Welcome to the fiftieth episode of Access On, the National Federation of the Blind's Technology podcast.
Episode
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Timestamps
In this week's episode
- Welcome from Colorado 0:00
- More accessible audio recorders from Zoom 2:42
- We have reached episode 50 7:08
- Introduction to indoor way finding 8:45
- GoodMaps 24:33
- RightHear 34:51
- NaviLens 40:07
- WayMap 51:52
- Closing and contact info 1:00:44
Transcript
Speaker 1:
Live the life you want. Access On.
Jonathan:
Welcome to Access On, the technology podcast of the National Federation of the Blind. This week as we produce this podcast remotely, we talk about some new recording solutions from Zoom. And already we've reached our half century.
Our Access On podcast reaches episode 50. Finding your way indoors, we bring you highlights of our indoor wayfinding webinar. We bring you demonstrations and evaluations of GoodMaps, RightHear, Waymap and NaviLens.
It's Jonathan Mohsen, not at the Jernigan Institute. This week I'm coming to you from the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado's State Convention. I've had a wonderful time in Colorado. I started off by spending some time at the Colorado Center for the Blind, which offers legendary transformational programs. Met the students there as well as Julie and her team, and I want to thank them for being so welcoming.
It was really special to visit the center that I've read so much about in the Braille Monitor over many, many years of reading the National Federation of the Blind's flagship publication.
And here I am at the state convention and since this is a technology podcast, I should say that there's been plenty of interesting discussion about technology at the NFB of Colorado's state convention and some seminars too.
There were a bunch of seminars on artistic creativity and that included some hands-on with audio production, and Chris Peterson and I did a series of seminars people could attend on getting started with podcasting.
Chris Peterson, of course, is the chief executive officer of Penny Forward. He does the Penny Forward podcast and he's been involved in podcasting in various capacities over the years, so we had a good time, sharing our experiences with the audience and also answering some questions.
Concurrently there were workshops you could attend and we held them three times so people could switch and attend the three workshops they wanted to attend. Brett Boyer from the Colorado Center for the Blind and also here of course is the president of the National Federation of the Blind's Tech Trainers Division.
Also did some great stuff on artificial intelligence, how to make it work for you, how to do prompt engineering, so there was plenty going on on the technology front and there was also some discussion about technology of course at the general sessions.
So it's been a great time and I really want to thank everybody for their hospitality and it was nice to meet some Access On listeners and get some feedback from listeners about what they like to see in these podcasts.
And for those who are wondering what I'm recording with as I am here in my hotel room at the NFB of Colorado State Convention, I'm pleased to tell you this because I just bought it myself. I've purchased a Zoom H6studio.
And I was showing this to Chris Peterson and he said, "What does this one do that my Zoom H6essential doesn't do?" And it's a fair question, so I thought I'd talk about this because it is a fairly new device. The Zoom H6studio, as the name implies, is a professional grade recorder and it does have some advantages over previous models.
One is that it has physical controls for all the inputs, which as a blind person I really appreciate. Rather than having to go into the mixer utility and choose the channel you want to adjust and then adjust it, you can just do it on the fly with the knobs on the top of the recorder and that is a very sweet thing. It makes mixing things much easier.
Second, it is using the preamps that are found in the professional F-series Zoom recorders. So if you are dealing with very quiet sounds in a 32 bit float recording, you will get less hiss. These are professional grade preamps.
The third thing is that the microphone that is built into the Zoom H6studio or at least attachable and detachable from it is exceptional. It's got very good sound. I'm not using it now. I'm using a Sennheiser very directional microphone, but the microphone in the Zoom H6studio is excellent.
There are also a few other little features in there. There is a 3.5 millimeter input jack should you need that. It is using the Zoom capsule system so you can detach this microphone and if you want to do recording that's very directional, you can attach an optional shotgun microphone accessory. I do have that for these Zoom recorders. You can also attach two more XLR combo inputs in place of the built-in microphone if you wish to do that.
I do appreciate the fact that you can with this recorder disable the production of a stereo mix, which is something that I never use because I always bring each track that I record into Reaper and it was just taking up space. So I've switched that off to consume less space. And if space is an issue for you, you can also take this down to 24 bit recording rather than 32 bit float.
But I do have a one terabyte SD card in this device, and when you power it up, it does tell you how much time is remaining and all of the inputs status. You can cut that message off at any time, but it is very good to just switch the recorder on and hear all of that information.
Right now I'm using the recorder as an audio interface. It's a multi-track audio interface in this particular mode and it is going in into Reaper. I have no cause to use it at this particular moment, but there is, like in some of the other Zoom recorders, a loopback feature when the recorder is performing as an audio interface and you can record and use it as an audio interface at the same time if you wish to do that. It's an excellent recorder and I'm very happy with the purchase.
I should also say for those interested in these Zoom accessible recorders that if you're interested in podcasting, Zoom has announced the next generation of its very popular P4 recorder.
The PodTrack P4 is what it's called, and you may remember that in previous podcasts I've hosted, we featured this a lot because it's its own little portable podcast studio. It does a lot and this new one is called the P4 Next, it will be available very shortly and the great news is that it has the accessibility features built into this product.
So you can take this on the road, you can record podcasts, you can bring guests in from Zoom or Teams or Cleanfeed or anything really via your iPhone or your PC. It's got the mix minus. It really is a very attractive proposition for podcast recording and also for livestreaming with a small mixer. So it could be great if you are a state president of the National Federation of the Blind.
I got to tell you, this could be a great little device for livestreaming events. We will be purchasing a Zoom PodTrack P4 next for the International Braille and Technology Center because we do think it has a lot of potential in the podcast space. It is specifically designed for podcast recording and we will give you a review of that at some point soon here on Access On.
