Last month I took a leap of faith and preordered a pair of Seleste smart glasses. For $99, plus $27 shipping, I was on the list for the next batch of 2000 pairs, due in mid-March.
Today I got the email I had been waiting for. My glasses have been shipped and should be with me on the 28th of March. Seleste is in Canada and I am in the United Kingdom, so that sounds reasonable. I also got a link to download the Seleste app (TestFlight required) and another to update my payment details for the subscription.
The subscription is Ā£65 Canadian dollars, which is automatically converted to $50 U.S. dollars. The first payment is due one month after the glasses arrive.
The 29th of March is a holiday here, Good Friday, the start of the Easter weekend. Ig will also be the start of my journey as I take my first step into the future wearing my smart glasses. As they say, my future is about to get a whole lot brighter!
And what will be my answer, when they ask me āwhat can you see through those glasses?ā I will reply āthe future!ā
The real answers will be chronicled in the comments, questions welcome.
Comments
I was under the impression.
That you could hear the glasses out of the arm peaces, I don't have them but that's what I thought, I asume the ear pease connects to the glasses and you can then hear out of both sides.
The speakers aren't the best and according to shub they're going to be improved in the next design.
There really really should be instructions on how to set these up and stuff like that.
It's fine that you guys get a mailing list but honestly this isn't professional and I will be writing to shub about this and recommend you do the same.
It does not seam as simple as, press pairing button, go into bluetooth, pair glasses, done.
My email.
I'd like those of you who do have this to review my email and to tel me if it's worth sending or could do with some cleaning up or what you think about it.
I don't want to come across as to harsh but i want to get my point across, on the other hand; I don't have the glasses and shub knows this, I'm planning on buying the glide instead and he's also aware of this.
start of email: hi shub, I just remembered we were meant to talk, I completely forgot, sorry about that.
Having said that, people are having issues paring their glasses, I've pasted a link to show you this. https://applevis.com/forum/assistive-technology/stepping-future-seleste-smart-glassess-unreview?page=1#comment-164869
I think a lot of blind people, including myself are not a fan of you not giving out any instructions on how to use the glasses.
You have a youtube channel showing off the features but you don't have anything with clear instructions on how to use the thing.
If I buy a product, I expect instructions on how to use it so this shouldn't be any diffirent.
I know i'm not buying it, I'm buying the glide instead but you can garentee that's going to come with instructions.
I'm sorry but if this keeps up, people are going to return your glasses and if you're not careful; your company is going to collapse.
--
Thanks for reading, Brad.
End of email.
Hotspot connection issues.
For those who have issues, please turn on the setting that says, "Maximum compatibility" in the settings for your hotspot.
If you do not do this... connection to the hotspot will fail.
Hth,
Portia.
Brad, you are right...but
This isn't Sight and Sound selling you the Envidea glasses for Ā£2700. For that you will get a home visit, telephone support and probably a nice audio setup!
Seleste seems like a very small setup. You saw his pitch on Youtube, I wouldn't be surprised if there is only 3 people in the entire company. It is early days, both for Seleste themselves and this technology.
I bought my first screen reader for home many moons ago. I called up and the guys wife said he would have to call me back, he was in the bath. The screen reader? HAL, the company Dolphin Computer Access!
So you can see how old I am and how Dolphin where back inn the dim and distant past.
I'm not a cheerleder for Shubh, you will have read my private message by now and know my private thoughts. But I also am willing to give the future a chance. Wether I will fund it is another question!
Yeah, I see your point.
I think I'll leave it and let those of you who have the glasses email him.
@lottie is right, the company is very small at the moment.
Speaking of, did you get my reply lottie? Applevis sent me a blank email and I was wondering what that's all about.
LOL! I wonder if it was blank because...
the message I sent you had swears in it? I'll try again.
Max compatibility
I had already turned on max compatibility for personal hotspot but it still failed! Harry
It worked.
I was able to read both messages and send you replies, did you get any?
Connecting to hotspot
I finally got this to connect, but it is fiddly indeed.
First, go into the Seleste app, and delete where you have the hotspot saved. I promise you it won't work unless you do that first.
Next step, go into settings, and open the hotspot settings, making sure that compatibility is on.
