This is a stupid system at an exorbitant price, especially considering that be my eyes and others are already out there for free and with volunteers at all times of the day and night. I don't know what demographic they are looking for considering that many mini blind and visually impaired people will be unable to pay the price that they are asking, along with dealing with the fact that the free alternatives already work with hardware they most likely already have.

In 2015 blind people began hearing about a startup company, Aira Tech Corp, and its product, Aira. For the past two years Aira’s visibility has grown and now it is a full-fledged company with an emerging product that has the potential to revolutionize how blind people, and perhaps others in the future, interact with the world. In the past few weeks I have heard of and read some negative observations about Aira. Some have called the product “stupid”. Some have said it is an expensive alternative to free products already available. Some have said that the product could never really help the blind.

I find these negative comments interesting and somewhat inaccurate. Before addressing these observations let me discuss the product itself.

Here is how Aira works. The user puts on what is called a “wearable device” which in this case is a pair of glasses that contain a high definition digital camera, miniaturized sensors and the ability to connect to the internet via wi-fi and Bluetooth connections. The system also utilizes an app which resides on an iPhone or Android smartphone.

When the user wishes to use Aira he or she activates the app which in turn establishes a wi-fi connection with the wearable device. Once this connection is established the user can press a button within the app to contact an Aira agent. As soon as the agent comes online they see images transmitted by the glasses. The agent also immediately sees on a special software dashboard on their computer geographical information showing where the user is located as well as information about the user’s surroundings. The user has two-way voice contact with the agent through the smartphone and can request whatever information they require. The agent, through their dashboard can access the internet, use the user’s visual surroundings, and incorporate other tools to provide answers to the user’s needs.

The information requested by users can be anything from asking for help with finding something in a store to requiring assistance while traveling through an airport to seeking assistance in assembling a product he or she has purchased. Literally agents can help with any task by providing visual descriptions and information wherever eye sight is needed to create access for blind persons.

I have been using Aira personally for a year and a half. I have been helping to further the development of Aira partly from its technical aspects, but mostly I have been working to make sure that the agents involved receive appropriate and relevant training as to how they interact with users. I have, for example, been working to make sure that agents understand that what they are to do is to provide information and not interpret it. My favorite illustration is that it is ok for an agent to inform me, if I wish the information while standing at a street intersection, that the light is green for me and that the agent does not see any cars coming. It is not appropriate for the agent to say that “it is safe to cross the street now”.

Aira is a mechanism that provides me always-on information anywhere at any time. The anytime part is a goal as service today is available only from 7AM Eastern time to 7PM Pacific time. However, Aira projects that 24x7 service 7 days a week will be available later this year. Now let’s get to the comments.

First, cost. Yes, Aira is a bit expensive today for many. The existing pricing plans offer 8 hours of service for $129.95 a month and unlimited service for $199.95 a month. Costly is relative, however. Cell phone, television from any source and internet services also cost money, and together they may cost someone $200 a month, but most all of us would not be caught without them. Some people spend thousands of dollars a year on other technologies. Some blind people I know spend a few hundred dollars a month of their own money to use Uber and Lyft to get to work as they do not want the burden and inconvenience of utilizing para transit.

With all that, Aira Tech Corp is aware that many blind people cannot afford the extra cost of its product no matter how valuable the product may be. Much effort is going into finding ways to subsidize and lower the user cost for the product. I would only urge people to wait as we did when the first Kurzweil Reading Machine came on the market in 1979 with a cost of $50,000. Ray Kurzweil always said that his machine’s cost would drop and that the machine would become smaller. Today it is a $99 app available on iPhones and Android devices. Even so, people complain about the $99 price, but anyone who spends much time around the OCR apps available will tell you that any extra cost of the KNFB Reader is worth it.

Other comments about Aira revolve around its “competition” which is either free or much less inexpensive. In fact, there is no comparison. Apps such as “Be My Eyes” and “Tap Tap See”, utilize untrained volunteers who do not give the same information and service offered by Aira. Also, at best these other services may use some video technology available on a smart phone to offer services, but using them is not hands-free, and blind people must wait one or more hours for service and have eventually disconnected without receiving anything. Aira Tech Corp has a goal that every call is answered within ten seconds. If that goal is not being met additional agents are hired and trained. Each agent receives a month of training to ensure their performance.

