Are These Vibrating Shoes The Future of Helping the Visually Impaired?

For those who cannot see, these shoes could be a game-changer.

Transcript

00:00 These shoes might look a little strange, but they could be a game changer for the visually

00:07 impaired and their autonomy.

00:09 These are what Tech Innovation, the company behind the product, are calling Inomake.

00:14 They're shoes fitted with ultrasound emitters, which send out waves of sound that bounce

00:17 back to the shoes, where the information is then crunched by the device's algorithm,

00:21 alerting the wearer of unseen objects by way of a vibration on the foot or a smartphone

00:26 warning, and it can provide information to the user of obstacles at a distance of up

00:30 to around 13 feet away, much further than traditional methods like a cane, which only

00:35 give you a couple of feet of notice, when obstacles might already be too late to avoid.

00:39 Tech Innovation says the device may be used without a cane at all, as long as the user

00:43 is walking around familiar territory, and the company's CEO, Marcus Raffer, can likely

00:47 testify to that, as he's only had about 3 to 4 percent of his vision since birth.

00:52 The shoes are now being sold for just over $4,600.

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