Toyota is developing a wearable to help blind people

Toyota's Project Blaid is still only a concept wearable but sounds promising
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Toyota is working on a wearable that helps blind and visually impaired people better navigate indoor spaces.

While guide dogs and canes are effective aiding in every day life, Toyota's Project Blaid device wants to fill the gaps by providing users with more information about their surroundings. Large spaces that are multi-floored, like malls, airports and so forth aren't as easy to get around if you need to go somewhere specific.

Indoor mapping, object identification and facial recognition will be integrated to make use of the cameras that Blaid is equipped with. The wearable sits on the shoulders like a horseshoe pillow and communicates information through speakers and vibration motors where users will also be to interact with the device through voice recognition and buttons.

Essential read: How Ford wants to unlock wearable health inside the car

With cars on-boarding connected kits like Android Auto and Apple Carplay, or augmented reality, Toyota's certainly taken a different approach to wearables. In general, the company has kept its cars as well, cars, instead of technological hubs involving wearables. But if Blaid works, it may be far more useful and practical than connected cars - and we may see more wearables from Toyota.

For now, Project Blaid is still only a prototype but we're interested in seeing how this plays out in the future.

Toyota is developing a wearable to help blind people


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Lily is a writer and editor specializing in tech, video games, marketing, education, travel writing, and creative fiction. 

She has over 10 years of experience covering the technology beat.

Lily has a passion for VR and AR technologies and was associate wearables editor at TechRadar US, before joining Wareable as US editor in 2016.

Lily will graduate in 2023 with an MFA in Creative Writing.

In her spare time, Lily can be found knee-deep in zine collaborations, novel writing, playing Dungeons & Dragons or hiking and foraging for mushrooms.


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