Envision Smart Glasses: First Impression

The following blog post is written by Sam Newman, who is a long time subscriber of Envision and dropped by our booth at CSUN Conference in March. He offered to write a blog post about what were his first impressions of the Envision Glasses that he got to try out extensively.

Envision Smart Glasses: First Impression

by Sam Newman

The Envision AI team attended the CSUN Assistive Technology Conference in March 2020, and it was a pleasure to have the opportunity to try the new Envision Glasses there. I am not new to Envision AI and its products. I have been utilizing their mobile phone app for the past year, and find it to be a powerful and functional tool in my daily life as a visually impaired individual. 

I have also been evaluating other AI devices to adopt for my personal use.

Introduction

Users of Envision’s Mobile Phone app will quickly adapt to the Envision Glasses. The software complements and utilizes the latest generation of Google Glass (Enterprise Edition 2) as its hardware platform. This should be considered a plus since Google Glasses have evolved into a robust and steady-state platform. Important to consider is the fact that utilizing this platform Envision can incorporate many features in the future. The open architecture will allow Envision the ability to expand the features in the future, allowing to keep their offerings current and cutting edge. The developers considered several designs of smart glass and found that most fell short of their requirements therefore Google’s platform currently was the best choice for Envision.

Fit and Feel

At the time two versions of the Envision Glasses are available, both hold a small screen in the top right-hand corner. The camera, CPU, touchpad, battery, storage, and the speaker are integral to the right temple of the glasses. The frame design of both models is lightweight and non-attention grabbing.

This is a conventional frame, allowing for prescription lenses to be placed. They are black, thick, lightweight and very comfortable to wear. Those like myself who still wear prescription glasses will want to consider these.

Standard Loop Frames

Simple in design, these take into consideration that many visually impaired individuals do not use a prescription lens. This frame serves simply a holder for the screen, camera, and guts of the system.

User Interface

In an overview, the core functions of the Envision Glasses are:

• Camera module: Transmits images and videos to the processor.
• Trackpad: Input for all functions.
• Video module: Allows the user to target an image for capture.
• Speaker: Reads text to speech
  ‍
  

It is essential to point out that the Video Module (screen) is optional, and if the user cannot see an image due to visual impairment, it does not need to utilize the screen.

To use the Envision Glasses, the user will employ the trackpad to scroll and select functions. By double-tapping, the trackpad items are selected.  I utilized to capture and read the text as follows:

1. Scrolled and selected the mode (read the text)
2. Targeted the text I wanted to capture through the scree
3. Double tapped the trackpad to capture an image of the text
4. Within seconds the device started reading to me

I had the device read several sentences of varying difficulties and found the software to read clearly, providing concise accurate output.

The other modes were almost identical to the Envision AI phone app. The barcode reader, object description, colour description, and facial recognition features all deployed to the Envision Glasses as well.

Charging and Communication

Charging is done through a USB type C cable and provides up to eight hours of battery life. Similar to the app, the glasses will connect via Bluetooth to the phone, and could pair with the wifi to exchange data.

Conclusion

The Envision Glasses represent the future of products for the visually impaired. I am looking forward to the market release of the product sometime in the 4th quarter of 2020. The founders of Envision AI are passionate and committed to launching high-level, cutting edge technology, driven by the needs of visually impaired individuals.

‍

--

You can pre-order the Envision Glasses at an incredible discount through this link.

‍

You can listen to the impression of more users who tried on the Envision Glasses in this video:

‍