Be My Eyes

Category

Description of App

People who are blind or have low vision now have three powerful tools in one with Be My Eyes.

Worldwide more than half a million people who are blind use the innovative Be My Eyes app through their smartphone to get visual description when they need it. Connect with more than 7 million volunteers. Or use the latest AI image describer. Or connect with dedicated company representatives to help with their products. All in one app.

Connect with Be My Eyes volunteers speaking 185 languages and available – for free – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Our newest feature, ‘Be My AI’, is a pioneering AI assistant integrated in the Be My Eyes app. You can send images via the app to Be My AI, which will answer questions about that image and provide conversational AI generated visual descriptions for a wide variety of tasks in 36 languages. Be My AI is powered by artificial intelligence and is able to provide assistance in a wide variety of situations, from checking makeup before a night out to translating text from hundreds of different languages.

Lastly, our ‘Service Directory’ section allows you to connect directly with a wide range of companies for support with their products and services as well as organizations within the blindness community

FREE. GLOBAL. 24/7.

Be My Eyes Key Features:

• Get assistance on your own terms: call a volunteer, chat with Be My AI or contact a company representative.

• Volunteers and Be My AI available globally 24/7

• Always free of charge

• 185 languages worldwide in 150+ countries

What can Be My Eyes help you with?

• Using home appliances

• Reading product labels

• Matching outfits and identifying clothes

• Helping to read product expiration dates and cooking instructions

• Reading digital displays or computer screens

• Navigating TV or game menus

• Operating vending machines or kiosks

• Sorting music collections or other libraries

• Sorting and dealing with paper mail

What the World is Saying About Be My Eyes:

“It was just amazing that someone from the other side of the world could be in my kitchen and help me with something.” - Julia, Be My Eyes user

“Having access to Be My AI has been like having an AI friend by my side all the time describing things to me, giving me unprecedented access to the visual world and helping me be more independent.” - Roberto, Be My Eyes User

“The tie-up between Be My Eyes and Microsoft is fantastic! I don’t know what I would have done to fix my PC issues without their help. Well done!” - Gordon, Be My Eyes User

Selected Awards:

• Mentioned in the 2023 Time Magazine best inventions

• 2021 Apple Design Award for best Social Impact app

• 2020 Dubai Expo Global Innovator.

• 2018 Winner of the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award at the NFB National Convention.

• 2018 Winner of AbilityNet Accessibility Award at the Tech4Good Awards.

• 2017 Winner of World Summit Awards - Inclusion and Empowerment.

Version

6.0.1

Free or Paid

Free

Apple Watch Support

No

Device(s) App Was Tested On

iPhone

iOS Version

18.1

Accessibility Comments

Very simple to use. Connected to somebody after about 60 seconds, and they were able to answer my question about something in my food larder.

So, essentially, this works as advertised (smiles)

VoiceOver Performance

VoiceOver reads all page elements.

Button Labeling

All buttons are clearly labeled.

Usability

The app is fully accessible with VoiceOver and is easy to navigate and use.

Developer's Twitter Username

@BeMyEyes

Recommendations

34 people have recommended this app

Most recently recommended by Matt M 1 month 2 weeks ago

Options

Comments

By Brad on Sunday, December 31, 2023 - 06:18

I thought I'd bring this topic back because I love be my AI, I tried it here and there and wasn't that impressed but now, it's awesome!

I'm able to share images from reddit using dystopia with it and it described them amazingly.

I was able to "see" a picture of an artests rendition of Ellie from the last of us, ask questions about it and really delve deep into the image.

I really do think this is going to be truly amazing in the future when/if a live feed ever happens.

By Ekaj on Sunday, December 31, 2023 - 06:18

Totally agreed. My brother has extracted descriptions of various things and replied to family texts with said descriptions, and the reception has been wonderful. In addition, I have demonstrated Be My Eyes and similar apps to some building mates. One of them heard of this app even before I told her about it. So it seems we're getting noticed a bit in the mainstream media, and I for one think that's a good thing. The camera(s) on my current phone impress me, and I can't wait for the future when I'll hopefully have a new phone. But I guess that's up to Santa and his elves.

By Troy on Sunday, December 31, 2023 - 06:18

I have found that be my AI will read prescription bottles but I'm noticing I have to take several pictures, perhaps it's because of the round bottle.