I should also mark the facts that this is episode 50 of Access On. It's amazing to me that we have reached 50 episodes of the podcast, and I want to thank everybody who has appeared on the podcast, who has listened and also contributed with your emails and your audio messages.
I think this grassroots feedback that we get on Access On is one thing that makes it very special and we're delighted to be able to share with you all of the work that the National Federation of the Blind's Center of Excellence and Non-Visual Accessibility is doing and we have some really exciting plans for the next 50 episodes.
You will be hearing some great evaluations and reviews and all sorts of topical things, so we hope that you will stay with us. We are going to take a quick break about something very exciting and then we'll come back for our main feature on Access On episode 50.
Speaker 3:
Lace Up and join us for a 10K walk or run across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge on November 9th, 2025. This is your chance to forge connections with your community, empower others to get active and support education, independence and opportunities for blind people. If you cannot attend in person, you can still participate virtually. Our chapters, divisions and affiliates can even complete the challenge as a White Cane Awareness Day activity during Blind Equality Achievement Month. Register at nfb.org/movers.
Jonathan:
It's Access On from the National Federation of the Blind, and our main feature today is a webinar that we produced a few months ago now on indoor wayfinding technology, a very interesting subject. Technology moves quickly, so there are a few things that have changed. One thing I can tell you about is that when we produced this webinar, GoodMaps did not have an explore mode.
GoodMaps, which you'll hear a demonstration of was at that stage a purely route-based solution. You entered where you wanted to go and it guided you there very effectively, but you couldn't just explore. That has changed since this webinar was produced and now there is an explore mode so you can walk around and find out what you are passing, which people do appreciate.
We would also be interested to find out how people are finding experiencing the Waymap technology, which as you will hear from this webinar, we didn't have a lot of success with at the particular metro station that we went to. Obviously we evaluate these things and we call it as we see it, but there may have been some improvements since then or maybe at different stations it works better.
So if you are in the Washington, D.C. area or maybe somewhere else where Waymap is implemented, do let us know how you are getting on with that and whether you're finding it an effective solution. You can always email us, [email protected] with an audio attachment or just write the email down. Karl Belanger starts us off with this look at indoor wayfinding.
Karl:
Indoor navigation is the term used to refer to basically any technology or tool that provides wayfinding directions, orientation and the like inside a building. GPS for inside is kind of another way you might think of it. GPS unfortunately doesn't work indoors. I'll get into more of that in a minute.
So we need to use other technologies to map the indoor space and provide some way for the user to know where they are and get directions between points. These are things like Bluetooth beacons, Wi-Fi signals, use of different sensors on your phones and various other technologies, some of which are a little beyond the scope of what we'll discuss today.
These technologies are mostly used in larger spaces, think malls, hospitals, airports, large office buildings, even stadiums, things like that. Unfortunately, indoor navigation is not exactly widely adopted and this is for a number of reasons including multiple different technologies, no consistent apps, infrastructure costs and all that. Why not just use GPS indoors?
Well, the way GPS works briefly is it has satellites orbiting the earth that send signals back to your smartphone or other GPS device. Think something like the Startrac or a GPS device in a car. And it uses those signals to identify your current position and then plots them on maps to track your route as you travel.
Unfortunately, these signals while they work outdoors well, don't really penetrate structures or large objects. This can cause errors and drift. You may have even noticed this if you're in a city with a lot of taller buildings or closely packed buildings. You may have noticed GPS degrading and not working quite as well.
Indoors, this is even worse, so if you've ever been in a large building or underground in a train station and attempted to use your GPS, your phone just doesn't know where you are, either has huge accuracy, hundreds of feet variance or just simply says there's no GPS available. And that is why we have to come up with these other technologies to use indoor navigation.
And even if GPS was detectable indoors, most of the time the accuracy of GPS is something like 15 to 30 feet. This is fine for outdoors when you're talking about sidewalks and longer streets that can run for hundreds or thousands of feet or even potentially miles for something like a highway. Indoors where you might have three or four doors within feet of each other, an accuracy of 15 to 30 feet that GPS often provides just isn't going to cut it.
Now let's get into some of these technologies. The first one is Bluetooth beacons, which Apple has explored the use of other companies. I believe there's a company Blind Square that was doing some indoor navigation involving beacons back in the day. These are small little boxes less than the size of your hand that can be mounted on a wall or above a door, and they'll send out just an ID signal, something that tells it what they are.
So the way a phone would work is it would pick up the signals from these beacons and use the signal from multiple beacons to triangulate and know where you are and based on the beacon IDs correlated to the map in the software, know where you are in the building, where you need to go and direct you where you need to go, et cetera.
However, there are some problems, especially back in the day, beacons didn't have the best battery life, so frequent maintenance and battery replacements would need to happen. Nowadays, beacons can last longer on the order of multiple years, but that's still significant investment and maintenance cost as you go through and change the batteries on all these beacons.
And furthermore, they need to be mounted fairly close together depending on the exact technology and the purpose, sometimes as little as like 30 or 40 feet apart. So if you're talking about something like a sprawling shopping mall that could equate to hundreds or thousands of beacons. And if they're only a few dollars a pop, when you factor in mounting maintenance, replacing batteries every couple of years, the cost does add up and so there's the infrastructure cost in that.
Not to mention the possibility of just some of the beacons failing early or potential vandalism or all the other stuff that comes with being out in public spaces. Also, the accuracy is not always the best. A lot of these technologies, as we'll get into, can be affected by other people, metal structures, building geometry, all that type of stuff, which can degrade their accuracy as well.
