8 Smart Gadgets for Visually Impaired People

Vision is an integral part of every person’s life. Most of our lives are filled with many magical moments that can feel too good to be true. With good vision, we experience the magic of life through colours, look at other people’s smiles, and watch our favourite shows or sport.

People who are gifted with a good vision or blessed. Unfortunately, many people in the world have impairment in their vision. Does that mean they can’t experience the sights that others do?

Vision impairment

Vision impairment is a term that indicates a person’s eyesight that cannot be connected to an average level. Visual impairment can affect or limit the functionality of the eye or the vision system. Visual impairment can lead to the following.

• Loss of visual accuracy
• Inability to see a wide area of
• Photophobia
• Visual distortion
• Difficulties of perception
• Double vision or
• any combination of the above symptoms.

Difference between blindness and visual impairment

Blindness is defined when a person’s visual acuity is less than 20. A visual impairment need not be blindness. When a person has blindness, their vision is either wholly or partially lost, whereas when they have a visual impairment, their visionary system can be disrupted.

What are the causes of vision impairment?

Visual impairment can be caused due to several reasons, including damage to the eyes, brain failure, neurological problems and genetics.

An underlying health condition like diabetes can also cause visual impairment.

Some of the common causes of vision impairment are from

• age-related macular degeneration cataracts  
• glaucoma and
• diabetic retinopathy.

Taking care of oneself is quintessential. Poor health can lead to a productive lifestyle. Visual impairment can be treated to only a certain degree. Blindness, in some cases, cannot be cured.

Fortunately, some gadgets can help visually impaired people to assist them in leading productive lives.

What are the smart gadgets for the visually impaired?

Technology has come a long way in helping people who need better lives. Technology is often a saviour for people with underlying medical conditions.

Some of the gadgets that are helpful for visually impaired people are as follows.

Glasses for virtual assistance

Vision problems are common among older adults that can even cause blindness. Through advances in technology and medical sciences, many innovations are made to improve treatment for people with low vision.

Electronic glasses for the visually impaired are an innovative technology that combines a VR headset and a smartphone, helping people with eye problems and providing virtual assistance.

It provides the user with magnified lenses and assists in various daily activities like reading a book or watching television.

Intelligent camera app

A few apps are being developed for the blind and visually impaired community that harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to describe various currency text and people.

With the app’s help, people need to hold their phones near an object around them, and the AI will provide audio guidance.

E-reader for the blind

An E-Reader for the blind is a devices that resembles a mouse, is portable and can translate text into braille language.

This device translates 100 times without moving the finger over the characters.

Advancements in these devices enabled memory storage that can accommodate more than a thousand documents.

Currency recognition app

A currency recognition app is a revolution for visually impaired people that can help them recognise old and new currency notes with the help of image processing and deep learning.

Recent developments in various currency recognition apps analyse the patterns and features embedded in the notes to differentiate between an original and a fake currency and determine its denomination.

Smart glasses

Smart glasses or developed that can operate wirelessly with voice activation can help visually impaired people.

It acts as a magnifying glass with a video camera in the front that magnifies whatever the person is looking at and displays it inside.

It can be helpful for people with macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy or other visual conditions that can cause impaired vision.

Braille smartphone

If we were visually impaired, it would be really difficult for us to use devices like smartphones.

People with visual imparity can find it challenging to use a regular smartphone. Recently various technologies can help search people have a more sensory experience with devices resembling smartphones and reap their benefits.

Safe mug

Pouring from a mug can be difficult for people with Visual impaired state. Usually, blind people with poor vision can find measuring how much water they have poured challenging.

They tend to measure it by listening to the sound of the water, which cannot be an accurate means of judgement.

Bright mugs help people choose from various levels and pour water according to their requirements.

These mugs have an inbuilt sensor and determine the water level to be poured.

Smart walking stick

A smart walking stick is a device that helps blind people with navigation while walking. Visually impaired people have difficulty interacting with an environment that can make it difficult to do regular activities like walking.

Smart walking stick designed to detect any obstacles that can disturb the part of the blind.

Voice command will help navigate the visually impaired and keep them alert outdoors.

A smart stick can measure the distance between how a person walks with the help of an ultrasonic sensor.

To sum up

Life can get complicated for people with impaired vision and cause problems in daily life. However, with technological advancements and improvements in medical sciences, various treatments and gadgets have been developed to help visually impaired people lead productive lives.

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