By ming on Sunday, December 31, 2023 - 06:18

for those of the Chinese users here.
in the latest update
wit the be my AI
when we share a picture on whatsapp and describe with be my eyes.
it can not translate the result to chinese.
it said:
"I can not readi it in chinese.. do you need me to describe it in english....?"
in the previous version ... it can be done perfectly.

By Panais on Sunday, December 31, 2023 - 06:18

Both from within the app itself and also from your settings. I mean the application settings on your device.

By Andy Lane on Sunday, December 31, 2023 - 06:18

I have confirmed with Be My Eyes support that there have been no changes that should affect Be My Ai’s ability to work in Chinese. If you are still having problems after trying Panais’s suggestion to check the language settings please reach out to support at [email protected] for further trouble shooting steps.

By blindpk on Sunday, December 31, 2023 - 06:18

I also have a somewhat similar possible bug regarding languages. If the app is set to one language, e.g. English, but iOS to another, then AI descriptions from within the app will be in English, but if I share an image from e.g. Safari it will always be in the iOS language. It might be a limitation in iOS, but I have reported it to Be My Eyes anyway.
I want the descriptions in English because they seem more accurate, so I hope this can be adressed. I can switch the iOS language to English of course, but that is a cumbersome thing to do every time.

By Bingo Little on Sunday, December 31, 2023 - 06:18

so, what are the ways to work aroudn the fact that you can't share photos from facebook? I tried the screenshot way and that works but someonne said the facebook issue could be worked around in a number of ways so I was interested in what those other ways are. Be MY AI is stunning, I have to say.

By Brad on Sunday, December 31, 2023 - 06:18

I had a tweet from Neal Drukman about the last of us 2; the tweet had a lot of swear words in it and be my AI refused to let me know what it said.

I was able to download it and read the text using the scan text mode for pictures, an awesome mode by the way, but we should have complete control over what we are able to read.

I think it might be a GPT thing.

By Winter Roses on Sunday, March 31, 2024 - 06:18

Can the app generate photos based on text prompts?

By Mlth on Sunday, March 31, 2024 - 06:18

Only the opposite, I believe (IE receive a photo as input). For image generation you might want to look at Microsoft CoPilot (which uses Dall-E for picture generation) or other generation apps that can do it locally on your iPhone, like "Draw Things" that uses Stable Diffusion.

By Michael on Sunday, March 31, 2024 - 06:18

Does anyone know whether Be my eyes are working on implementing google Gemini? I am finding that there are certain photos where it does a better job than chat gpt 4.

By SSWFTW on Tuesday, December 31, 2024 - 06:18

I was very excited to see that chat GPT now has the feature on paid accounts where you can have a chat live using the video camera. I love Google's version as well. So my simple question is will we get something like this on be my eyes? I remember Mike talking about it months and months ago. Now that it's actually here I'm wondering has anyone heard any updates timelines Perhaps?

By SSWFTW on Tuesday, December 31, 2024 - 06:18

That is exciting. Let's cross our fingers for some cool announcements. Can't believe they've been around for that long.

By Diego Garibay on Friday, January 24, 2025 - 06:18

This only happens when I am using the share sheet, when I click the option, ask Be My Eyes. It literally doesn’t do it. I would often use it to inspect screenshots and I can’t anymore.

By Brian on Friday, January 24, 2025 - 06:18

Has there been an update, or are you using beta software, by chance? I asked because my share sheet is labeled as, "describe with Be My Eyes".

By Brad on Friday, January 24, 2025 - 06:18

At least the last time I used it it did, that was about 2 or so weeks ago.

By Brian on Friday, January 24, 2025 - 06:18

I use the Be My AI tab almost daily. This includes the share sheet, of course.

By Diego Garibay on Friday, January 24, 2025 - 06:18

This problem started after that update, which happened today. I have already reported it, I seem to be The, or at least one of the users that got affected. The AI prompt only comes up for less than one second, I only know that because I hear the cancel button, then it goes away. I don’t think it even sends the picture out.

