In episode 113 of the AppleVis Extra podcast, Dave Nason and Scott Davert welcome back Xiaoran Wang and welcome Buddy Brannan from Agiga to talk about the EchoVision smart glasses. The conversation focuses on how EchoVision is designed specifically for blind and low vision users, highlighting its accessibility-first approach and ongoing development through close collaboration with the community. Those interested can also check out EchoVision's Youtube channel for more information. During the discussion, the guests cover key features such as live AI scene description, a dedicated reading mode for printed text, button-based controls, audio routing to hearing aids, battery life and charging options, and hardware design choices. They also explain the Pioneer program while announcing its expansion,, upcoming hardware improvements, pricing and subscription plans, and the expected timeline for the final release.
Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.
Dave: Hello there and welcome to the AppleVis Extra podcast. I am David Nason with you again and this time joined by my good friend and experts in all things Apple, Scott Davert. How are you Scott?
Scott: Hey, Dave, it's good to be back here on the podcast with you. I think the only thing I'm an expert in is taking a nap. It seems like the older I get, the more I look forward to nappy hour instead of happy hour. Oh, let's not open that kind of world. Well, let's hope we don't turn our listeners' time here into nappy hour, and we'll hopefully have an interesting podcast. I think it's really fascinating to see where the company that we're going to talk to came from, what they're up to, and what they will be up to.
Dave: Yes, indeed. So who we're speaking to is Xiaoran Wang and Buddy Brannan from... Agiga Agiga is that how we say it Agiga who make the EchoVision smart glasses so there's so many smart glasses now come onto the market over the last couple of years between the mainstream ones like meta um meta raybons and now oakleys and then we've got obviously we've had failed attempts like celeste and we've got the envision solos are out there as well and And these guys are another company having a go with the smart glasses specifically for the blind and low vision community. They're not a mainstream product. They're a blindness product. And yeah, utilizing AI and they're going about it in their own way. So it's going to be a really interesting conversation.
Scott: Well, it's a long echo, though. I mean, you had them on in October 2024, and it took this long for the echo to return. But I guess the point is it did, right?
Dave: Yeah, that's really interesting. I think it may have been like September, October, something like that, 2024, was it? And at that point, I remember they were talking about going to CSUN last year, which they did, I believe. But I thought at that time, yeah, the product would have been fully released before the end of 2025. It's now looking like mid-2026. But we'll learn more about that from the guys. at least they're still around they're still going unlike say Seleste for example so I think you know hopes are high and there's a there are there is a group of people again as well as we'll talk about who have them in their hands and are using them you being among them so they do exist they're not vaporware they are a real process which is great I have a pair right here actually and
Scott: You know, do you want me to go ahead and talk about a little bit of the unboxing experience and stuff before we get into the interview?
Dave: Yeah, go first.
Scott: So one thing, first of all, the box was a really nice design and everything was packed well. But you know what I was really happy about when I got it is that it came with basic Braille documentation. And you don't see that a lot, even in the assistive tech space anymore, where companies will give you any kind of Braille documentation. So it was really neat to be able to open the package and right away, as a Braille user, almost exclusively, to have access to equal documentation when I started out. So that was a real nice gesture, I thought.
Dave: Very good, very good. And you've been using them for a few weeks now, is this?
Scott: Yeah, off and on for about a month now, yeah. And it's actually improved quite a bit since I started using them back before the holidays. I got them in very early December, and it was... It was decent enough back then, but here we are, you know, several weeks later and it's much improved, I would say, even from before. So they are definitely holding true to their continuous improvement commitment in terms of, you know, all around the product, things are better than when we first started back in early December.
Dave: Great to hear. Well, maybe without risking stealing their thunder any further, let's jump into the interview. So again, this is myself and Scott speaking with Xiaoran Wang and Buddy Brannan from Egiga, the makers of the EchoVision glasses. Let's jump in.
Dave: So, Xiaoran, welcome back to the AppleVis Podcast and Buddy, welcome to the AppleVis Podcast. Thanks so much for joining us.
Xiaoran:Thank you for having us.
