Navigation and understanding of the environment is an everyday challenge for the visually impaired. This limitation hinders their independence and of course, cripples their mobility. Walking aids and certain technology-assisted solutions do provide necessary navigation details with obstacle detection, but a personal assistant that talks to them like their own is still missing.
With the advent of generative AI, a designer duo has taken the leverage to create an AI-powered wearable device called InSight that intends to grant visual independence to the blind or anyone else who can leverage the benefit. The product was conceived for the Samsung Re:Create Challenge, which is a global competition that requires participants to perceive and conceptualize products that would repurpose ‘Samsung devices or their materials’ and promote sustainability.
Designers: Merve Nur Sökmen, Ayberk Kole
The basic idea of InSight is to seamlessly integrate with the user’s lifestyle while making available to them an accessible and connective, audio navigation experience in real-time. Designed to integrate all the features of existing Samsung consumer electronics, and to be constructed from recycled Samsung devices and materials, InSight helps reduce electronic waste, while performing the underlying function of a personal navigation assistant for the visually impaired.
With an onboard battery and an intuitive touch control, the pint-sized InSight can run navigation commands on the go. With its interesting clip-on design, one can wear it on their clothes and receive real-time audio descriptions of the visual environment in real-time, so navigation is better and more inclusive. To add more substance to the assistant’s capabilities, the user can talk back to the device, which then with its built-in AI can help with the possible information. A likely use case for students and travelers.
By helping perceive the surroundings in real-time and relaying comprehensive information to the user with audio descriptions, InSight can have a drastic impact in many lives that are dependent on others for mobility as of now. To make the device really helpful – beyond the AI integration – designers have worked its aesthetics around Samsung’s design language. The InSight connects seamlessly with smartphone and headphones of the user and provides onboard touch controls for personalized settings. And when it begins to run out of power plug it into a USB-C cable and juice it for another outing of independence!
