ST. GEORGE, Utah — Crossing the street can be a daunting task for anyone, but for those living with vision loss, it's an even greater challenge. Just ask Tyson Lovell, a recent Utah Tech graduate who is legally blind.
"I crossed the intersection and tripped and dropped my cane," Lovell recounted. "James happened to be driving by and saw me just get up and keep walking, so he stopped me at the next parking lot."
James is James Broomfield, the president of a local nonprofit that has been developing a special cane equipped with audible navigation through a phone app.
"We would hire Tyson to come in, navigate the entire building, make sure that he can get to every location without any failures," Broomfield explained. "He's very honest with what the system needs to do."
Lovell's feedback has been instrumental in refining the Hearsee cane, which uses RFID tags placed throughout buildings to provide turn-by-turn directions and detailed location descriptions.
"The blind community is one of the best communities of individuals that I've worked with," Broomfield said. "They're not looking for a handout at all. They want to be a part of the solution and they've done a great job of providing the information of what we need to do to make that solution."
For Lovell, this technology is a game-changer that he wishes had existed when he was growing up.
"So the antenna that's in the body of the cane currently, it interacts with the radio frequencies it gets from tag markers they place around inside of a building," Lovell explained. "And with an app that has got the map programmed into it, the cane itself will transmit that information to the app, like where the cane is in relation to the tag itself."
The cane even provides detailed descriptions of the surroundings.
"Like, I'm standing next to a piano," Lovell explained. "It could give you the description of what the piano looks like or the history of it, whatever they decide to put on that descriptor."
The work Lovell is doing now in the halls of Utah Arts Academy with the prototype is leading to the development of an improved Gen 2 Hearsee cane that is expected to reach the market later in the year.