Dave: So you guys are at a really exciting point now, I think, in the EchoVision smart glasses story. So do you want to, before we delve into it, do you want to give us a recap of what these smart glasses are, what the product is and what makes it stand out, I guess, to you? What's your elevator pitch, in a sense?
Xiaoran:Sure. So EchoVision is the first and the only smart glasses that made from ground up for the blind and low vision community. So basically, it converts the visual information into auditory so that you can get all the information in hearing. For example, if you're in front of your backyard, it will describe what's over there, like how the flowers are blooming and how the trees are like. And if you have a bench, couches like that, or if you are in front of a person, it will describe how this person look like, what ethics, height, and even expressions. And I think two features people really like about the product so far. One is the live AI, which does the same description, but more in a proactive and interactive way. You do not have to ask it if you just want to know what's around it will just proactively tell you what's there another feature people love a lot is our reading mode because now reading is very big for the blind low vision people so we create this dedicated reading mode just to do text reading and and so for lots of people Really love this. And they even say, okay, this is the best OCR glasses, which really kind of surprised me. I feel it's still a long way for us to go, but I'm happy to see people showed great interest with this feature. I really love using it.
Buddy: I have at least one or two people who have said that they have read entire novels with it. I'm not sure that that's something that's very common at the moment, but I know at least one or two people who say that they have. I like to say that what we do in a way that other smart glasses really don't. We're not trying to be everything. We're trying to be something very specific, and that is to provide hands-free access to visual access or hands-free access to visual information that we're not going to otherwise be able to get independently. A lot of other products want to be your scheduler and your contact manager and your this and your that and your all these other things but no we we want to um really concentrate on doing the thing that we're doing very well and that is that we want to provide information to blind people that they're not otherwise going to have
Dave: buddy i was having a flashback to you on triple click home or something there i think saying just we're talking about some app going like, you just push the button and it works and it does something, which is very funny. It's just like a little flashback. But what I was going to ask, though, this is AI, obviously. Is it using a particular model? People might be curious to know. Or is it a mix of models? Or how does that side work before we get even into the subscriptions and all that side of it?
Xiaoran:Yeah, so you are at some point very interesting. The thing is, like we really want to make these glasses very easy to use. So besides voice activation and voice command, we're actually building lots of high-frequency use case into the hardware so that you can control it by simply push the button. And if it's one button that is seeing, understanding, two button that's live AI, push the button three times, that's text-ready. And as simple as that. And so we use like different models to power the experience. so that for each use case, it has the best experience for the user. We actually evaluated the models, the state-of-the-art model available in the world and pick the one that's best for certain use cases and then optimize it for that. So it's like, it's number one. It's actually lots of models putting up together. Also, we have our in-house model for certain experiences as well. You can't think of us as like the integrator of all these AIs, but what we really care about is experience.
Dave: Okay, that sounds really interesting approach. And you mentioned that you press a button to change the mode. So is this a sort of a mix of physical button press and voice activation, depending on what you're doing?
Xiaoran:This is on button. You do not have to talk if you don't want to. You can talk and ask follow-up questions or interrupt it. You could do that. But we want to give you the choice of not talking and getting the information.
Dave: I really like that because I think we all know the feeling of feeling awkward talking to our AIs in public. You say you go to a restaurant, you want to read that menu, but you don't necessarily want to be talking to a device. So, yeah, that's really interesting. Scott, I think you were going to jump in.
Scott: I always have something to say. Dave, you know that. We've been doing these a long time. Well, a couple of things. First, regarding those experiences of having the ability to use buttons instead of having to constantly be talking in some places when maybe you don't want to do that. For me, that's actually, as a pioneer user, something that has really come in handy, depending on what I'm doing. The other thing that it does is it allows people that don't have use of their vocal cords for whatever reason, or they don't have the ability to speak clearly enough for it to understand them, they don't have to rely on the voice commands to go into reading mode, for example. or any of the other modes. And, you know, the reading mode is actually one of the things that I've really enjoyed. And it is something simple that sighted people do all the time. During the holidays, you get Christmas cards or whatever holiday you celebrate. You get cards, right? And sometimes they are gift cards. Sometimes they're just, you know, nice poems or whatever. But this year, for the first time during a Christmas celebration, I was able to use reading mode to have the cards read to me. I didn't have to have somebody else do it. And it was able to come directly into my hearing aids, which was also great. So that's just one example of a situation where these glasses really came in handy. And I didn't have to, in the middle of my family, start giving it voice commands. You know, like with the Meta glasses, you have to do that. You can't have it do anything like that without giving it some kind of voice command. Those are situations, I think, where both the use or the option, rather, of having the ability to push the button for the different modes comes in handy. And also an experience from my perspective that really was very liberating in that I could read the cards just like everybody else.
