I first saw EchoVision by Agiga at Vista Center Ignite Accessibility Entrepreneur Pitch Competition last month. It was hard for the AGI to hear me and for me to hear the descriptions and Be My Eyes in the noisy exhibit hall. Based on my interview with Blind Abilities, Huasongcm, CTO at Agiga reached out to Jeff and wanted to chat, where Jeff from Blind Abilities asked if I would like to be on it, where I agreed, but wanted to first examine it better at my roofttop farm that is quieter and allowed me more time with the glasses.
I was even more impressed than I was initially, as the scene descriptions via voice and Be My Eyes volunteer were great, but:
User Experience
- Agiga added follow-up to EchoVision, so it's possible to get more specific context/details about a scene, which was a feature request I had last month and and it's live in the prototype.
- Tap with one-finger on right-side towards front of glasses to get a scene description without asking, which is what i wish Meta Ray-Bans would do. There is a good amount of context/details to scene descriptions, which is made for blind people.
- It's responsive, latency is low, voice is somewhat natural human sounding, and speech rate can be increased. I tested the speech rate at 1.5x.
- I was able to call Be My Eyes and AIRA, where I got human description of a card no deets and scene.
- Holding down with 2-fingers on right side will cancel Be My Eyes or hang-up and return to main menu, where I heard I could use Google Lookout by saying: "Hello Agiga, Lookout", which goes into explore mode reading text and identifying objects real-time. It was able to identify different objects, including stairs, plant, read text on credit/debit card, and lottery ticket.
- I tried to have Lookout identify US currency, but it wanted to read the text on the bill instead. No worries though, a quick tap on the right-side did a quick scene description, where it described I was holding a $20.
- The form factor are wrap-around sun glasses, which blocks sun for those of us with peripheral eye-sight and light sensitivity, and is more secure as it partially wraps around the back of my head and doesn't slide down my nose like Meta Ray-Bans.
- I feel it has the features and functionality of Envision AI Glasses, but even better form factor than Meta Ray-Bans. I look forward to pre-ordering on October 11!
Feature Request
- I was trying to have it describe people, but it said it couldn't describe faces, but when Huasongc tested it at home with his wife, it could. Huasongc thought Be My Ai could, so we tried it and it can, so they'll work on people descriptions.
- I also tried something no AI could do, which was ask about next bus/train departures via Transit. Agiga is going to see if TransitApp has an API.
Comments
Hopefully they will be worth it.
I genuinely didn’t like the Meta glasses at all. They just didn’t fit well. And I wasn’t getting any worthwhile description from them. Similarly be my eyes just wasn’t working well. One factor to consider is that we are transferring a lot of video through Bluetooth. And of course it’s gonna be very pixelated. I am hoping that Bluetooth 6.0 fixes that going forward. Until then, I will look forward to the echo vision glasses and there will hopefully be some positive things to report.
Looking forward to your review
If anyone is capable of giving a thorough and detailed critical review of a product, I believe it is you. Hope you don't take that as an insult, as it was not meant to be one.
Thank you I will try
I appreciate the compliment. I’m genuinely looking forward to this. It’s either gonna be amazing or it’s going to be a disaster. I’m leaning on amazing.
updated video
so apparently these are gonna be released in August. And, there’s a new video showing some people using the glasses. Some of it’s great. However, they would actually have a person ask questions of the glasses and then not show the glasses performing. i’m not sure why they did that. Still looking forward to these glasses and hoping that they can build up a little bit more momentum upon release. I know they’re a little pricey, but they seem to be worth it. As I’ve said, these will be great for me Until either Apple or Google sunglass come out. One thing I will note is that the glasses voice sound more natural then in the past. And when they are shown actually working, the description is very very detailed.
https://youtu.be/hsn8HxOKImY?si=j6olzQjquhSF4Wdw
Apparently not shipping until November now
I follow these on their FaceBook group. There is a guy there who runs the Above The Fold podcast. The episode planned for today was cancelled, because the developer identified an issue with the glasses' microphone. They sent a statement that said that shipping would be delayed.