Next kind of broad picture is Wi-Fi. A couple methods have been developed to use Wi-Fi to detect where you are. First is something called Wi-Fi fingerprinting that essentially just knows by which access points you're near and the signal strength to that access point roughly where you are. Again, this can have accuracy issues.
There are some more advanced methods that involve measuring the time it takes for signals to travel between your phone and the Wi-Fi point and some directionality that can work with newer versions of Wi-Fi and newer Wi-Fi access points. But again, where these don't require a lot of extra installation, they do require very precise mapping.
If a Wi-Fi access point is replaced, if the Wi-Fi settings are changed significantly or a signal strength is changed, those may require remapping of the building and have to just keep things updated. As with Bluetooth, it's a radio signal, it can get blocked by stuff. So again, large metal structures, large crowds, building geometry can all combine to decrease the accuracy and quality of these signals as well.
Next up, another technology piece is that some navigation apps will use your phone's camera. Now, these can use your camera in one of two ways and we'll be showing you both later, which we'll be discussing in a bit. They can either reference and cross-reference the visual field of the camera with high precision maps generally taken by LiDAR to provide detail of the surroundings or they can be used with mounted codes like QR codes but viewable at a much larger range to provide for orientation.
The visual mapping one is done generally, like I was saying, with a LiDAR map of the building that's highly detailed and goes into different rooms, and then the camera will pick up the visual feed which will be then matched to the map and the software will then be able to track the user's location. And as you walk around, the camera will follow what you're doing and it will be able to track your location on the map. This does introduce a couple of concerns that can exist.
One is that when you're starting out, in order to get a good starting point, it may need the user to walk around, move the camera around and try to pick up enough visually distinct objects to determine where you're starting from.
Can also cause a problem though because if you're in, say, a long corridor with not much in the way of visual features or a wide open room, again without much in the way of visual stuff, it could have trouble determining your starting location or potentially lose tracking because it's trying to find which part of the building you're in and it can't distinguish well enough.
The other type is more for orientation than full wayfinding, but this would be using the camera to scan codes. These codes would be mounted over doors at key intersections, on elevators or escalators at the start of train platforms, or any other distinct important feature in the building that you may need to know about or get information from, in conjunction a lot of times with signage or other posters and can be used as more of an orientation method with some basic wayfinding.
The final piece of technology that these use is they can work with your phone sensors, things like your compass, your inertial sensors that count your steps, things like that, and we'll be discussing an app that uses this as well. These will track your movements and based on a known starting location and a software map can be used to track your movements around an indoor space and give you wayfinding directions.
Again, it doesn't require any direct infrastructure installations other than the detailed map, but these types of technologies, inertial technologies and things can gradually build up drift. So the data gets less and less accurate as you go along, which without some other methods such as Wi-Fi or beacons or something can cause gradual drift and your position will get less and less and less accurate, especially over longer routes.
Why isn't indoor navigation more available? Why aren't we seeing this in every shopping mall, every hospital, et cetera? One of the big reasons is just the fragmented technology. I just discussed several different versions and pieces of technology that are available that have their own benefits and drawbacks, that can potentially work together if a company is able to utilize multiples of them.
But no technology has really distinguished itself as the compelling indoor navigation technology which leads to fragmentation, different companies working with different things, different combinations of things, and so that's one issue. Another one is the mapping and infrastructure costs, especially for larger businesses like hospitals or large malls or stadiums, mapping hundreds of beacons or having someone come through and do a detailed scan of the indoor space isn't cheap.
And then on top of that, the need for either infrastructure or maintenance for battery replacement or other modifications or the need to remap when significant pieces are moved around or if there's app renovations or things like that, just add to that cost. And building owners, they have rent or mortgages, they have taxes, utilities, other ongoing costs, so unless there's a clear return on investment or secondary uses for this technology, it's a hard sell for a lot of building owners.
Another reason is that there's no clear kind of common front-runner app. For outdoor GPS the satellites are there and you have Google Maps, you have Waze, you have Apple Maps, you have other different apps out there. But all of them, you open it up, you run it, it picks up on the GPS, it picks up on the map and you go about doing your thing. That does not exist for indoor navigation.
There's the potential to have a separate app, so if you're running errands, you need one app for the grocery store, the next app for your transit station, another app when you go to your doctor's office in the hospital, that is a headache and frustrating for users who might not be inclined to have that many apps on their phone.
And it also makes things less appealing for building owners because now they either have to design their own app or figure out which of the apps they're going to put their GPS service into and hope their customers are using that app rather than just having the technology and then just a common app that users can work with.
All right, lastly I'll just run through and then we'll get into some of the demos of the apps we're going to cover. GoodMaps is a camera based navigation app that provides turn by turn directions using your phone's camera and the building map to determine the route and provide it. Right here is a primarily orientation based app that uses beacons at key intersections to describe what's around them and where you are in the building and give you information.
NaviLens uses mounted codes that are somewhat similar to QR codes to provide, as I was mentioning, at key points around the building to provide orientation information where you are and provide some basic wayfinding. Waymap is another company that uses the step-based, what might be called inertial navigation, to allow you to navigate through a building even if your phone doesn't have an active Wi-Fi connection, as long as you have the app open in it has downloaded the venue's information so that you can navigate through the building. We will move on to a brief discussion and demo of GoodMaps. And I believe Jonathan, you are up on this one.
Jonathan:
Thanks, Karl. GoodMaps is an indoor navigation system designed for blind people specifically and it provides accurate real-time guidance within complex environments like airports, shopping malls, libraries and educational institutions, and more. Traditionally GPS systems are effective outdoors, as Karl has mentioned, but they often fall short once you get indoors because of those signal limitations.