Buddy: I had a similar thing over Christmas myself when we were doing our Christmas gifts. Angie, my wife, always finds the best T-shirts. Always. If you need to find a T-shirt that says something funny or anything like that, Angie's your girl. She'll find it. So she got me a bunch, like six or seven T-shirts. different t-shirts um and i got to use my EchoVision glasses to to read them and describe them and so i i got to um i got to go through my gifts and and have it describe all of my shirts and and laugh at them without having to have somebody else tell me what they were first which was kind of cool i've never been able to do that before And I really appreciated that ability.
Xiaoran:It's so great to hear all this, what you guys just said, that made me feel so fulfilled. And yes, I think when we design equal vision, we felt it's very important for people to have access to the same information in an equally way. Say, if a sighted person can read a book without asking a question or can see this without seeing a word, we should allow the blind low vision people be able to do it the same way. That's why we designed this integration of the command into the hardware so that people don't have to speak out loud when they want to get this information. And also another thing I learned actually in this ATIA trip is some people they work with lots of seniors and they say it's actually easier for them to remember this one, two, three push buttons rather than remembering a prompt or a command, which often the time quite challenging for the seniors. which shows another advantage that Ecovision has on the seniors.
Dave: Yeah, absolutely. And I actually can remember a post on AppleVis not too long ago, somebody asking exactly this, like, are there any products yet that will allow me to read physical books in a way that would work and make sense? Because not everything is even available. Even today, there's old books and things that you may have on bookshelves and you want to you know he's a reader he wants to have shelves with bookshelves like other people and be able to sit on the sofa and read the book and so yeah theoretically anyway this could be the kind of thing he's looking for so that's really cool Could I ask a bit about hardware, actually? And I'm sure, Geron, we probably spoke about this when you were on back in 2024, but things may have moved on or people may obviously just not remember the details. What sort of hardware is it? Are they sunglasses or are they clear glasses or is it up to the customer? And are there speakers, you know, above your ears like on the Metas or how does the volume side of things work?
Xiaoran:So I will talk about it. Please feel free to chat me if there's anything you want to add. So you can think about EchoVision as a super mini computer. So it has a SOC. It's kind of like the core chip on your cell phone. It has cameras. It has lots of sensors, like ambient light sensor. motion sensors, he has mics, four mics at different places, has two speakers, stereo speakers, and so it has cameras, of course. So basically what it does is the camera is used to capture the scene and then AI will analyze it, generate the content and then convert it to audio and send back to the user and play it out through the speakers. And so this is a hardware specification of the glasses. And as to the lens, so we have different options. You can choose clear lens or you can have a different tinted color. I think right now, so previously for Pioneers, we provided black, green, and brown, but we found out very few people want brown or green. So we may only provide black in the future, so black versus clear. We also support transitional lens prescription lens and also the tinted lens, they are all polarized so that it gets another layer of protection under the sun. And we are talking about the lens. I have to mention these cute accessories which we are giving out for free for all the pioneers and also for other people who have pre-ordered. It's a sunglasses clip-on. So basically, it's a piece of sunglasses. It uses magnetic to stick to your IQVision glasses so that it allows you to change. Basically, it allows you to change the color of the lens, like on the go, very quick and fast. Just like some people say they got addicted, like putting the clip on and off.
Buddy: I can put them on when they're outside because they want the sunglasses and then take them off faster when they go in. I got the clear lenses. I didn't need any of the other like tint or anything. So, you know, I could put them on if I wanted to block more sunlight.
