weeks now and it is worth it.
Regarding vibration
Absolutely no to vibration and only because they would have to sacrifice the look of the glasses to add internal hardware. Right now as it stands the glasses are aesthetically pleasing while being wearable accessible tech and that’s a first for this community.
Pricing in canadian
Just for your reference, we as Canadian pay $65 a month.
They're constently working on the software side of things.
It's not that expencive for us, £30 a month no problem!
and, oh wow! £58 is equal to $100 canadian for the glasses, that's amazing!
@charlotte they're constenly upgrading the software, that's not cheep,
They've actually made their own AI on top of open Ai's one so this all takes money to run because of surver costs, upgrading the AI costs, adding google maps, that probably costs something a year, and whatever else they add to the glasses.
Ok.
NO vibrations, got it.
Ah.
@charlotte, That makes more sense.
All I can really say to that is... Blind tehc is expencive. Seleste and the other glasses aren't truely blind tech and, as far as I know, are running on their own hardware/software.
Envision is using google glass, something I thought was done for years ago, so of course that's going to cost a pretty penny with it being google and all that.
@stephen, yeah, shub is going to talk to me on either Tuesday or Wednesday, perhaps you should try to get in on that too.
I tried google maps but it didn't seam to do so well leading me to my local bus stop but I'm looking forward to these glasses impressing me.
Envision and Seleste.
I've just listened to the double tap podcast on the latest version of envision and you know what? They're not doing bad for themselves at all.
Yes the glasses are expencive, and you can pay a yearly fee of $200 if you want to,, but you don't have to, after the first year; if you're happy with what envision does you aren't forced to pay for updates but will still get bug fixes and miner updates.
They even have a web version coming out, it's meant to help with patchas and tricky websites and all that. So even though I think they're very expencive, i'm going to give them a 8 out of 10.
If they had maps built in, it would go to a 9, no questions asked.
Seleste on the other hand is using their own hardware, as far as I understand, is a lot lot cheeper, but, you do have to make sure you have $50 in your bank each month, which for people like us probably isn't that hard but I must admit, I prefer the invision moddle where even if you don't pay for the glasses you still get to keep them and use them. With Seleste, as soon as you stop paying, as far as I know,, that's it, they stop working.
honestly, I'm going to have to give seleste about maybe a 7, and that's me being genirus. I'm going to pay for and try the glasses and I hope they build maps into them ASAP,, but I do prefer envisions moddle, at least I get to keep my glasses and upgrade when I want to.
I've just looked at envision a bit more and you can pay monthly to basically try invision, I'd not mind this if you were paying off the glasses but you're not, you're basically owning them for as long as you pay for them, like seleste I guess.
You'd think for that price at least some kind of maps app would be built in, right? I thought that was the explore option but nope, that's basically an object recogniser. The more I think about this the less I am impressed wiht invision. I'm a bit iffy about selests moddle of paying monthly but they are much cheeper and hopefully we'll get features we want, not what the devs think we need.
I'll be updating you guys when my call is done either tomorrow or Wednesday.
A bit more on envision.
@charlotte, I do agree with you that these days these functions aren't anything special and that there are phone apps that can do this but people are still buying envision so they must be enjoy the glasses.
I do think once people are made aware of things like Seleste envisions sales will go down, they're cheeper and do the same things if not better in some ways, they're not using outdated hardware for one thing.
This is the problem with blind tech, it's usually very expencive and mainstream stuff will always be cheeper.
Ela is the AI, I think, and chat gpt 4 is the language moddle, I could be rong in that, I'm not really sure and honestly if it works for me I don't really care :)
@lottie.
Thanks, I'll let you all know tomorrow or Wednesday what was spoken about.
You can wait until you're 90 and then marvel at the tech but probably not be able to use it as fast, or you can get on it now and go on your own journey with it. That's how I see it at least.
It definetly helps that seleste is so cheep.
@Brad
anyway to get connected with the folks at Seleste? We have got a large blind community in South Asia, obviously, and getting in touch with them may allow me to give suggestions that might make the tech accessible to the users in this part of the world.
Yep.
I've put their website in the start of the thread, it's the website above the youtube link.
you should find a contact us heading with the email undernieth it.
If you read the FAQ
They have another contact email if you're outside of the countries listed.
Great conversation here are my thoughts
I love the whole concept of the Celeste glasses.