I think the best way I can show the value of Aira is to discuss how I got here to write this comment to you. I have not used Reddit.com before. I heard about the negative Aira comments and decided to respond. I heard that I would have to sign up and create an account on Reddit. I began the signup process including checking the box that said that I was not a robot. I thought all was going swimmingly, but when I clicked the “signup” button nothing apparently happened. What I eventually did find was a suggestion that I “retry”. I had no explanation for this, so I decided to call Aira for help. An agent, Ian came on the line and looked at my screen. He was the one who told me that even though I checked the box that said that I was not a robot there was still the matter of a TOTALLY graphic captcha to be addressed. There was nothing from Reddit that indicated to me the existence of a captcha. Other sites have the same check box, but after it is checked I can sign in. Talk about stupid, what is Reddit thinking when it makes it impossible for a blind person to sign up for its service? Anyway, the captcha required interacting with Graphics which I could not do. What Ian did was to use his dashboard, at my request, to go to the Reddit site from his computer and create the account for me including entering a password I gave him and responding to the captcha. Of course, I have since changed the password. If Aira had not been around I would have had to wait some unknown amount of time just to get an account established. It is not stupid nor inappropriate for me to wish to interact with my environment in the same time as my sighted peers. Aira is the first product that gives me that flexibility. If there is a cost for that flexibility and freedom, then so be it. Yes, I want the cost to drop, but the freedom I got just from the simple act of signing up on Reddit is tremendous and worth every penny I must pay.

Aira is in its infancy. Many changes and evolutions already have happened, but nothing compares to how Aira will develop over the next year or two. Aira Tech Corp has a large and ever growing cadre of supporters, advisors and experts helping to make the product better and less costly. Stick around and watch the fun.





Best Regards,


Michael Hingson

The Michael Hingson Group, INC.
"Speaking with Vision"
Michael Hingson, President
(415) 827-4084
info@michaelhingson.com
To order Michael Hingson's new book, Running With Roselle, and check on Michael Hingson's speaking availability for your next event please visit:
www.michaelhingson.com

To purchase your own portrait of Roselle painted by the world's foremost animal artist, Ron Burns, please visit http://www.ronburns.com/roselle

All right, where to begin about this product.

0:00 First off, the product looks stupid. If this is what google glass looks like, I don't effing want it. Right off the bat, I don't want it because it looks goofy and draws attention. For me, that might be a slightly hypocritical statement, but it's a freaking pair of glasses with what looks like a giant tongue depresser on one side.

0:04 Second thing I noticed, (and I'm not even ten seconds into the video) is "Hmm, for a product that's designed to help the blind, this video sure doesn't seem to have anyone talking in it to help them know what the heck is going on. Music is okay, I guess."

0:06 I guarantee, your average "Aira" staff will not look like this lady. It's either going to be people in a vast, soul-less cubicle farm, or it's going to be some guy in his underwear at home. And, you know, here would have been a good spot to add a voice, to give us an example of what the staff would be trained to say?

0:11 I'm just imagining her being like, "You dumbass, haha, that's a homeless person. Pee elsewhere!"

0:15 So it'll be giving live video and location stuff. Great. Can't wait for it to accidentally turn on when I scratch my head while sitting on the toilet. I'm sure that won't be awkward. Hey, maybe they'll help you know if you're done wiping! Seriously though, I don't want to give strangers my location if I can avoid it. Also, with GPS having the wiggle-room that it does, I doubt this google maps stuff will be any more useful than the app on my phone, which already speaks out loud.

0:24 I have never seen a cane like the one this guys has. Doesn't look like it folds up. Poor bastard, that seems inconvenient as hell.

0:25 Banner at the bottom says "This could be used for everything from travel to reading street signs and restaurant menus." Uh, as far as travel goes, it might come in handy once in a while but I'm pretty sure there are less expensive options to do the same thing without looking like a cybertool. As for menus, dude, I don't eat at restaurants alone unless I've looked at their menu online ahead of time and know what I want.

0:35 Okay, face recognition. That might be handy if it were always on, but I don't want a device strapped to my face that's always on. So, I'll stick with recognizing people by voice, thanks.

0:37 JESUS EFFING CHRISTMAS that logo splash was LOUD!

Bottom line 0/10 do not want unless it's free and the hardware is ubiquitous enough that I don't look like a maroon.

I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:

- [/r/transcribersofreddit] $1

[](#footer)*^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\($1 ^/ ^$1)*

[](#bot)

I disagree that it's a stupid system personally, but I do think the way that it is implemented (plus the cost based on what I've heard from people so far) is going to leave them short of a real consumer base.

A lot of the features mentioned are things I can already do independently on my phone (plot an alternate route on GPS, scan a restaurant menu, etc) and a lot of it is stuff that good mobility skills and practice will help you with.

Are there times where I absolutely do want and wish I had a sighted person around that was 100% available for me? Yeah. I can see really enjoying it for things like reading a menu that's behind a restaurant counter and hard to scan and impossible to read. I could also see using it for one-time orientation of totally unfamiliar places, especially big indoor places without maps or guides I can consult. Are they frequent or annoying enough that I would pay for an expensive service every month? Probably not.

I haven't tried it, but I know blind people who have tried it and were impressed. Maybe I'd think differently about it with actual use, or packages for "infrequent use" customers become available eventually.