Motivation
According to World Health Organization there are 285 million visually impaired people worldwide: 39 million are blind and 246 million have low vision. People with such disability face many lifelong challenges. Some of the areas they face difficulties in includes reading, writing, navigating through places independently, etc. Immense amount of resources have been spent by governments and institutions to tackle former problems. Some of the solutions include reading machines, talking books, and computers that translate Braille. However, there haven’t been comparable breakthroughs for navigation technologies.
Need for the product
When travelling, visually impaired people have 2 main concerns: avoiding obstacles and Navigation. EyeShoes aims to tackle the latter problem, i.e. it acts as a turn by turn guide for navigation at street level. Previous innovations in this field include projects such as smart glasses, Blind Square and Tap Tap See. The smart glasses can display varying lightness and darkness to indicate depth, and can also be made to recognize signs and transit numbers. However, it is not discrete and thus shows the person as ‘different’ to the society which can be disliked by some visually impaired people. Blind Square is an application which helps the user navigate by sending instructions in the form of sound. However, using earphones blocks the hearing sense which provides plenty of information about the surrounding environment and is therefore extremely important for blind people, especially in avoiding obstacles. Tap Tap See is an application which asks the user to take pictures of the obstacles and the path and then sends instructions via earphones. As mentioned before the use of earphones is not appreciated and taking pictures frequently makes it a tiring and a time consuming process.
Target market
The primary target market for Eyeshoes are people who are partially visually impaired as they are able to detect nearby obstacles. Therefore, Eyeshoes will make them self-sufficient while travelling as it will provide them with turn by turn navigation. The secondary target market include people with normal vision who do not wish to use their smartphones while navigating. This includes people who would use Eyeshoes in sports (such as running, cycling) as well as tourists.
Market survey
Every new product on the market requires an effective market research to gain information about the customer’s needs which helps in making informed decisions about the product i.e. what features the customers specifically prefer in the device, the price they are willing to pay, etc.
The primary market for Eyeshoes is partially blind people. Our first point of contact was Jean Marc Feghali – an Imperial College student who suffers from partial blindness since birth. A detailed discussion with him gave a better sense of designing Eyeshoes. Blogs used specifically by visually impaired people have been contacted with a description of Eyeshoes and we are waiting for a feedback from them.
The secondary market is people with normal vision. A total of 72 people were provided a description of Eyeshoes and asked for their feedback. The survey was carried out on students in the age group of 18-25. The table below summarizes their response.
| Number of people in total that would find the device useful | Number of people that would use the device for BOTH sports and tourism | Number of people that would use the device only for sports( e.g. running, cycling) | Number of people that would use the device only for tourism | Number of people that would not find the device useful |
| 68 | 32 | 25 | 11 | 4 |
The average prices that participants were willing to pay was £40. One of the most desired features asked was high accuracy and reliable notifications (vibrations-see description of product) when turning at a street. Another common feature desired was a long lasting battery life. There was no specific reason provided by people who do not find any potential use for the device.
Development
Thanks to is simple interface and smart algorithm, EyeShoes takes care of you all along your journey. Using MapKit and CLLocation framework, it will update your position, automatically detect when you approach a turn and smoothly notify you by sending a data to your shoe. If you get lost, our real time algorithm will recalculate a new itinerary to your destination.
Powering
To make the battery of the device last as long as possible, the use of piezoelectricity is an ideal solution as it will charge the battery while walking. Piezoelectric effect is when mechanical deformation of the piezoelectric material produces a proportional change in the polarization of the material, i.e. electric charge appears on certain opposite faces of the piezoelectric material when it is mechanically loaded. Therefore by applying mechanical strain of the user's weight, the device should be able to produce some current in order to charge the battery. The use of piezo electric transducers increases the battery life by 11.6%, which increases the battery life to 74 days when used for 1 hour a day.
Report
If you would like to know about EyeShoes in more details, please find our final report on the following link: Final report