Don't back out of the hotspot. Just go back to the Seleste app either by swiping or by going to the home screen and opening Seleste from there.
Go to Internet settings, and rescan. You should then see your hotspot. Be sure to set it as hotspot and not as wi-fi.
That should work.
As I said earlier, this is fiddly, and I noticed that the glasses didn't automatically connect to my hotspot while at work yesterday. I think it might have something to do with my iPhone having been connected to a secure network, which I've since removed, so we'll see when I go out later.
We'll see how fast improvements roll out. I want to give these a chance, but need good productivity today, not in months or years. I'm contemplating the Meta glasses and fear that if there's AI, Seleste may not keep up.
About blindness products
I'm wary of using blindness products after using a smart cane, which was chosen by the so-called amazon as the initiative of the year, but which cannot be used in the rain and is charged with MicroUSB. By the way, with a rain of emails every day, I pressure Meta look and ask to make it globally available, and I highly recommend you do that.
This isn't a blindness product.
The guy wants everyone to use it.
The glide is but I'm not bothered about that.
Success with connecting to personal hotspot!
Well, I took advice from you all! What a relief! I have eventually managed to connect my glasses to my personal hotspot! I noticed that the name of my iPhone personal hotspot did not actually appear in other people's list of available personal hotspots, so I change the name of my iPhone a few times and then rang Apple Accessibility Helpline who said I was doing everything right and then I used the iPhone Shortcuts app to add the Accessibility shortcut to create a QR code for Wi-Fi and then I went back and had another go with the personal hotspot in the Seleste app and I asked Siri whilst that was going on to QR hotspot! All very mysterious
I have now been out for a walk with my glasses and got Ela to continuously describe to me all that was going on in front of me! Fantastic!
Thanks
Harry
What? He wants everyone to use the Seleste glasses?
I've decided I was wrong about the speakre sounding like it is in a birthday card. I once has a 'single' birthday candle that sounded this bad! You could at least stick that in a cake!
The AI is good, but...
the...delay...can...seem...like...a...very...long...time...indeed.
Yep.
His plan is that everyone, ok a lot of people, use the seleste glasses.
I don't know how well that will work out for him but we'll see.
The delay is going to be worked on as the product gets updated.
Did you try the Ela thing I mentioned in the email?
Re: The AI is good, but...
@Lottie,
I know what you mean about the delay.
I think I read/heard somewhere that he does want to make Ela work faster, so it is definitely a work in progress.
I'm definitely excited to see where this goes with the technology, as even for me, in my opinion, it was worth getting these.
I'm not one who is able to plunk down the high expenses for the Envision glasses or similar, since I don't have that kind of money, nor do I have organizations that would get them for me anyway.
Even thoguh he meant these to be for everyone, I am still happy and thankful that he made them... even told him so via email.
So, here's to hoping for a bright future for Seleste.
I had thought of getting the Meta glasses to compare to, but since I'd read that they need sighted help to set up, I knew that wasn't possible LOL.
Anyway, have a great, blessed day/evening all!
Warmest regards to all,
Portia.
I setup the Meta glasses on my own
The Meta Ray-bans do not need sighted assistance to setup. I managed to do it on my own and I can't see anything - and I usually bail at the slightest difficulty and ask my wife to help.
The only problem I had was on the very first screen where it asked me to select the glasses I had and the options were just read out as image or button or something. I swiped up on each and it told me what they were. It's possible that it was something in my VO settings allowing me to do that but I'm not aware of setting anything like that up.
It did take me a little while to locate the camera button which it asks you to press during setup, presumably to confirm you've found it. It's on the far right, just on the arm. It didn't take long to find and I was probably just being an idiot like usual.
But otherwise the rest of the process was very simple and the app seems very accessible. I've not had to ask for help with anything. And as I say I almost always have to ask for assistance when setting things up - this includes my Mac and Apple Watch, so I'm hardly one of the blind elite.
A Mindless Uncomment
I'm having a little difficulty getting my mind around a pair of regular-sized glasses being independently connected to Wi-Fi and having any sort of battery life. I had assumed the Seleste glasses were connected to the phone by bluetooth, and the phone was doing all the heavy lifting, even if partly over the network.
