Google Maps is something many of us now take for granted in helping us navigate to new or unfamiliar locations, but what if you cannot see? According to a recent article by Kelly Richman-Abdou on the online site My Modern Met, some innovative designers developed an intelligent walking device that uses sensors and several forms of smart technology to help the visually impaired safely navigate.
Called WeWALK, the devices is a white cane attachment whose brainchild is Kursat Ceylan, CEO and co-founder of Young Guru Academy (YGA), a Turkish non-profit organization formed to promote the device. Ceylan used his own experience as a visually impaired person to help develop the device.
WeWALK has built-in speakers, Google maps, and Voice Assistant, and is designed to be compatible with a smart phone’s Bluetooth system. The cane incorporates special sensors that alert users with vibrations when obstacles above chest level present themselves. The cane is designed to support the visually impaired in their participation in social life.
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“In these days we are talking about flying cars, but these people have been using just a plain stick,” Ceylan was quoted as saying in the article to CNN. “As a blind person, when I am at the Metro station I don’t know which is my exit… I don’t know which bus is approaching… which stores are around me. That kind of information can be provided with the WeWalk.”
The cane can also be tailored to sync with different devices.