One thing I would like to tell the manufacturers is on their YouTube channel if they’re going to use a human voice for the demonstration as they did in the first video that they let us know that because personally, I did not feel that that was genuine However watching the other videos I thought that it’s processing power was a little slow for me and I thought that perhaps I would get a little frustrated having to wait after it was done processing to give me the information.
However, I do intend to continue to watch this item and hopefully it will speed up and I will definitely dip my toe into the pool.
I love the idea of being able to walk around and have it recognize street signs and locations
As long as it functions better than the OrCam
I found that particular device a bit frustrating and impractical.
It had very limited storage space for images.
I hope that this device can do similar things with facial recognition.
Perhaps have a barcode identifier in it as well for identifying products
Let’s see how this goes :-)
I'm a bit confused.
@Dizno can you explain more about what you mean about the voice?
I thought it was really good, i'm talking about the showing ela things in front of it, the last video uploaded to their channel.
The first couple of videos have a very robotic voice and honestly if they'd stuck to that i'd probably not buy the device.
I think they're planning on adding a barcode reader and face recogniser.
I'll also let them know about applevis, they'll probably want to sign up here and hear all your feedback.
the last 10 meter problem and reading digital displays in real t
Hi,
First I'm very interested in the Seleste glasses rather than the Envision equivalent. I want to wear glasses that look normal rather than some futuristic weird look which Seleste certainly appear to offer. If that makes me vain so be it.
As for performance, I would want to know how they can get over the last 10 yards issue. I can get most of the way to most places I need to go it's that last bit, finding the entrance or counter or whatever it is you need that many of us will have come up against.
/Also reading the screens of kitchen appliances. I have a Ninja air-fry oven. It has many functions such as air-fry, roast, part roast, bake, pizza etc. Each of these functions contain timers and temperature controls. I'd want to be able to set my oven up as I know most of the functions off by heart and then confirm that what I've selected is correct by interrogating the glasses for confirmation.
As for cost the Seleste model at $50 per month what ever that converts to here in the UK doesn't seem to bad compared to the potential benefits it could offer us. Put it this way, it is less than a Sky or Virgin TV subscription.
I can answer the last 10 metre problem.
Shub,, the creator, actually told me that that is easy to solve because of the way the glasses work so I'd not worrry about that.
You can ask the glassses what is the oven set to and, if all goes well,, it should let you know.
Brad
Hey there Brad.
If you were referring to the video that had the very nice human sounding voice.
Watch it again.
Synthesized voices do not take breaths.
That’s why I really feel if they’re going to use a human to simulate their product they should actually put a disclaimer in there that that is exactly what they are doing The next videos I could definitely tell that they were using synthesize voices. There was still a considerable delay and that’s what for me because I am always in a rush.
I found a little tedious.
However, I still think it is a great product and concept and I just want to see the processing speed improved so the responses come a little quicker. Please.
Don’t call me a harsh task master. I just know dealing with technology that. I am probably a little too judgmental :-)
Correction
Alex breathes...
True story. 🤨
Oh yes they do.
Alex Breathes and so do the 11lab voices I believe.
Some people like it, some don't, I think it's awesome!
Envision vs Celeste
Am I right in thinking that the Celeste glasses work like the Meta Ray-bans, in that they are effectively a conduit to the app running on your phone. Whereas the Envision is a full computer on your face that doesn't need a phone at all, but is presumably limited to what the hardware supports. So I would imagine something like Envision would work better for, say, streaming video, whereas the Celeste may be limited to the bandwidth that bluetooth offers.
I always felt of Envision as being Seeing AI in a different form factor, but I suppose it can do more than that.
Do the Celeste glasses also function as bluetooth speakers like the Meta Ray-ban? ie could you use iPhone apps as well.
I presume the Celestes will be £50 in the UK? I've always felt that it was quite a lot of money, but I guess if you are getting new hardware then I suppose you could put it into context. I wouldn't pay that for a more convenient way to do what I already can for free on a phone. But if I'm outside and it is intelligently telling me what I need to go and pulling that from different things like OCR/image scanning/GPS/maps etc then that could get quite interesting. And if it can then take that inside.
These weren't on my raar at all which is why I wen the Meta route, but they are beginning to intrigue me. I will be following this to see where it goes!
