Introducing Toolwiz Eyes; an object recognition app for the blind and vision impaired

Hello Guys,
I downloaded this app about an hour ago and have been having a play with it. However, I'm not sure how useful it wil be.
There are a lot of similar apps available and this one does not do anything different. I guess the fact that it recognises objects live is an advantage but there is a lag, so as you move on to a new object, the app is still processing the previous one. Therefore, I was pointing my camera at my toaster in the kitchen and got kettle.
The other problem that I have found is that the app is not that accurate and sometimes it is downright wrong. The app entry suggests that it will learn over time but I'm not sure and there are more accurate apps around that work much more accurately from the outset.
However, the app is quite good at recognising simple things like my dineing room table, sofa, lap top and a pen but I'm not sure if I'm getting anything from the app here - although I am totally blind, I know my table, sofa and lap top. The app gets much more entertaining with other objects and I had a brilliant time using it for entertainment purposes. For example, my poodle was a soft toy even though he was running at the time, our integrated dishwasher was a shower cubicle (I'm not sure how I would get n to it though) and to her dismay, my wife was a cat!

Make up your own minds but I'm not sure about this one.

Steve.

Hello
When I first explored this app I was pointing my iphone camera at my dresser and it repeated the word fireplace. With the recent update it correctly says drawer when I have my phone aimed at my dresser. I hope this app improves its accuracy indentifying objects etc. I'm not giving up on this app! I'm sure this app may become better over time!

Hello!
I've been trying this app, and here is some advice of mine.
First I gotta say, to make an app that recognize things for the blind is very thoughtful, and I appreciate this very much. This app does helped me in recognizing some stuff that is very common like my computer and dining table.
But when I pointed the camera to the things that are not so common, like my earphone or my vacuum cleaner, it made a lot of mistakes.
So I hope you guys could improve its accuracy and make it a great assistance for all the blind people.

Agreed. It definitely needs a lot of improvements. Firstly, I looked around the living room, and it said there was a cat in here. I don't have cats lol!! then I pointed it at the fireplace and i don't remember what it said, but it wasn't it at all. Love the idea of identifying things on the fly, but it definitely needs work if it will be functional for me. I'll stick with the identifi app for now as i think it is loads better.

Firstly, I got say thank-you to whoever developed this app, people like me really need this kind of help. I have tried this for few hours, found that it's useful basically, it recognised my sofa,TV, book, laptop and so on, but there're still some mistakes, so I prefer to remain it on my phone waiting for the future update.

I do hope you guys will try to make it more accurate:)

Hi again guys,
Sorry, I've re-read my entry and I did not mean to be so negative. I agree with others who have said it's a brilliant idea but it will have to be a lot more intuitive and accurate to be useful. A sighted friend said he saw the app being demonstrated and it accurately identified a dog as a golden Labrador. If this is true, I'm not getting anything like this accuracy or high level of range in the items it holds in its database. As I said my poodle was a soft toy. Like others, I'll wait and see for future upgrades to comment whether I like this app more. What I am looking for issomething like this app that builds up its own database so it identifies food items accurately like canned soups and my CD collection for example rather than me having to resort to bar codes which are difficult to detect.

Steve.

Hi Steve,
I hear ya. It's a great idea, but it could really use improvements in the identifying of things. If the guy you saw demoing the thing identified the dog right, wow that's impressive. I love the concept, however till it improves, i'll stick with my identifi app.

I found the app would identify chairs, desks and doors. This makes it useful to get a general idea of where things are in a strange room. It also identified doors as I walked down a hallway. This test was performed by several of us staff members at Clovernook/Memphis.

Well done for improving the app so quickly.
Could I please request that you add money recognition to its capabilities, with Australian dollars being one of the currencies?
Money recognition would make the app immediately useful.

I agree about money recognition, money reader is a great app, but it seems to have been virtually abandoned by its developers with new notes not being added. Plus there is actually no universal currency identification app that can do all world currencies which would be incredibly useful and fill a gap that no other app has tried to fill.

