Hello there.
I am a totally blind user of assistive technology, and to that end I've always been frustrated with how expensive it is.
A friend and I are starting a business to develop some more affordable options. We are starting with a talking colour detector, priced at about $75 rather than the $175 maxiaids desires.
He is an engineer and hardware designer, and he's told me the sky's the limit on ideas. I have ideas of my own but i'm not going to put them here, to encourage thinking.
So I'd like to know, what would you like to see in a colour detector? A few questions to get you started:
1. would you like it to only tell you basic colours, or would you like it to go into shades and such?
2. Battery powered vs. rechargeable?
3. any features that you wish the current ones had?
Again, this is a hardware device, since the iPhone apps don't end to be super accurate.
thanks in advance!
By techluver, 21 November, 2025
Forum
Assistive Technology
Comments
Ideal Colour Identifier
The best one that I've seen so far is the Color Star. It identifies colours using artistic and universal language, has a feature to indicate if two colours you check for are the same or different, can indicate light and identify the colour of LEDs, and is rechargeable. There are a few more features but those are the ones I use most. I like it a lot but it is very expensive and while accurate for clothing, it can struggle with other materials and subtle colour differences. I build Lego kits and some pieces are the same except have a very subtle shade difference that the Color Star and other AI apps fail to detect.
Is this needed still?
I suppose I can see a very limited use for something like this for older people who don't have phones. But asking on this forum in particular, where almost every user has an iPhone and therefore access to Seeing AI, which is free and has a color detector, seems like not the best place to get input. Maybe someone here will have some advice, but it's hard to compete with the many free apps on smartphones that are already here and have been for years.