By Brian on Friday, January 24, 2025 - 06:18

To be clear, you are trying to share an image with Be My Eyes, and so you go to the share menu, and navigate over to describe with Be My Eyes, or in your case I think you said it was called ask Be My Eyes, do I have that right? After which the app hangs?
Do I have that right? Just trying to understand here. :-)

By Tara on Friday, January 24, 2025 - 06:18

Hi,
It's part of the new update. It wasn't doing this a few hours ago, but I've just updated, and now the app just closes every time I share a picture via the share sheet. I've just reported this to them.

By Brian on Friday, January 24, 2025 - 06:18

After some investigating, I have realized that I am still on version 6.0.12. Since I have my App Store set up for manual updates only, I think I have dodged a bullet here ...

By Kushal Solanki on Friday, January 24, 2025 - 06:18

Hi.
Yes I am experienceing the same issue with the latest update of Be my eyes.
Hopefully it gets fixed soon.

By Tarja on Friday, January 24, 2025 - 06:18

Yes, the bug is fixed in the latest update.

By Tayo on Friday, January 24, 2025 - 06:18

has the windows version of Be My eyes on Windows gotten any updates recently? I haven't seen any.

By Brian on Friday, January 24, 2025 - 06:18

BME was modified on the 18th of this month. Not sure what has changed though. Possibly just under the hood stuff. 🤷

By Laszlo on Monday, February 17, 2025 - 06:18

Around last November / December I heard about BME 6.1.0 (being in beta at that time) and that it would introduce a lot of useful Siri shortcuts e.g. for image descriptions, which I badly wanted.
On Tuesday BME 6.1.0 appeared on my update list in appstore. I waited two days and checked regularly whether anybody would write about any critical bugs/ breakages here, but as nobody did, this morning I went ahead and did the update.
Everything seems fine, except one major area: Siri shortcuts. The "Siri shortcuts" item is gone from the Settings tab. I checked in the Shortcuts app what shortcuts were available for BME, and I found only two. The first is "call MVGYOSZ Távszem" (that is a Hungary-specific assistance option integrated into BME since last October) and the second is "call a specific helping organisation" (I suppose that the organisation name could be set as command parameter). Not even "call a volunteer" as before! "describe image with Be My Eyes" and others announced beforehand are nowhere.
I modified my shortcut for calling that MVGYOSZ Távszem assistance with this new specific command (earlier it was "call an organisation" with MVGYOSZ Távszem as parameter, but it didn't work). But when I added it in, the Shortcut app displayed it as "unknown command", however it added it anyway.
This all suggests to me that something is very much out of order with Siri shortcuts now. I set BME to English in the BME section of the main iOS Settings app (I usually use it in my native tongue, Hungarian), but it didn't change a thing regarding shortcuts. Otherwise all my BME settings and permissions are correct. BME displays that it is version 6.1.0 126.
Readers, please check what the situation is with shortcuts on your device! Are there anynew shortcuts for you and are they working all right? I highly doubt this issue is just for me, but I am nevertheless curious.

By IPhoneski on Monday, February 17, 2025 - 06:18

“For me, these shortcuts work correctly. I can choose a traditional, short, or detailed description. However, this does not change the fact that the descriptions generated by BME are significantly worse than those created by GPT, for example, when using an API key.”

By Laszlo on Monday, February 17, 2025 - 06:18

Hmmm, interesting.
Does BME also display "version 6.1.0 126" for you in support under the settings tab?
Were you in the beta program for BME 6.1.0? I am asking because some here were, and that may change things.
Do you have a "Siri shortcuts" option under the settings tab?
Do you see the new shortcuts under the Shortcuts app? To check this please enter the command centre portion of the app where you can select commands for a shortcut and search for "be my eyes" with the search field.
Thanks much in advance!

By Laszlo on Monday, February 17, 2025 - 06:18

I haven't seen any official list of the new BME shortcuts yet, but nevertheless tried "describe quickly with Be My Eyes", because it was mentioned in the blog entry of the 2025 winter version (link posted above). Siri responded with "Okay, I show you what I have found for describe quickly withBe My Eyes on the web" and displayed a search result list. Not exactly what I wanted. When I said "Hey Siri describe image with Be My Eyes" (probably not exactly among the official shortcuts), it didn't reject it, but opened the Photos app instead.

By IPhoneski on Monday, February 17, 2025 - 06:18

“Yes, I have exactly this version. I haven’t participated in the beta program before—I only updated the app, and the shortcuts appeared. I can find them both in the app menu and in Apple Shortcuts.”