I hope you’re all doing well! I wanted to share some exciting news about ARx Vision that I think you’ll love. As someone who’s always on the lookout for the latest in accessibility tech, I was thrilled to hear about these updates and thought you might be interested too.
ARx Vision for iOS
ARx Vision is bringing its amazing ARx AI app experience to iOS, and there are some fantastic improvements:
• Improved Audio Quality: The new app will offer clearer sound and higher volume, making it even easier to use.
• iPhone 15 Compatibility: It’s designed to work perfectly with iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro. Sadly, it won’t support older iPhones with Lightning connectors due to power and speed limitations.
These features are set to launch soon, with more details coming in September. I’m definitely looking forward to trying them out!
Hi Lottie - good to see you here. Sounds like the main exciting new feature for iPhone users is that it works at all now. Well, not for me as I’m on an iPhone 13 and am going to hold off upgrading for a bit longer, maybe iPhone 17.
I tried to get a demo of these at Sight Village. I was waiting for ages and finally got to try them on. They are a bone conduction thing that goes round the back of the head and then loops over the ears. On one side there is a plastic panel thing with a few tactile buttons that were different shapes - think maybe triangular, square and circle. Unfortunately that was as good as it got. When the guy finally appeared he was unable to get anything working. I think Android was a bit of an unknown quantity on the RNIB stand.
I get the impression that one of the big features was Seeing AI compatibility. And they are relatively sensibly priced for assistive tech, although obviously pricier than mainstream equivalents.
As is well known, they are also tethered to your phone by a USB cable. So it uses the phone’s battery which means it will likely last longer than the Meta Ray-bans, but it will be draining the phone battery quicker too.
I think the headset was fine to wear, reasonably light. But not quite as convenient or comfortable as the Ray-bans which is something I’d probably wear anyway. When I get better sight I found I really needed shades as I am quite sensitive to light. Maybe less so now but I am used to them.
They don’t quite feel like cutting edge tech any more, but I’d still be curious to know what they are like anyway. I think by the time I have upgraded my phone there will be something better.
One thing I like about the Metas is that it’s all voice. OK there’s the camera button and the touch pad, but from an AI point of view, you just ask. A lot of these things like presumably this one, Envision and so on is that they all have modes you have to cycle through. I also found this on the Biped which seemed to have a ton of buttons all tightly packed together. It’s fine but it’s just a bit less slick and feels weirdly old fashioned already.
Anyway, lottie - if you do give into this please let us know how you get on.
I purchased the v1.5 back in April.
After purchasing this product and trying it out for a week or so I returned it for a refund. There were a number of reasons for this decision. I really wanted this product to realize it’s vision. There is a lot of value of having a mostly hands free option for these capabilities. Maybe not so much hands free, but free of not having to have your phone out all the time.
The primary reasons for me not finding the Arx a good fit for me:
1. The quality of the key components were of mediocre quality at best and certainly not what I expected for the cost of the device.
2. Arx support asserted that they had to make cost versus quality trade-offs to keep the cost reasonable. They asserted the quality was adequate enough for the primary purpose of the device.
3. The device was uncomfortable despite many adjustments.
4. The volume from the speakers/emitters was insufficient, especially if you were in an environment was any sort of noise.
5. The first unit I received had a defective left speaker / emitter. It vibrated terribly. A replacement device performed a bit better, but ultimately suffered from a similar problem.
6. Microphone quality on both units I tried was variable and often terrible.
7. I found the 3 button controls on the camera/control housing to be difficult to use. While they had a very pleasing click confirmation it took a significant amount of pressure to activate them. I found that providing the necessary pressure I would be smooshing the control box into my cheek, which was uncomfortable and I believe resulted in the camera operation possibly being impacted resulting in camera shake that was resulting in blurred images.
8. I must wear over the glasses sunglasses when outdoors in any sort of sun. Those sunglasses rested on the camera/controller of the Arx resulting in much discomfort.
9. The tethered/wired nature of the device (requiring a USB-C cable connection) was ultimately too hard to deal with.
10. I found using the device required lots of power and promptly drained my phone’s battery.
11. Many key functions of the device simply didn’t work well enough.
a. Quick Text. It did not perform nearly as well as the same function available from other apps using the camera’s phone.
b. While Document mode performed well enough I found it difficult to get the document positioned in the right place and the guidance/feedback on positioning didn’t work all that great.
c. Scene mode on the fly (repeated scanning) mostly resulted in gibberish. The capture mode worked better and was acceptable.
d. Product (bar code) scanning was very difficult to use. It was way too challenging to position the product for successfully scanning. Identical funcionality via other apps using the phone’s camera (i.e. Seeing AI) performed significantly better. The Seeing AI integrated app using the Arx camera performed poorly in the same way.
e. Q mode was impressive, but voice interactions with it suffered from the poor microphone quality. It had difficulty understanding me far too often.
12. Integration of Seeing AI with the ARx headset was bumpy. The Arx app and the Seeing AI beta kept fighting with each other over permissions for device access / permissions. It was confusing and annoying. Also, Seeing AI on the Arx headset performed significantly worse than the same functionality than Seeing AI simply running using the phone’s camera/microphone and audio output. Additionally, Seeing AI made different choices on how to utilize the buttons on the headset for interaction than the way they ARx app did. This made it difficult to get the hang of the UI’s if you switched between them. The Seeing AI integration is a beta though, so it shouldn’t be judged too harshly.
On a positive note, ARx Vision customer support was wonderful. They were very responsive and supportive in providing a replacement device and in processing my return / refund request.
I wish ARx Vision all the best and hope that subsequent evolution of the product resolves these issues.
Hey MrG, good to see you here. OB is around somewhere and Brad has already stormed off!
I contacted RNIB about this headset and the person I spoke to didn’t know anything about it, she gave me a number to call, but I didn’t remember it. This might be an early effect of them (RNIB) deciding blind folk don’t need any support with technology.
I am going to give someone else a call, but I don’t really think it is a goer.
Hey Tom, it is really great to here from someone who has uses this product for a week.
I think I was worried that us iPhone users were missing out - the Seeing AI integration was the ting I was thinking of. But the cable, the design/materials and the cost all make me thing I am not realy missing out.
Like MrG, I have the Ray-Ban Meta glasses and as designer sunglasses wiht some AI smarts, they are superb for £299.
Yes, I am here. These glasses sound like a disappointment in quality. I’m not sure exactly what they will describe, but my baseline standard of usefulness is if it can describe what ducks in a pond are doing and things like that. I’m willing to wait.