Dave: Yeah. It's one of the things I'm always torn on because I have some vision remaining. So sometimes when I put sunglasses on, I feel like I'm Taking away some of what I have remaining, you know what I mean, by making things darker. But at the same time, if it's particularly sunny, maybe I would want them. So maybe something like the clear ones with the clip on might be exactly what I would be best with.
Buddy: And I want to speak to the speakers. They're open-ear speakers in a similar way to how the Metaglasses do it. They direct the sound towards your ears. I don't think they quite have the full dynamic audio range of the Meta ones, but they still sound pretty good. The other thing that we do that nobody else does is we allow you to take your audio from the EchoVision glasses and route it to another Bluetooth audio device like an external speaker or a hearing aid if the hearing aid just supports regular Bluetooth connectivity or like a headset. Like if he used maybe a bone conduction headset or any earbuds that you like. Yeah.
Scott: Yeah, they work with my hearing aids quite well, actually. And I do have to comment on the audio quality. I was actually, when I first started using the glasses, walked outside, it was snowing, and I had Let It Snow, Let It Snow playing on the glasses, and I couldn't get a picture of or a video of it, but it might have been fun to put up on social media. But the thing was that Of the glasses I've tried at this point, they had the best audio in terms of just listening to music. And I didn't have it going to my hearing aid directly. I had it coming through the speakers on the glasses. But because the speakers, where they're located... With my hearing aids, I'm actually able to, in a quieter setting, use them directly with my hearing aids without even having to do Bluetooth. So it's a really great setup, and the speakers are a lot better than some of the other glasses I've tried.
Buddy: I think they are quite good. I mean, there's a lot more high-end in our speakers, I think. You hear a lot more highs. But they do sound pretty good. I wouldn't have any trouble listening to music with them for a while. Oh, there's another thing, too, and it's an important thing. These glasses also have a USB-C port on the back side. right arm at the very end she can plug a USB-C cable in and run it to power like a battery pack, you know, any sort of phone battery bank should work, and they'll continue running off of that, as opposed to, well, like the Metaglasses, they only charge from the case, and if you want to use another cable, there's like an aftermarket cable that this guy makes that clips to the nose of where the charger would normally go, where the charging case would normally connect, and then they kind of go down from there. But these just use a regular USB-C cable, and we designed them on purpose so that you can run them off external power.
Xiaoran:Oh, and I have to mention this. I don't think we said it enough. You can actually use the charging case as a power bank for the glasses, not only by putting the glasses into the charging case, but also by connecting it by USB-C cable.
Buddy: Oh, very good. That's a good point. You can do that. I keep forgetting about that, but yeah, absolutely. It can be its own battery bank.
Dave: How much battery, just on their own, do they get? How many hours of usage do they get?
Xiaoran:It really depends on what you do. So at the beginning, when we designed this, we were thinking about a moderate usage. Maybe you'll answer a phone call on it, listen to some music. Of course, you will use this same description, book rating mode, which, like, causes a bit more energy to do. And so at the time, we expected battery life to be six hours. And when we started doing beta testing and we found out, oh, wow, live AI got so popular. People just turn it on and on and let the AI talk. And they just love it. So in that case, it's a super high power use case. The camera's on, the CPU is running at full speed, the Wi-Fi module is on. And the battery got drained really quickly. And that's why we decided to do a battery upgrade for the final addition of the hardware that increased the battery life by another 50%. another 50% so that to extend the usage overall and especially that extended usage of using live AI and also Aira VMI call time can be extended as well.
Scott: Before we go on to another topic speaking of the battery case it's allows you to there's a button on the back of it that will emit tones to tell you approximately how much battery life you have on the case as well So that is a really handy feature that we haven't really seen yet. And so that I think is also extremely helpful for people, you know, so that, you know, oh, I need to charge the case versus no, I don't. You know, you can kind of. Plan your day that way if you want to and say, oh, well, I have enough battery for one charge in the case, so I'm just going to go ahead and run with it. Or, oh, there's only 25% left on the battery case. I better charge it. I think that's also a really handy function.
