Imagine navigating your world without sight.
Daily tasks become significant challenges. This is the reality for millions of visually impaired people.
Loss of sight can be debilitating, impacting a person's ability to process and interact with their surroundings. Simple tasks like walking require immense focus and reliance on non-visual cues.
There's positive change on the horizon.
Tec-Innovation, an Austrian company, has created the InnoMake shoe, a technological marvel designed to empower the visually impaired.
Computer scientists have created a "smart" shoe called InnoMake to help blind and visually impaired people overcome obstacles.
The $3,000 product, developed by Austrian company Tec-Innovation in partnership with the University of Technology Graz (TU Graz), integrates waterproof ultrasonic sensors into the top of each shoe.
These shoes use ultrasonic sensors embedded in the toes.
These sensors detect obstacles up to 13 feet away, similar to parking sensors in cars. When an obstacle is detected, the wearer receives an alert through vibrations or sounds.
Markus Raffer, a founder of Tec-Innovation and himself visually impaired, said: 'Ultrasonic sensors on the toe of the shoe detect obstacles up to four meters [13 feet] away.'
'The wearer is then warned by vibration and/or acoustic signals. This works very well and is already a great help to me personally.'
As the wearer approaches an obstacle, these sensors emit vibrations and sounds that increase in intensity with distance, similar to a vehicle's parking sensors.
InnoMake offers a smartphone app for customization.
Users can adjust alert preferences and minimum detection distances to best suit their needs.
Additionally, Tec-Innovation is currently improving the product to include an AI camera in the next version.
The InnoMake shoes are a product of a collaboration between Tec-Innovation and Graz University of Technology.
They are priced at over $3,000 and are available as a complete shoe or a retrofit option for existing shoes.
The developers are working on integrating camera-based recognition and machine learning for even more sophisticated obstacle detection.
These advancements could provide a "street view navigation map" for users.
The scientist said the InnoMake shoes have two key pieces of information that allow them to avoid obstacles. The nature of the obstacle and its path, especially when directed downwards, such as a pit or stairs leading to a subway.
These shoes offer increased independence, safety, and confidence when navigating the world.