GoodMaps addresses that challenge by using a combination of LiDAR. If you've not heard of that, some of you may have that in your iPhone Pros, but it stands for Light Detection and Ranging Imaging and camera-based positioning technology. To set it up in an indoor environment, first, the GoodMaps team conducts a thorough scan of the indoor space using LiDAR and high resolution cameras, and that process catches 3D data of the environment, creating a comprehensive digital map of the venue.
They then process the collected data to develop accurate up-to-date digital floor plans. And those maps include essential details like room layout, points of interest and navigational pathways.
If you visit a place that is mapped with GoodMaps, you can access the GoodMaps app on your smartphone. You hold the phone vertically with the camera facing forward and the app will attempt to identify your precise location within the building.
Once the app establishes your position, it will provide turn-by-turn audio instructions to guide you to your desired destination. The system offers routes that can avoid stairs if necessary and that caters to users with mobility disabilities.
You can find GoodMaps in all kinds of places right now. For example, in public libraries. To give you one, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C. adopted GoodMaps to assist blind people in navigating the facility independently.
Also, it's used in transportation hubs. Airports like Louisville's, Muhammad Ali International and Portland International have integrated GoodMaps as well. Educational institutions, universities and colleges are using GoodMaps to provide blind students and staff with the tools to navigate campuses autonomously. Once you install the app, which is available for both iOS and Android, it offers tutorials to help users become acquainted with its features. So it is a very user-friendly app.
But rather than just have me talk about it, let's roll a video. We actually have a number of these technologies deployed here at the Jernigan Institute because you can come to the Jernigan Institute and many blind people do come to the Jernigan Institute from all around the world in fact and particularly the United States. So it's a chance for you to get your hands on this technology in a safe environment.
Often people stay overnight at conferences here for example, so you have time to experiment and play with these things. And we want you to have the opportunity to be able to use as many of these at the Jernigan Institute as possible. So we're going to run a demonstration of GoodMaps and show you how this works.
I'm at the Jernigan Institute which has a full GoodMaps installation and I'm going to take you through what will be a fairly common scenario if you come to the Jernigan Institute and you use GoodMaps. I've just got through the atrium and I'm on the fourth floor of the building. And I'm wanting to get to our newly refurbished conference room, which I have to say is one of the most amazing conference facilities I've ever been in.
And if you're new to the building you might not know how to get there and it's a pretty frequent venue. So I have the GoodMaps app open on the home screen at the moment and I'm at the top of that screen.
Speaker 5:
You're by maps. Select a map. Head in.
Jonathan:
I flick right.
Speaker 5:
National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute button.
Jonathan:
Because the app knows my location, it's found the National Federation of the Blind, Jernigan Institute and I'm going to double tap to select that map.
Speaker 5:
Loading building.
Jonathan:
There are many locations recorded here, so it takes a while to load.
Speaker 5:
Please wait, still loading building.
Speaker 6:
Slowly pan your phone to the left or right.
Jonathan:
Now it's wanting me to move around so that-
Speaker 6:
Slowly pan your phone to the left or right.
Jonathan:
... GoodMaps can get effects on where I am in the building. Sometimes, depending on when you open the app-
Speaker 6:
Slowly pan your phone to the left-
Speaker 5:
Lower phone to return to... Selected. Map. Tab.
Jonathan:
It may ask you to nominate what floor you are on. In this case it seems to have worked that out and it has a fix, so we'll just explore what's on the screen at this point.
Speaker 5:
Menu tab.
Jonathan:
Menu's at the bottom.
Speaker 5:
Directory tab.
Jonathan:
One of the good things about GoodMaps is you can browse directory because sometimes you may go into a building and not know what's here and that way you can browse through and the directory can be sorted in different ways. Y
ou can sort it so that the closest locations are listed first or you can list everything in alphabetical order just by virtue of sorting by closest location, it can give you a feel for what's close by. So if I double tap on the directory now.
Speaker 5:
National Federation of the Blind, Jernigan Institute directory.
Jonathan:
And I'll flick right.
Speaker 5:
Search ellipsis. Sort by closest first. Button results, 247. But elevator first floor two of 247. Elevator first floor.
Jonathan:
So we've got several elevators.
Speaker 5:
Stairwell three, first floor. Atrium elevator lobby, first floor. Atrium, east, first floor.
Jonathan:
Now I'm not sure whether it's got my location correct because it seems to have put a few first floor locations here, but I'm now going to go back out of here.
Speaker 5:
Search ellipsis.
Jonathan:
And go into the first tab-
Speaker 5:
Selected map tab.
Jonathan:
... which is map. And that will show me recent searches.
Speaker 5:
Currently on National Federation. Currently on fourth floor button.
Jonathan:
Okay, so this confirms that I am on the fourth floor and it knows it.
Speaker 5:
National Federation of the Blind, Jernigan Institute. Heading current floor L4. Fourth floor. Favorites, no favorite recent searches. Jonathan Mohsen's office. Main conference room. Button.
Jonathan:
Main conference room is where we want to go, so I'm going to double tap that. I've searched for it before.
Speaker 5:
Main conference room selected. Map tab.
Jonathan:
And-
Speaker 5:
Screen recording.
Jonathan:
The screen recording app is just causing a few focus issues so that's why it's a little sluggish.
Speaker 5:
Lunch room. Main conference room, main conference room. Walking directions.
Jonathan:
Walking directions is one of the options and the other is avoid stairwells. In this case there's no stairwell between here and the fourth floor conference room, so the directions will be the same. I'm going to double tap the go button and when I do, I need to keep my camera upright because it does use the camera to identify where I am and to give me directions.
It will be giving me haptic feedback. So if I go off course, I will start feeling vibrations on the phone and it'll also give me spoken directions. I'll double tap that now and then I'll start walking with my cane with my phone held out in front of me upright.