The one other thing that worries me about subscriptions is that amounts aren't fixed. So if they do a Ring and suddenly crank up the price then it might make things tricky. I suppose you can always cancel if they do that.
Not exactly.
The seleste phone app does exist and you can use the glasses through it but the best way, according to the dev, is to close the app put the phone in your pocket and just talk to the glasses, or press the buttons on the thing.
The speakers aren't the best at the moment so they recommend rooting the sound through other headphones if you have them, I'll see how bad the sound is and then maybe buy aftershock headphones. i'm not the biggest fan of this way of doing things, it's extra bulky, but if it it's what I have to do for now, I will.
I believe a lot of the AI and all that is on the glasses itself but i'll get more info when I talk to the dev.
I do actually prefer envisions way of going about things in this way, they have made a lot of their stuff offline where as, as far as i know, seleste is mostly online, which isnt' good if you're in spotty WiFi areas.
As for the price, it's about £30 a month, and for the actual glasses it's around £59 I believe.
So it's very cheep but that doesn't always mean bad.
I'll have to ask the dev about their policy once you stop paying for the glasses, I mean; do they just stop working or do you have to send them back to the company? I hope not but we'll see.
The voice isn't bad, it's quite human sounding, I personally like it..
You probably could play podcasts and all that stuff through the glasses if you wanted to, if you can I'll probably take advantage of that feature, it'll be nice to walk and not have to worry about listening out for background noise.
What can envision do.
You're not wrong in thinking it's SeeingAI but in a glasses form.
I don't have them but i've messed with the app and yeah, it's pretty similar to Seeing AI. They both have very similar features now.
If I had to pick one, i'd go with Seeing AI, it's free and does the same thing as envision.
Update on seleste.
I spoketo Shub today, i'm actually going to give him this link so he can see what we've been saying.
IN breif, the glasses don't have the tech in them to allow them to know what direction we're facing,, but in the next version, that will be happening.
I'll let shub explain the wrest to you so you can ask all the questions you want.
I won't be buying the glasses just yet but will probably end up picking them up next year if a maps function is added.
@charlotte, I believe you can use both glasses, after setting them up, with no app needed.
Carrie on Accessibility: Seleste Glasses CEO Interview --
Runtime:
28 minutes
Link To Episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSKCDHVQo38
I'm intrigued!
I like how affordible these glasses are. I can almost find a way to justify $100 in my budget for them, but the $50 a month after is brutal. Are the glasses even a little bit useable without paying that monthly fee? Perhaps I need to read up on these more, but they sound promising for sure.
just checked out the youtube channel
These are fascenating, and very tempting. It's just that monthly fee holding me back from ordering them. Also, I would love it if the voice in the youtube videos could be used by voiceover on my iphone. It sounds like the female equivelant I've always dreamed of.
You have to pay monthly.
I hope that hchanges in the future,, i'll probably be buying these next year but i'm not the biggest fan of the subscription moddle.
I understand AI advances very fast but why not do what envision does and allow you to pay yearly and if you don't want a yearly update, don't pay for it.
I'd much prefer that moddle.
I've written to Shub about this.
I hope he responds on here for everyone to write to but I basically said that I hope the moddle changes in a year or so.
Yes this is for sighted people as well as the blind and I do understand that AI changes very fast but I think it's a bit unfair to have us pay each month to basically live our lives.
Also, I honestly can't see sighted people paying for this after a year.
I think things will change next year.
The way i see it, the company will either keep going or have to stop, I don't know how afordable the subscription moddle is or if people will want it after a year, especially after knowing they don't get to keep the glasses.
I'm all in favor of this company and truely think they mean well and can't wait to see what happens next year but think that subscription moddle needs to go.
I don't mind supporting a business but I'm not a huge fan of paying for something I'm basically borrowing until I decide not to pay for it anymore.
As much as I'm not a fan of the huge invision price, at least with that once you've payed for it you've got it and you don't need to pay for the yearly updates if you don't want to.
Brite AI Vision: Innovative AI Vision
For the Android peeps out there who frequent these waters...
Brite AI Vision is an app/glasses combo, similar to seleste in its feature set. All spaces among its interface can be gotten around via voice commands if ya so desire. Some of the items it recognizes include "Food", "Plants", "Faces", and "Traffic Lights."
Products/plans start at $10 monthly/$99 yearly, though you can dive into it for free (like I have) after entering the app for the first time as a guest and requesting an order number to activate your account.