Xiaoran:Yes, thank you for bringing this up, Scott. Thank you for noticing these other details we designed for the product. Yes, we found it is very important to make the product accessible in other ways. So other mainstream products heavily rely on LEDs on the status of the battery or charging. So, like, Like green means something, orange means something else, flashing means something. And we know all this is not accessible for people who cannot see well. So that's why we specifically make sure the charging case can play audio so that people can easily know the battery level by just pushing that button on the charging case. And similarly, when you put the glasses in charge or disconnect the charge, it will claim itself like power connected, power disconnected as well. So that it's very accessible. You know what's going on. You have full control of it.
Scott: Yeah, absolutely. It's a great feature. And that you were talking about the Pioneer's edition versus the final edition and the battery upgrade. And that is, you know, going to really benefit even me for, you know, live AI mode, which I use quite a bit of. In fact, sometimes it's something I'll use when I'm trying to read something as opposed to reading mode, which There's another cool thing about them, you know, that you have multiple tools and multiple ways of doing things that you can throw at a situation.
Xiaoran:Yep, thank you.
Dave: And when you speak about modes, one other question people may have is, can they be used for things like, you know, regular phone calls or FaceTime calls? Or can you take just photos and videos that just go into your photo gallery that you're not necessarily using right now for AI, but just use them as a camera, that kind of thing?
Xiaoran:Yeah, so we definitely allow people to use the glasses to take pictures or record videos. So all these one, two, three buttons, then we talk about our operation on the AI button, which is something unique EchoVision has on the right temple of the glasses. We also have another button on the left side of the temple, which some people say is so-called the hardware button, like control the camera on, like you can take pictures through that button, or you can record a video. Yeah, we do allow you to do all these, and if you give the app the permission, it will save all these to your photo album so that you can view them.
Dave: Could you do video calls, like WhatsApp or FaceTime?
Xiaoran:Unfortunately, we cannot do that. No, yeah, that requires Facebook to open up their permission to allow not only Facebook app, but also the phone to open up their permission to allow video coming in from the glasses. Makes sense, yeah. Yeah, maybe there are ways to do it. I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it loud. Yeah. I think if there's a strong need, maybe there's a way to do it. Yeah, I'm sorry, I do not have a yes for sure at the moment.
Buddy: There's something we would like to be able to do because, you know, we know it's important. Of course, we have access to video and video chat through Aira and Be My Eyes, and they run directly on the glasses. So... Having some kind of thing where we could have a video chat with somebody that we know that in the same kind of way would be something we'd like to do, but like Xiaoran said, don't know what that's going to involve to be able to do it.
Dave: Yeah, Apple don't make, I don't know about the Android side, but I know Apple don't give all-ups just access to external cameras. So, yeah, I'd imagine there'll be some things you do and there's probably other things that are more urgent, I'd imagine, but it's good to know that you're thinking about it. I think it's great to know that you've got the Be My Eyes and Ira there, which are, you know, great to know you have that human backup if and when you do want this through the glasses. We've spoken a bit or we've mentioned a few times pioneers and finals. For people who aren't sure what that is, like what is the pioneer program versus the final product and how is all that coming together?
Xiaoran:Yeah, sure. So we have been running pre-orders last year and we really appreciate people's support. And at a point, I still remember we were calling for beta volunteers, we received 200 stand-ups for like 20 beta testers, which really flattered for us to see such great passion, such response from the community. And that actually kind of leads to the idea of having a pioneer program. So the context is, at the time, we realized people would like to have longer battery life, and also we know there are still bugs we have on the product, and it's probably not so perfect for everyone to use it. However, at the same time, we see there's such a strong need from the community to have access to this device. So we had lots of discussion. And then you want to brainstorm, like people say, oh, what about we allow people using the product and telling them, yes, there are still issues, but you will behave like a pioneer so that you can help us find the issues, fix this, giving your feedback to ship the product together instead of close the door, do this internally and to keep the customer outside. So we decide to open door and kind of work with the community together to get this product to a perfect stage. So that's why we roll out this Pioneer program. So basically, for people who have pre-ordered can opt in to be a pioneer by a certain time. I think it was like sometime in October last year, if they signed up and we will send them a pioneer device. So far we fulfilled all the Pioneer devices. I think except maybe a few that have missing addresses or has missing prescription details. And people have been very showing like great interest to this program. We got a Pioneer email group that's very active. that some people feel too annoying, too annoyed by receiving so many emails from all this. And basically for all the pioneers, they got the device and they have been using it. And we know this is not a final product. There are still things we want to improve. And by our standard, it does not meet our bar yet. So when we get a final device out, we will send out the final product to all the pioneers for free as a free upgrade so that they can all get to use the latest product.