Speaker 5:
Go. Button, go.
Speaker 6:
Slowly pan your phone to the left or right.
Jonathan:
All right, we're going to get a fix on the position first.
Speaker 6:
Continue panning to the right.
Jonathan:
So I'm twirling around like a ballet dancer to my right, trying to get a fix on the position.
Speaker 6:
Safely take a few steps to a new location with your phone raised.
Jonathan:
I'm going to move forward in the direction I believe the conference room to be and then we go.
Speaker 6:
Continue 75 feet and turn left.
Speaker 5:
Repeat instruction. Button.
Jonathan:
So it told me to continue 75 feet. I'm walking straight ahead.
Speaker 6:
Continue 50 feet, then turn left.
Jonathan:
And as you can hear, the distance is getting shorter so that confirms I'm going-
Speaker 6:
Continue 30 feet, then turn left.
Jonathan:
... in the right direction.
Speaker 6:
Continue 20 feet, then turn left. Opening ahead.
Jonathan:
Okay.
Speaker 6:
Turn left.
Speaker 7:
Move forward a-
Speaker 6:
Right.
Jonathan:
I'm navigating to the lecture room now.
Speaker 6:
Continue 40-
Speaker 7:
1:00.
Speaker 6:
Continue 35 feet, then turn left.
Speaker 7:
1:00.
Speaker 6:
Continue 25 feet, then turn left.
Jonathan:
So this has given me good guidance.
Speaker 6:
Continue 10 feet, then-
Speaker 7:
Opening ahead.
Jonathan:
And there is indeed an opening ahead. That's the other side of our lunchroom.
Speaker 6:
Continue. Door ahead.
Speaker 7:
Door then left.
Speaker 6:
Door ahead.
Jonathan:
Yep, the door is here right when it said it would be and then it said I should turn left.
Speaker 6:
Left. Last turn. Continue 70 feet, then turn right.
Jonathan:
So I turn left and now I'm walking along.
Speaker 6:
Continue 45 feet, then turn right.
Jonathan:
All right, we're making good progress.
Speaker 6:
Continue 20 feet then turn right.
Jonathan:
We're getting closer.
Speaker 6:
Right. Last turn.
Jonathan:
Now it says right.
Speaker 6:
Continue 15 feet to desk.
Speaker 7:
Opening ahead. Approaching... Arrived. Main conference room.
Jonathan:
And here we are. We're in the main conference room. And it's as simple as that. I have also seen this working for example at CSUN and other locations where there are exhibits and many venues and it has proven very helpful. So that's a look at GoodMaps, a pretty impressive thing when it's all installed. There is a bit of infrastructure involved in getting it installed and that's one of the challenges of a lot of these things.
We will look at some other technology which might be slightly easier to deploy and perhaps comment on how reliable it is, but that is very accurate. I mean, when it was telling me to turn, when it was telling me that I'd arrived, it was extremely precise. Now we're going to go on to our next technology. I believe that is RightHear.
Kennedy:
Thanks Jonathan. RightHear is a little bit different than GoodMaps. So this is a purely orientation-based app. We like to say it's like a digital signage app. So instead of providing step-by-step guidance and instructions, RightHear is more like I said, a digital sign. So it is a beacon-based technology that uses a smartphone and uses some of the things within your smartphone to work.
For example, the compass to know which direction you're facing. In this demo, I'm showing our office here in Baltimore, Maryland, and when you get near one of those beacons it tells you where you are and what is to the left and right of you. So why don't I go ahead and play the video.
I am at our national office, our headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland, and we have different beacons around that we had set up here. The top area of the screen, if you can see the screen is your current location. Right now I am near the presidential suite intersection and then below that is kind of more information on what's around you. I'm going to go ahead and walk towards that direction and we'll see what happens.
Speaker 9:
Presidential suite intersection.
Kennedy:
Like that said, I am at the presidential suite intersection. If I wanted to know what was around me, I go to the next button.
Speaker 9:
Around me. Button. Lunchroom in front of you.
Kennedy:
Now I know that the lunchroom is right in front of me and this app is really cool because it can tell which way you're facing. So I'm going to go ahead and turn to the right and face the presidential suite.
Speaker 9:
Office of the president in this direction for about 20 feet.
Kennedy:
Now you know that in front of you about 20 feet is the office of the president. I'm going to go ahead and turn around and walk down this hallway towards all our conference rooms.
Speaker 9:
Restrooms. Conference room. Current location. Around me, current location. Button.
Kennedy:
So again, the top part is your current location. That's not going to change as much when you're near the beacon. The bottom might change depending on where you're facing. So I was facing the lunchroom and then I turned right and then it told me about the information about the presidential office and then I turned left towards the conference rooms.
Speaker 9:
Intersection. Conference rooms.
Kennedy:
I'm going to turn left, see what that does. And if you can see the screen, the bottom right corner, there's an arrow and that tells you which direction you're facing. So now I'm facing northwest, northeast, east, and let's go east and we see that what's around me?
Speaker 9:
Around me.
Kennedy:
What is announced.
Speaker 9:
Button. Conference, Bubble conference. Conference, continue in this direction for 20 feet. To Bubble conference room, continue in this direction for 20 feet, and then turn left for about 10 feet and the room will be on your right.
Kennedy:
So it just gives geographical information.
Speaker 9:
Pimlico conference.
Kennedy:
I'm going to go ahead and keep walking around here. And again that noise is when there is no text, that error sound.
Speaker 9:
Current location. Button. Intersection, conference rooms. Around me, button. Around me, button. Betty Zaborovsky conference room, round conference room. To the Betty Zaborovsky conference room continue in this direction for 30 feet. The door will be on your right. To the round room intersection, near round conference room, round conference... To the round conference room.