They didn't post that statement on their own FB group, and frankly, the communications on these has been quite bad throughout.
Between this, and their refusal to ship outside the US, I have made the decision, and have preoodered the Envision Solos glasses to try.
I hope these succeed, but I don't like what I'm seeing so far regarding communication and how that will translate to customer service. ,
That’s too bad
That’s too bad. Thoth these would be out by September. Unfortunately running out of patience with all of these companies. I don’t mine delays. But no communicating directly with people might be a deal breaker for me.
Hopefully sooner, rather than later
I am dying for some real world feedback on these.
Yes, I enjoy my Meta's. Quite a bit as of some of the more recent updates, but these sound fascinating. 🙂
Phone calls and music?
Hi all,
Does anyone know if these glasses will allow you to make phone calls and listen to music? I have been using my Ray Ban Metas for over a year now, and now i am finding them to be a little bit of a hassle to use. Name for ocr and getting good descriptions of things. I am eager to get out of the Meta ecosystem system. I am not pleased with Many of metas business practices and political leanings. I was always uncomfortable with the idea of having to have a social media account to use these glasses. I cancelled my facebook account a long time ago, and I plan on deleting the Instagram account I had to make to use these glasses. The Metas are cool and they are a good device , they are now more of a novelty item for me as opposed to a tool that I can rely on exclusively.
Is anyone else in the same situation or similar?
Phone Calls, Music, OCR, and detailed scene description
* Yes, EchoVision can work as a bluetooth headsets with ones smartphone for phone calls and music.
* Book reading does OCR to read what is actually seen with camera.
* Detailed scene description with discrete button press without having to talk to AI Smart glasses.
delays and failures
The issue with such companies basically is that they're focussing on too many things at one go, kind of biting off more than what they can chew: developing an interface/software/operating system/whatever that's blind-specific? doable and sensible. developing hardware specific to that (by a small company/team)? Well, is never a hundred percent success. and making it at a low cost? well, a very, very hard sell. That's probably what happened to celest, and that's what is happening here. And that's kind of where I trust the Envision model, kind of: they're collaborating with a company that's already been in the smart-glasses industry for quite sometime, and is been a direct competitor to the metas and the like. That way, the bigger problem of the hardware including the cost, is taken care of. Now, if they can provide a quality experience that's feature-rich, I believe it could work.
Envision seems to be tricking everybody
Envision seems to be tricking everybody. They’re not really giving us usable glasses. They are essentially giving us very basic glasses and most of the work is gonna be done on the app on your phone. They’re gonna be massive delays between phone and glasses because of the version of Bluetooth they’re using. They’re not even showing it an actual real life use case scenarios. What’s more disturbing? Is that when you reach out to cancel the order, they won’t even confirm it. I’ll put my faith in agiga based on the ways that they have maintained communication with everyone. They’ve been transparent throughout the entire process. They’ve maintained a higher level of integrity by delaying the glasses due to a speaker/microphone issue that they are resolving. They’ve shown these glasses in real world use scenarios. They’ve given us an alternative to Bluetooth that admittedly might affect my phone‘s battery a little, but will definitely work much better. I want them to succeed. And I’ve gotten to the point where I am completely willing to take a chance on them. I don’t think this is a matter of anything other than taking a chance. Although there have been hiccups, I like the idea of the company growing and us growing with them. Another thing that echo vision is doing is that they are giving us the opportunity to get the glasses in the tint that we want. Or at least close to it. That’s way better than envision telling us to go and do it ourselves.
It figures
Envision seems to be working with the same principle as Tim Cook, that is to say, do whatever it takes for the bottom line. So if that means building a wearable camera that connects via Bluetooth and calling it—"smart"—then so be it.
As for the EchoVision, I am definitely looking forward to hearing some real world use cases.