Be My Eyes is an app that connects vision impaired folks with volunteers to give them a brief spot of help.

It might be help with checking the colour of an item, or confirming that a light is on. That kind of thing.

Volunteers can just leave the app on in the background. By default they won’t receive requests during night hours but these hours can be edited to suit their preferences. If a request comes and it’s not a good time to take it, just decline or ignore it and will pass to the next volunteer.

There are about 20 times as many volunteers as there are blind users of the app, so the volunteers only get one request every month or so.

Consider signing up as a volunteer, and if you know any visually impaired folk, suggest this app to them.

dv said:

Be My Eyes is an app that connects vision impaired folks with volunteers to give them a brief spot of help.

It might be help with checking the colour of an item, or confirming that a light is on. That kind of thing.

Volunteers can just leave the app on in the background. By default they won’t receive requests during night hours but these hours can be edited to suit their preferences. If a request comes and it’s not a good time to take it, just decline or ignore it and will pass to the next volunteer.

There are about 20 times as many volunteers as there are blind users of the app, so the volunteers only get one request every month or so.

Consider signing up as a volunteer, and if you know any visually impaired folk, suggest this app to them.

You mean the vision impaired person sends them a snap of the thing to check the colour etc?

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

Be My Eyes is an app that connects vision impaired folks with volunteers to give them a brief spot of help.

It might be help with checking the colour of an item, or confirming that a light is on. That kind of thing.

Volunteers can just leave the app on in the background. By default they won’t receive requests during night hours but these hours can be edited to suit their preferences. If a request comes and it’s not a good time to take it, just decline or ignore it and will pass to the next volunteer.

There are about 20 times as many volunteers as there are blind users of the app, so the volunteers only get one request every month or so.

Consider signing up as a volunteer, and if you know any visually impaired folk, suggest this app to them.

You mean the vision impaired person sends them a snap of the thing to check the colour etc?

It’s a live video feed rather than a snap.

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

Be My Eyes is an app that connects vision impaired folks with volunteers to give them a brief spot of help.

It might be help with checking the colour of an item, or confirming that a light is on. That kind of thing.

Volunteers can just leave the app on in the background. By default they won’t receive requests during night hours but these hours can be edited to suit their preferences. If a request comes and it’s not a good time to take it, just decline or ignore it and will pass to the next volunteer.

There are about 20 times as many volunteers as there are blind users of the app, so the volunteers only get one request every month or so.

Consider signing up as a volunteer, and if you know any visually impaired folk, suggest this app to them.

You mean the vision impaired person sends them a snap of the thing to check the colour etc?

It’s a live video feed rather than a snap.

Ah.

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

Be My Eyes is an app that connects vision impaired folks with volunteers to give them a brief spot of help.

It might be help with checking the colour of an item, or confirming that a light is on. That kind of thing.

Volunteers can just leave the app on in the background. By default they won’t receive requests during night hours but these hours can be edited to suit their preferences. If a request comes and it’s not a good time to take it, just decline or ignore it and will pass to the next volunteer.

There are about 20 times as many volunteers as there are blind users of the app, so the volunteers only get one request every month or so.

Consider signing up as a volunteer, and if you know any visually impaired folk, suggest this app to them.

You mean the vision impaired person sends them a snap of the thing to check the colour etc?

It’s a live video feed rather than a snap.

how does a blind person know where to point their camera???

ChrispenEvan said:

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

You mean the vision impaired person sends them a snap of the thing to check the colour etc?

It’s a live video feed rather than a snap.

how does a blind person know where to point their camera???

They squint really hard.

What about reading labels on cans?

ChrispenEvan said:

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

You mean the vision impaired person sends them a snap of the thing to check the colour etc?

It’s a live video feed rather than a snap.

how does a blind person know where to point their camera???

Smartphones typically have fairly wide fields of view. It isn’t difficult to point one at an object, as long as you know where the object is.

Most “blind” people are not black blind. Most have residual vision. To be classified as blind you have to be unable to read the big letter at the top of the chart (6/60) no matter what glasses or contact lenses are used.

Woodie said:

What about reading labels on cans?

Yes

dv said:

Woodie said:

What about reading labels on cans?

Yes

This sounds like a good plot for a movie, perhaps staring Hugo Weaving and Russel Crowe?

• What about reading labels on cans?

The FAQ says it can’t be used for “adult” content…

furious said:

• What about reading labels on cans?

The FAQ says it can’t be used for “adult” content…

I’m happy to describe it but it’ll cost $4.95/minute.

furious said:

• What about reading labels on cans?

The FAQ says it can’t be used for “adult” content…

Wah…. So I cant ask who’s got the whip?

So often I want help to know the colour of something. And I seem to be gettingf macular degeneration in my right eye.

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

You mean the vision impaired person sends them a snap of the thing to check the colour etc?

It’s a live video feed rather than a snap.

Ah, so then the advice they want is, like, “turn left in 50 metres”.

mollwollfumble said:

So often I want help to know the colour of something. And I seem to be gettingf macular degeneration in my right eye.

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

You mean the vision impaired person sends them a snap of the thing to check the colour etc?

It’s a live video feed rather than a snap.

Ah, so then the advice they want is, like, “turn left in 50 metres”.

Well they could get that from a navigation app.

So what they want is, “Pedestrian. PEDESTRIAN!”

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

So often I want help to know the colour of something. And I seem to be gettingf macular degeneration in my right eye.

dv said:

It’s a live video feed rather than a snap.

Ah, so then the advice they want is, like, “turn left in 50 metres”.

Well they could get that from a navigation app.

So what they want is, “Pedestrian. PEDESTRIAN!”

I went to a lecture about this app about this time last year. It’s mostly used by people in the supermarket needing help picking up the right tin of whatever it is that they want.

probably obsolete in 0 years, when artificial intelligence replaces them volunteers

SCIENCE said:

probably obsolete in 0 years, when artificial intelligence replaces them volunteers

0 seems slightly low

dv said:

SCIENCE said:

probably obsolete in 0 years, when artificial intelligence replaces them volunteers

0 seems slightly low

Perhaps he meant 0⁺