Kennedy:
One thing you should know that that text does change depending on where you are if you're walking or not. So I'd recommend if you want to stay on that text and read that text, you should stop moving.
Speaker 9:
Entrance to hotel. Location app link. Button.
Kennedy:
So I'm going to go ahead and turn off voiceover.
Speaker 9:
Voice over off.
Kennedy:
Because there is a built-in I guess screen reader. It only reads the text that's displayed.
Speaker 9:
Intersection near round conference room.
Kennedy:
So again, this is without any voiceover.
Speaker 9:
Entrance to Mick George living room. Entrance to the sleeping rooms and dining room. The entrance is just in front of you to the dining room. Continue in this direction for 30 feet and turn left at the next accessible spot.
Kennedy:
Okay, that was a quick demo of RightHear. I did mention that they're beacons so they do have to be set up. The locations are available on RightHear's website. If you want to find out where you can explore and try out RightHear for yourself. And then it's also a free app on both Android and iOS. Did you want to discuss NaviLens, Jonathan?
Jonathan:
I'd be happy to. NaviLens is a really intriguing solution to me, partly because it's so cost-effective to deploy and simple to deploy. NaviLens is both a navigation and a labeling system and it is blind-specific, once again. It uses specially designed codes and I understand they are quite colorful, and they provide information about your surroundings through your smartphone.
People can set up NaviLens codes in public or private spaces and the NaviLens codes resemble QR codes, but they are specifically engineered for accessibility. And these codes consist of a five by five grid of squares and they have four distinct colors. You've got cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.
Unlike traditional QR codes, you can detect NaviLens codes from distances up to 60 feet depending on the size of the code and they don't require any kind of precise camera focus or alignment. And that allows users to scan codes while in motion and from wide angles as well, which makes the system efficient and effective.
To use NaviLens, you download the free NaviLens app. It's available once again for both iOS and Android. You run the app and you point your camera in the general direction of a NaviLens code.
The app will quickly detect the code and it provides audio information about the encoded content like location details, directions, or other relevant data. It'll deliver the information in your preferred language with support for 34 languages.
We were told as we were doing some research on NaviLens by the NaviLens company directly about a pretty major installation of NaviLens they have going on in Madrid in Spain. Now obviously Spanish is the primary language there, but they were able to provide us with some English demonstrations because the codes are multilingual and they recognize your language, so it's pretty slick in that regard.
You can find NaviLens in various settings. Public transportation is one, transit systems in cities like New York, Los Angeles and Barcelona, and of course Madrid, as I just said, have integrated NaviLens codes at bus stops and subway stations. There is also a pilot program going on in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and we'll come back to that in a little bit.
These codes, the navigation ones provide real-time information about bus arrivals, service alerts and navigation within stations. So that'll help you to locate entrances and platforms and boarding points as well. You could also find NaviLens in museums and cultural institutions.
Museums like the North Carolina Maritime Museum have installed NaviLens codes to offer audio descriptions of exhibits and artefacts, which of course enhances the visual experience for us. We all know what it's like to go to museums where they're full of glass cases and things you can't touch and you don't even know what's there. So NaviLens can bring that to life.
Now, although it's a little bit out of scope for this boutique, I did want to briefly touch on the fact that NaviLens also can be used for product packaging. In fact, companies like Kellogg's have incorporated NaviLens codes on product packaging and that enables you to access very detailed product information including ingredients and usage instructions just by scanning the codes with your smartphone.
And you can use it for personal labeling as well. As an individual you can print out your own NaviLens codes to label personal items such as food containers or documents and that can assist with identification and organization at home. Now we've got lots of video of NaviLens, but what we're going to do is tell you about a pilot program that's going on in New Brunswick in New Jersey.
And I found out about this and I contacted some folks from the NFB of New Jersey and I said, "Can you go and check this out and let us know how you find it? How do you find wayfinding with NaviLens?" Because we have used NaviLens a bit here. If you go to national convention, there have been times where we've used NaviLens to help you find your state.
We put NaviLens tags on state flags so that when you go into the big ballroom and you're trying to find where you sit, NaviLens can direct you to your particular state seats. But this is a whole new level, this whole indoor wayfinding thing and they came back from their assignment and were incredibly enthusiastic about what NaviLens can do and how well it works and the information it gave them.
So I said to Mack Biggers, "Would you mind going out there and doing a video for this boutique about NaviLens and showing us what it can do and how it works?" And he's done that. So we're going to run Mack's video now and you can see it in action for yourself.
Mack:
All right, greetings everyone. I just got off the train here in New Brunswick at Rutgers campus. I am now trying to find myself a bus stop. I have exited the train platform and I am going to be using an app called NaviLens to locate the bus stop to... takes the bus route to where I need to go. So bus hard and go ahead and get started and open up the application.
Speaker 11:
App switch NaviLens action. Swipe up with three fingers to close the app. NaviLens. NaviLens. Action.
Mack:
All right, so we have the application open. So just really quickly, when he opened up the app, you saw his camera flash for about two seconds and then the NaviLens found whatever it was looking for and now it switched to an arrow on screen and it points you in the direction.
And then you'll also hear some audio as well. We have already taken a code. So it is beeping to let us know that we are in the direction of the code. So we are going to keep walking forward towards where my camera is pointed because that's what the beeping noise is telling us to do.
So if I were to go off route, it stops beeping to let me know I'm not pointed at the camera anymore and then I was able to veer back and it's leading me to where I need to go for the sign and I have located the sign with my cane. I have successfully gotten into the bus stop. So let's go ahead and look more into it, what we can find out about the sign now that we are officially here.