Dave: Okay, so it's sort of an early adopter program. But yeah, that's great then that those people will get the updated glasses then when they are ready.
Buddy: It's one of those good news, bad news things. The good news is you're first. The bad news is you're first. Yes. So that means that you get to help us fix all the bugs. So you definitely have to be up for that. And for the most part, I tell you what, we've had some great people that have really stepped up and kind of rolled with our growing pains. It's been really good.
Dave: And what kind of timeline do you think you have now to when you will feel ready to say this is the actual final product?
Xiaoran:Yeah, so we will have this battery upgrade, which is already in progress and kind of, going to get closed up in March. However, while we are doing this pioneer program, we see another thing people flagged out as something they want to implement, which is a hedge. I don't know how do you like it, Scott, but the current hinge is kind of very flexible. We kind of did this by design, and we don't want it to be too rigid, but it turned out lots of people feel this way. It's too loose and it does not help to make them stay over their faces and also it makes it feel like cheeks. So we are actually redesigning the hinge as well along with a battery upgrade which is something not planned out and also needs a little bit of actual effort to have this part. So right now for the final edition, we expect that to be out in May. And so with this batch upgrade together with the hinge upgrade as well.
Scott: I could see how people, especially if the glasses are not the correct fit, sometimes the way they're designed right now might kind of cause them to fall off. And I actually, when I first got them, I was like, oh, well, this is actually kind of annoying. But then I got used to it and it was fine for me. But yeah, at first I was like, Oh, okay. Well, they're flexible. You know, once I realized they're not going to break, then I was a lot more comfortable with them.
Xiaoran:Yeah. So it's actually, there are actually cables going across the hinge, though it's not visible. Even in your side, you can't see the cables. There are three cables. It's actually flexible PCBs going through the hinge so that the front panel of the glasses is connected to the temples where all these electronics and battery are. And so when we design that, we want to make sure it's flexible so that it does not get a lot of friction and does not scrap on the flexible PCBs. But I guess it's kind of too flexible. And also because the hinge is made of metal, so it's actually quite a process to get this metal. The new design got prototyped. got these samples and then testing, assembled and tested. So it's kind of very iterative to get to the right point so that it can feel the right friction. It's not too hard to open it, but it also has the right friction so that it can stop at any angle and it feels like something good when you have it in your hand. Yeah. But the downside is, yes, it's taking more time, which I really hate to say. I didn't know, like, there are times we got late, and I really appreciate the patience the committee has on us. And because of this, and also because we also see such a strong need in the community to get access to the device, so a decision we recently made is we expand the Pioneer program to more people. So the first priority, of course, is given to people who have pre-ordered. So for people who pre-ordered, we plan to send you a Pioneer device unless you don't want to receive it. And so that, like, you can use this while waiting for the extra time for the finalization to arrive. Great.
Dave: And can people still pre-order or is that window closed?
Xiaoran:Yeah, so our pre-order actually was closed last October. We do plan to open up for taking orders sometime. So it depends on how it goes. If we have any pioneer device left, maybe we'll open up a small window for people to get that.
Dave: And with the final release coming up hopefully this year or middle of this year, what is the pricing looking like both upfront and subscription? I'm not sure if both exist or how does the pricing work?
Xiaoran:So the hardware, the device itself is $599, and this remains the same. And for people who pre-ordered, we waived all the subscription fees. As you know, AI is actually expensive to run, especially the more it talks, the more expensive it is actually. I think that kind of explains why for some AI, they are very brief and it does not read a book line by line because it's actually very expensive to do that. You can think about it's like costing money for the AI to say every single word. And we really appreciate the support we receive from our early supporters. That's why we provide this lifelong support. subscription for free for people who pre-ordered and unfortunately as a small startup we cannot afford afford keep doing that for everyone afterwards so we'll be start charging subscriptions but I think the detailed plan is to be rolled out we will still have some we still have some promotion For people who order, it won't be live flow, but we may still have something still as a token of appreciation.