As y'all will have your own very dedicated & detailed opinions on their credits/subscription model around here, I shall let you people debate.
More details on Brite AI plans & products can be found among their web site, linked below.
Official Web Site:
https://briteaivision.com/
Brite AI Vision Entry On Accessible Android:
https://accessibleandroid.com/app/brite-ai-vision/
NB. EMail containing order number may or may not land in your Spam folder by misstake (at least if you're a G-Mailer.
subscription moddle.
Interesting, it would seam the subscription moddle is more popular than i thought.
Although you do get to keep your smart glasses when you buy them and use them.
It's the amount of the monthly fee that bothers me
I know that subscriptions are the way to go with many, many apps and services. I don't have a problem with that aspect, although even small monthly fees add up over time. it's the $50 a month part that I can't imagine finding a way to justify. If it was my only bill apart from rent and utilities, then I could probably find a way to make it work, but I've got credit cards and medical bills to pay off, not to mention music and tv streaming services. I hope this company finds a way to survive. If the monthly fee was $10, I could at least consider it, but certainly no more than that.
The thing is, I understand it.
It's for the surver costs and the AI upgrades, you do get hardware upgrades too.
They'd probably not survive at the moment on just $10 a month, maybe if you look into it next year it'll be diffirent,, but then the $50 a month is more justified in my oppinion because next year they're going to have more apps added plus maps.
Personally I don't mind paying that 50 a month but I'd like to keep the glasses and use them.
As for streaming survices and music and all that, well, you could always remove one or two and replace them with the glasses. For example; you can find just about any song on youtube these days.
@charlotte
If a walking robot/guide dog came out that was, let's say, £3000 and it could get you from point A to point B and back again, I may want it, but that doesn't mean I'm going to get it.
I might be able to save up for it but that's as far as it goes for me.
I can pay for the glasses and the subscription, no problem, it's not that that bothers me, it's the fact you have to give them back once you stop paying for them so you're not keeping a product, you're kind of borrowing it for a while.
App or no app
I realise you can use voice commands on the Celeste, but I'm guessing you still need the app open on your phone for them to work. At least that's how the Meta Ray-bans work. The app can be in the background but still needs to be there I believe. Unless the Celeste can actually process requests itself or send them off to the cloud itself to do so, which I'm not sure it can...?
Regarding the subscriptions, I think it's a lot more palatable when you consider you are also getting new hardware.
Reading through this post I'm a bit confused about the cost. Are they $50 Canadian or US dollars? Is the £30 definite as that's a bit easier to swallow than £50.
But I'm not giving up my Spotify subscription for YouTube. Over my dead body. :)
One thing that concerns me a bit is how unreliable AI is. So for scanning a family photo and having the ability to ask questions and get detailed descriptions, or being able to understand a joke my sister has sent round as an image in WhatsApp then it's perfect because if it makes a mistake it's not really important. But if I'm looking for an object and it tells me it's there when it's not then it becomes more of a problem. Taking that outside and it's giving me directions or helping me cross the street and we're getting into slightly dangerous territory. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see something like that and I'd love to give them a try but there are some places where "sometimes right" isn't going to be good enough.
Subscription
Sorry one other point about the subscription. If I am using a cloud service that costs the company money every time I do anything, isn't it reasonable that they have some way to cover the costs? They could go the envision route, but then that's a big outlay and you will be stuck with the same hardware until you cough up the same again in a few years time.
Perhaps they could have something whereby if you have paid a subscription for a year or two then you get to keep the glasses but just can't use the AI features.
Also with this model they are concentrating more on software than hardware so will likely get more out of each pair of glasses, as opposed to Apple or Google who will constantly be trying to push a new device onto you.
For a specialist product, Celeste are asking me to spend an amount I might pay for an iPhone every 2 years. It's actually not bad value. But as always it's going to be about what it can do for you personally and how much it impacts your life. Time will tell.
Subscription and openai.
This looked good until I saw the subscription pricing. For most blind people living outside of developed countries, this is not affordable at all, even with gpt-4. Personally, as a founder myself, I'm working on a local first approach meant to specifically cut costs in this area, and also has the benefit of cutting down on latency. There's no mention on how it performs under different weather conditions either.
About that woman...
She got annoyed because she wasn't made aware that you have to download an app using testflight.