All right, so we have found the sign and now we are going to go ahead and show you what happens when we have found the sign. My bus actually came, so I had to jump on and we're just showing you this screen now that I am at home and it's a little bit quieter now. Now what it's going to do is tell me what bus were at the bus route that I had scanned and we're going to go down and it will tell me the next times that they were available. So let's go ahead and do that.
Speaker 11:
Line 815 Woodbridge Center, one minute.
Mack:
So that bus is one minute away.
Speaker 11:
Line 814 and Brunswick Chamberlain U, 21 minutes.
Mack:
That one's 21 minutes away.
Speaker 11:
Line 814 Middlesex College, 40 minutes.
Mack:
That one's 40 minutes away. So if I wanted, I would now be able to go and find the update button and it could update me on the next current route times. So I'm going to go ahead and do that.
Speaker 11:
Update button. Update.
Mack:
All right, now we're going to go back up the list to see what times have changed and what routes are available right now.
Speaker 11:
Line 814 and Brunswick, BROK Boulevard, seven minutes.
Mack:
All right. That one's seven minutes away now.
Speaker 11:
Next arrivals.
Mack:
Right now since it's later on in the evening.
Speaker 11:
Line 814 and Brunswick, BROK Boulevard seven minutes.
Mack:
Route 814 is only one running and it comes in seven minutes. So that would be handy. But there are a few other features. So let's say this was a normal route that I ride every single day. Let's say the bus stop was right in front of my house. If I wanted to, I can actually either, there's two ways I can go into the history-
Speaker 11:
Line 814 runs with BROK boulevard. Five minutes. History, return to Siri. History, back button. Tab bar selected history tab 23.
Mack:
So now we are on the history tab.
Speaker 11:
Selected. History tab. Two or three.
Mack:
To see what scan you have done.
Speaker 11:
Bus stop 23,426. Look three weeks ago. Bus stop today. Heading.
Mack:
So these are my scans today.
Speaker 11:
Bus stop, 23,497, location, Somerset St. And George St Down. Swipe up or down to select a custom action then double tap to activate.
Mack:
And then you can see actually further up which was-
Speaker 11:
Three weeks ago. Head in.
Mack:
... three weeks ago.
Speaker 11:
Bus stop, 23,426, location...
Mack:
When you see what bus stops you have scanned and then-
Speaker 11:
Swipe up or down to select a custom action then double tap to activate.
Mack:
... you click into those.
Speaker 11:
Bus stop, 23,426 location, next arrivals.
Mack:
And it's going to give you information about that NaviLens code that you scanned.
Speaker 11:
9818 Strafford apartment. 18 minutes.
Mack:
It's as if you were scanning it. And let's say this was a favorite stop because maybe I had a few and I didn't want to remember all the past history that I have. I'm going to go back into-
Speaker 11:
History. Back button. Bus stop 23,426. Location-
Mack:
Down at the bottom-
Speaker 11:
My favorites tab. 33.
Mack:
... I have a my favorites tab. So the bus stop that we were at earlier that was at the train station, that is a bus stop that I like. It seems to have lots of good routes of where I want to go. So I'm going to click on my favorites.
Speaker 11:
Selected my favorites. Tab three of three. Bus stop, 23,497. Location, Somerset St and George ST. Actions available.
Mack:
All right, see. It shows me that I have a favorite stop that I have added under here. So if I click on that.
Speaker 11:
Bus stop, 23,000 line 814 and Brunswick boulevard five minutes.
Mack:
All right, it shows me right now live action that that bus is five minutes away.
Speaker 11:
Update button.
Mack:
And that's the only bus at that stop right now. But what's nice is, so if you had a bus stop in front of your house, in front of your place of work, you would be able to have a live view of when the buses are coming next and if there's any delays, things like that because the apps NaviLens codes are connected with the live view of the bus system.
What is also nice is you can have these codes, you can produce your own, you can put them around your own locations, you can have them be text codes, put them on a lot of business cards. Also places can use them inside of buildings to be able to locate the front door of a place, they can help you plan routes around a particular building and give you even more detailed information such as access to menus. Many things.
Jonathan:
Thanks to Mack Biggers for going out there and giving us that real-time demo from New Brunswick in New Jersey. And NaviLens is being deployed quite rapidly all over the place. It is pretty deployable and as Mack says, you can go and try it for yourself and print out your own NaviLens codes if you want, for a range of purposes.
So the final one that I'm going to look at before I hand back to Karl is called Waymap. Now the perceived advantage of this is there's nothing to install or deploy at all. So in theory, Waymap should be quite scalable. Waymap is designed to provide precise step-by-step directions and guidance for blind people.
And unlike traditional navigation systems that rely on GPS or some sort of external signal, Waymap says it uses the sensors within your smartphone to develop accurate directions both indoors and out. Even in environments where signal reception is poor or non-existent.
Its proprietary Smart step technology is at the core of Waymap's functionality and this system leverages the accelerometer, the gyroscope, the magnetometer, and the barometer sensors in your smartphone to track your movements. So it's using a lot of built-in tech that today's smartphones have.
By analyzing data like your step length, direction and elevation changes, Waymap says it can determine your precise location and orientation without the need for GPS, Bluetooth beacons and Karl discuss the challenges with those or Wi-Fi signals. Waymap says this approach, which is known as dead-reckoning, allows the app to function reliably in various settings like underground transit systems and large indoor venues.
To ensure accuracy Waymap employs a technique which they call MAP matching. So as you navigate the app continuously compares your estimated position with known features in its detailed maps like walls, doorways, and staircases.
And this process corrects for any potential drift in the dead-reckoning calculations that Waymap is making. And they say that that will maintain location accuracy up to approximately one meter.
