Smart glasses find new purpose among blind users

THE actual use-value of smart glasses remains keenly debated - but less so among blind people, who are increasingly relying on the latest models to improve their lives.

- AFP

Does this restaurant serve fish? Does this bus go to my neighborhood? None of the emerging leaders in the nascent smart glasses market designed their models to answer these questions with blind users in mind.

But several small startups - some exhibiting at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week - are helping build a dedicated ecosystem out of existing products. For sighted people, smart glasses just tell them what they already see, noted Aaron Preece, editor-in-chief of AccessWorld magazine, published by the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB).

"But for blind people, it's useful." Smartphone apps already serve people with blindness, "but you have to hold the device in the right direction," said Preece, who is blind.

"If it's on your head, it's definitely a lot more intuitive."

According to the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, 43 million people worldwide are blind, while another 295 million have moderate to severe visual impairment.