Dave: Good. So we'll find out more about pricing of subscriptions, I guess, than closer to the time?
Xiaoran:Yeah. When we go out, we'll have details on this.
Dave: Perfect. Amazing. Yeah, I think it's a really interesting, exciting product, and We know there's been a lot of talk in this space and a lot of various products have come along in this space and some have been more successful than others. So really wish you well and hope this one is as successful as it's showing promise. And so, yeah, thanks so much. Is there anything else you guys wanted to talk about before we wrap up?
Xiaoran:I would really want to add on, like, I have received so much praise, thanks, and welcoming from the community since I started working on this. And especially since we started the Pioneer Program, I saw so many, like, actual pioneers trying to help each other. So one thing really touched me recently is we had a pioneer wish list. So basically, my co-founder and our CTO was summarizing the issues we have. all the features the community request and put it into a document called a Pioneer Wishlist. And we send this out to the Pioneer and keep updating that so that they know what we're working on, if their problem is tracked or if it's solved. And like actually the very first document we sent out was not the format the community was familiar with. It was sent out in Google Sheets, which is our internal IT platform. I think it is accessible, but because it's something relatively new, so lots of people are not familiar with it. So there are some discussion about, oh, how can I see this? And so I told Hua Song, who's my co-founder, well, send this out. I said, you have to send out a more accessible version of this, maybe put it in an email. Like before he even did this, a fellow pioneer in the group who is also a blind low vision person, I believe, and put this into an email and sent this out, which really has to say, I do not know how to describe this. It's really made me feel wowed we really have to deliver something really good. Otherwise, I feel I do not do enough for this community.
Buddy: Well, I think too that, you know, there has been a community built up around EchoVision, and it's not just, just sort of the blind community in general, but I think that especially with the pioneers, they've really coalesced into an actual community, and we've got people that are really jumping in and helping out, and it's really great.
Scott: I think that's a real important point, actually, about community engagement. You know, we keep coming back to this, and I would say of all of what I've tested and all the things I've done, A lot of the products which do become fully successful and which continue to be resilient are those that engage with the customers that they're attempting to serve. So I just want to take a second and commend you guys on continuing to interact with the community and receiving that feedback and actually taking action associated with it. I've been a lurker on the mailing list for the pioneers. I'll resolve that at some point soon with emails, hopefully. But, you know, yeah, it's really something that has developed in direct conjunction with the community feedback. So it's a really great thing to see a company taking the time to fully understand what people are looking for.
Buddy: I appreciate what we're doing as well, because I came in late. I started here in November, and I just really appreciate that Agiga has really reached out to the community to look for people that were actually part of the community to kind of be more of an interface with the rest of the community, somebody that we're that we're familiar with um that um that that um at least some people know so i mean i appreciate that myself and not just because they're paying me no
Dave: that's great i think a lovely note to uh to wrap up on so um yeah just once again i want to say huge thanks to both and buddy for joining us
Xiaoran:thanks guys Thanks for having us.
Scott: Thank you very much. We look forward to what the future holds. It looks bright, even through the EchoVision glasses.
Buddy: The future is so bright, we've got to wear EchoVision.
Dave: Great stuff. So that was Sharon and Buddy from Agiga about the EchoVision glasses. An interesting chat, I think, Scott.
Scott: Yeah, like I said before, the engagement with the community is great, and I think that's really what's contributing to their success and their continued improvement. So I very much look forward to seeing where all of this stuff goes, and maybe the Echo from 2024 that rebounded in 2026 will have another rebound later when the final product comes out. So I'm looking forward to that and seeing where this goes.
Dave: Yeah, me too. I hope to see the product out there. I'll certainly be one person who is watching with interest. So, yeah, thank you to everyone for listening. Thanks again to Sharon and Buddy for joining us. And thank you, Scott, for co-hosting with me today.
Scott: Thank you for co-hosting as well, although we were pretty much the hosts. And also thanks to our listeners who stuck with us this long. Bye, everybody.
Dave: Thank you.