When I spoke to shub, that's the devs name, yesterday, he mentioned that the app should be availible in a month or so, so if you buy the glasses today you should get them in a month along with the ability to download the app on the app store.
I'm planning on buying the glasses next year as they will have the compass hardwhere thing put in them by then and maps should be added. I'm curious, what kind of things do you think you'll use the glasses for?
Oh also, from my understanding, the nice human sounding voice is only availible through your phone for now, the one on the glasses is robotic but that should be changing within the next couple of months.
I'm going to try and convince the dev to get on here so he can answer your questions, he can do it better than I can, after all.
Re: Carrie on Accessibility
I love her YouTube channel. Shame her old one, Living Accessibly was retired. Still, what i love most about her content, is that she is, for the most part, open minded about technology, regardless of who branded it.
Oliver, I think you nailed it. If there is absolutely one thing I would want something like this for, it would be to walk into a library, pick up a real book, and be able to read or even just skim through it.
Kinda like I used to do when I was many moons younger and had perfect eyesight. . . . .
Glasses
If it tells me when I can cross street if the light is red or not but for this it have to work 100%. Also be able to pick up a container and be told what iit is. For example a can of soda, Coke, Pepsi or whatever. If I am walking to a front desk and be old that there is a person in front. Battery will have to last more than 5 hours. Maybe in 5 years from now they will be more effected regarding use. Also AI be more able to do more regarding accessibility. The shadow knows.
answering some questions.
@oliver,yeah I know, they should update the video call part, I'll email the dev about that.
I'm going to try and get in touch with the dev again tomorrow and get him to come on here to answer questions for you guys.
Universal VS for the blind
If I would get something like that, I want to be universal. Made for the blind does not guarantee that it will last and be so much regarding price. It will be interested to see what Apple does if they create glasses with VO and last more than 4 hours.
Indeed.
I don't mind there not being a video option but yeah, you're probably right about chat gpt4.
They have built their own AI over the top of it though so there's that.
Oh and you don't get to keep the glasses if you stop paying the monthly fee, I really don't like that but will see where these things go in a year.
Better Business model and marketing
I have been reading through this entire thread
And I keep hearing people referring to purchasing these glasses when in fact, it actually sounds like people will be leasing these glasses if you have to return them when you stop paying the money.
I believe the developers would do well to reconsider their business plan and perhaps charge a higher price for the glasses, for example, 500 or $1000 And then charge a 999 per month subscription rate to cover their cost
There are many many people that will not be able to afford an upkeep price of US$50 per month or 30 pounds per month indefinitely in the long-haul that will make the price of the glasses much more difficult for people to afford.
Personally, I would be willing to come up with a larger upfront cost And then be willing to pay a smaller subscription price throughout the year
Missing, decimal
That was supposed to say
$9.99 per month
A few questions and thoughts
Like many have already said, the cost of the subscription does seem a bit high, but if I found it useful it would be worth it.
Regarding the weirdness factor, I like the fact that they look like normal glasses. But, not sure quite how I would feel about walking around talking to a device. Alexa is cool for in home, and I use Siri, but that's something people kinda expect and such, and they can also see you messing with your phone or watch. Not sure how loud the speakers are on the glasses, but I could see how a lot of people would be thinking, "is this dude crazy? Some people talk to themselves a bit but this guy's carrying on a whole conversation." "Imaginary friend, or what's going on here?"
I guess it's something I would like to try just to say I've tried it, and if I liked it then I'd keep going, but like some have said, at this point I'm not sure how much this would offer me that I can't already get with apps on my phone.
One thing I am curious about though. Will the glasses work in multiple languages, or are they English only?
Justin
People would not think you were crazy talking to yourself.
People have Bluetooth headsets and all the time and are always talking without holding a phone in their hands.
So don’t let that dissuade you
The glasses are in English for now.
They're adding new languages in the future, i'm not sure when though.
I do completely agree with Dizno, you're borrowing the glasses for a while. Yes you get hardware upgrades for free,, through the subscription moddle, but I don't know if it will be worth it for me.
Lack of video calling counts me out
Hi, I love the idea of these glasses and would go for it in a heartbeat if video calling support was added. I understand the developers of the app are saying you can achieve most things by asking the GPT assistant but with all these GPT clients they aren't always correct and a human especially someone who you know well will give you much better advice or help.