Waymap says it can assist with several use cases, obviously the first one is public transportation, for example, we'll go there in just a moment, Waymap has partnered with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to map the entire metro system including 98 rail stations and a whopping 1,100 bus stops. And this partnership aims to make the city the most accessible in the United States.
They also want to deploy it in indoor venues so you can find your way through shopping malls or museums or airports and other large buildings. Waymap's technology, as I say, doesn't require any additional infrastructure.
So that's their big pitch. They say it makes it adaptable to various indoor environments and also outdoor navigation. You can explore city streets, parks, and other outdoor areas with step-by-step guidance tailored to your needs.
You can download the app for iOS and Android. When you do that, there is some setup and it wants to know how tall you are because that helps to get a grip on your step length. But there's very little onboarding at this stage. There's no tutorials that explain how the app should be working. There are some other shortcomings as well.
We braved a rather wet Maryland Friday, last Friday and we went out to the closest metro station to us, which is at Silver Springs and Maryland, trying to do you a demo of Waymap.
Now it's not our job to sell you anything, it's our job to show you how these things work or don't. And on that basis we'll run what happened when I tried to use Waymap to help me navigate the metro station at Silver Springs.
It's Jonathan Mohsen, your roving reporter at the Silver Springs Metro Station here in Maryland. We're trying to get a route working with the Waymap app. I have the Waymap app open on my screen now and I'm going to navigate to try and plan a route.
Speaker 12:
Waymap setting navigation mode options. Currently auto mode, but plan your route. Button.
Jonathan:
There are two options here that have, as far as I can tell, identical functionality is plan your route and then plan journey. At the bottom of the screen, I'm going to just double-tap that button.
Speaker 12:
Back button.
Jonathan:
And flick right.
Speaker 12:
Plan your route. Edit show on map. Button run.
Jonathan:
First we have to tell the app where we are coming from. So I'll double tap that.
Speaker 12:
Search. Search field.
Jonathan:
We can choose to search from here, but if I flick right-
Speaker 12:
Current location button.
Jonathan:
... we can also choose our current location.
Speaker 12:
Current alert, you are near Waymap venue. Please selectively log inside one of the following venues. Silver Spring Station button.
Jonathan:
I am indeed inside Silver Spring Station. So I'll double-tap.
Speaker 12:
Turn back button. GPS heading, move to a nearby safe place facing away from any direct walls and then press start.
Jonathan:
This is where it's trying to get a fix on our position. So it's going to use the camera to take some pictures and then use other data to try and see where we're coming from. Just flick right-
Speaker 12:
Start button.
Jonathan:
... and double-tap start.
Speaker 12:
Take an image at 11:00. Button.
Jonathan:
I'm going to turn to 11 and hold the camera upright and take a picture.
Speaker 12:
Take an image at 1:00.
Jonathan:
I'll now turn a little to one o'clock and take another picture holding the camera upright.
Speaker 12:
Take an image in front of you.
Jonathan:
And now get my bearings straight again and double-tap.
Speaker 12:
Cancel. Button alert. Location found. We've detected your location on Plus level one, at Silver Spring Station. Does this look... Yes, continue. Button.
Jonathan:
No, it is not correct. So we are on level two at the moment, not level one. And the reason why we just don't go down to level one to show this off is that it is so noisy on level one, you wouldn't be able to hear me. So no matter what I do, and I've tried this on several occasions, I cannot get it to find me on level two. If I choose the no option.
Speaker 12:
No. Select manually. Button. Information.
Jonathan:
None of the options that have come up here allow me to indicate that I'm on level two. If I flick around them.
Speaker 12:
Ticketing button, information button, emergency button, entrances and exits button.
Jonathan:
Now here's entrances and exits.
Speaker 12:
Station manager's office, but Silver Street Station 97 meters. Button heading.
Jonathan:
Let's try entrances and exits I wonder.
Speaker 12:
Station entrances and exits. Colesville Road, and West Highway North. Mezzanine. Button. Colesville Road to West Highway North. Mezzanine. Wayne Avenue and Colesville Road. Mezzanine. Wayne Avenue and Colesville Road. Mezzanine. Wayne Avenue and Colesville Road. Mezzanine. Wayne Avenue and... Select location.
Jonathan:
There really doesn't appear to be an intuitive way that I can find to tell the app that I'm not actually on level one like it thinks I am. I'm on level two. And as I say, I've made several attempts to try and do that. I will say that on Kennedy's phone he is getting a fix at the correct location. So it's not clear to me why one phone is behaving one way and another is behaving another. But without being able to get a fix, it's not possible for me to proceed further.
What happened there too, was that we did make several attempts to find a way to get a fix before we recorded that video. We walked right by something really obvious from memory Kennedy, I think it was the ticketing office or something very prominent.
And we made sure that that was in the view of the camera to help the app get a fix on where we were and try as we might, we couldn't even get past, as they say in this country first base. Although we don't want to talk about getting past first base because we're the home of the Orioles.
So that's Waymap really, and when we get to Q&A, perhaps others, I know I can see on the list here, we have some people from the DC area, so they may have some more real-world experience of this and first-hand experience that might be better than what we experienced at that particular station in Silver Springs.
That concludes this episode of Access on, the Technology Podcast of the National Federation of the Blind. To send in a contribution for a future episode, email us, attach an audio clip or just write it down and send it to [email protected]. That's [email protected]. To keep up to date with Access On, follow us on Mastodon. [email protected]. That's [email protected] on Mastodon.
To subscribe to an announcement only email list about upcoming episodes send a blank message to [email protected]. That's [email protected]. To learn more about the National Federation of the Blind, visit our website, nfb.org or phone us (410) 659-9314. That's (410) 659-9314. And be sure to check out the Nation's Blind podcast right from where you heard this podcast.