Hello,

reading the comments, you might want to take a look at the following good apps that recognize, in real time, currency, general objects, specific learned objects or the text on products.

First, LookTel Money Reader, which is currently called NantMobile Money Reader was updated last year so that it recognizes the current design of banknotes, although some currencies are still missing. Then there is an app similar to Toolwiz Eyes called Aipoly Vision which recognizes many kinds of objects offline and virtually immediately. Aipoly can also read currency but only US dollars are currently supported. However, it can also recognize text, and as far as I have tested, faster than any other text recognition app. I have also had a very decent success recognizing various grocery, such as tea boxes, cans, soda bottles, and spice packages, just by reading bits of text located on them, eliminating the need to find and read barcodes or use other means of labeling. It's also possible to use it for reading text on other currency than US dollars, thus being able to read the number on a banknote finding its denomination. This is thanks to Aipoly ability to read also styled and formatted text, not just text using a standard font type which is what most of the OCR apps are only optimized for.

However, if you want to be able to recognize very specific objects that have no text on them or the text is hidden somewhere or just difficult to recognize, such as your personal DVDs, ID and credit cards, or certain grocery, than apps like EyeSense or LookTel Recognizer might do a great job. They both work offline and in real time thus very quickly. With these apps, you first teach them how an object looks like by taking one or more photos of it, then assign a personal text or audio description to it, and later such apps can recognize the learned objects just by waving the camera of your device around them when they would speak the assigned description. I don't know which of these two performs better as EyeSense is not available in my country.

So, good luck with these

Hello Adam,
Some great suggestions but I particularly was looking for this app to build a niche in the market as there are so many other apps that appear to do the same thing.
If this app were to be able to recognise food items quickly and accurately rather than having to mess about with trying to find the barcode, that would be brilliant. So, I would hope for something like Viz Wiz but in real time. I could then scan across a can from the cupboard for example and get tomato soup rather than tinned peaches!
The other idea of bank notes is a brilliant one too. As Alex suggests, although Money Reader has a new developer and was upgraded last year, there are great problems with the app recognising Scottish banknotes, the new UK £5 and from October, the new £10 and £20. Also, as suggested above, Australian banknotes are difficult to recognise.

Steve.

Hello again Adam,
Just to let you know, I've tried the free version of the app and although I agree it is good I'm very concerned about the pricing structure.
In spite of needing something to identify my banknotes I cannot afford to pay what I regard to be an unrealistic price of over £60 UK pounds per year for an app. I have paid quite large amounts for apps in the past but these are navigation apps which have to purchase mapping data from elsewhere and essential for navigation. However, for an app that identifies objects, all be it well and with options unlike any other apps I've come across, it is simply too expensive.
There are also other apps that would come far above this one on my bucket list if I could afford them that would be far more useful, for example, the subscription based radio/audio book apps and those that provide premium television channels. I'll just have to go back to the traditional method of identification, a plastic gauge that measures the width of the notes!

Steve.

Hello Steve,
Aipoly's subscription fee is too large for me as well, and I have mentioned that to its developers in the survey. However, LookTel Recognizer is reasonably priced at 10 USD as an one-time payment. And this one is actually the one which can be used for any kind of banknotes recognition very well, except you have to teach it first, as i described

Kind regards

Hello again Adam,
I'm glad you agree with my previous comments about cost and I will follow your suggestion and do the survey. However, of course you are right about Look Tel Recogniser. I did buy this app some years ago and still have it in the access folder on my Iphone. If I remember correctly, I previously used it for recognising my CD collection but since going down the digital file route I have not used it. I'll have a go and put the UK banknotes in the database and see how it goes.

Thank you again,

Steve.

Hello Steve,

I hope you will have the same success with LookTel Recognizer as I have had. And thanks for providing the feedback too.

Have a nice day