Good question OldBear
I am still confused after two days. I had assumed that the glasses where effectively just and accessory, like AirPods or the AirFrames we've joked about. I thought all the magic was done on the app on the phone. But why would they need WiFi to do this? And also, there is a voice, a crappy voice, in the glasses or you can have the good voice, but only if you route the output through the phone.
One final thing, there isn't a microphone in the glasses, like wiht the Meta Ray-Bans - it relys on your phone, so you can't go to the fridg and leave your phone in the sitting room!
I found this out the hard way. That will teach me to read the manual!
Strange...
Oh, so you do have to have the phone. This reminds me of trying to use a portable printer with AirPrint on an iPhone.
Just a few things
Iām glad to hear some of yāall got the glasses.
1, yes everything is powered by the phone.
2, no there is no mic on the glasses witch is pretty clear on the documentation. It is best to use AirPods or your preferred headset with a mic to have the best experience.
If your routing the audio from the glasses to your phone, youāre going to get that high-quality voice through your headset and ela will be highly responsive.
3. Love how in the email template posted above just happens to mention something along the lines of how your business will go under. Is that really the proper way to give constructive feedback? Do you really think startups are going to consider our community if we bully when things arenāt perfect? It has been said time and time again that this is a startup and The developer has been very responsive regarding taking constructive feedback.
Is it perfect?
No.
Could it be better?
Absolutely.
Also keep in mind that it is still in beta testing. Instead of complaining, letās instead provide constructive feedback because the only way that this product is going to get better, is by providing feedback. Complaining and utilizing language like ā your company will go underā is not the adult way of providing a developer feedback on a product.
Iāve said it before and Iāll say it again. Right now, this is the worst itās ever going to be. There are instructions on how to set things up and if you are still having trouble, just do something as simple as reaching out and asking for assistance. They are always willing to help and make improvements to make the experience better. I would encourage you all to refocus the conversation into a more positive direction even if there is something you donāt like, thereās always a way to say it where it doesnāt come off so abrasive.
But what do I know. Iām just me.
Agree Stephen
Stephen, I like how you phrased it, which is that the technology is the worst it ever will be. I've had these glasses for almost 2 days now, and have figured out mostly how to use them.
I use my bluetooth earphone with them, and so don't need to have the phone in my pocket when moving around the house.
As for why the glasses need a wi-fi connection, I imagine that more data can be transmitted through wi-fi than bluetooth, but that's just me speculating. The smart bulbs in my house that connect to my phone and Alexa also need wi-fi, and I have no idea why, so I'm not going to try and understand it for this either. I'm just connecting to hotspot and going out.
I've had issues with Ella disconnecting. I emailed Shubh, and he answered quite quickly that it's something they're working on, but that turning voice recognition off and on again usually fixes it.
I'm probably going to have a call with him tomorrow, and I do have a couple suggestions on how to improve the experience, but in general, I'm impressed with what this little starting up business is taking on.
Am I tempted by the Meta glasses? Yes, a bit, but there may be room for both in my life.
One thing I really like with the Seleste glasses is the ability to capture text without talking. I'm anxious to try this in a meeting where powerpoint slides are being used.
One thing I'll suggest is that when text is recognized, it could be saved on the phone, so I can refer to part or all of it with VO.
Anyway, I do agree that constructive feedback is the way to go. Shubh is well aware that the success of his company rests on the success of his product, so doesn't need to be told that. In brad's defense though, he did decide to not send the email.
Here's hoping that we all look back in a few years and remember how we were in on the beginning of something remarkable.
My Thoughts
Hey All
Sorry for not messaging here as much. Thanks, Brad for reminding me to check in on the apple vis community. You guys are so passionate about this technology it's great to see I've never seen anything like it!
Also really cool seeing some of you in-person at CSUN last week!
Some of my thoughts
Yes we use Wifi to send photos to the phone and then analyze that on the cloud. We're currently looking into how we can move this over to Bluetooth to send photos instead but that might be something we can only do with the new hardware. This is a really high priority for us.
The audio on the glasses is pretty bad, you can understand the words that it's saying but just doesn't sound nice. Many of our users route the audio through the phone and then Bluetooth headphones for a better audio experience.
Also I don't mind the good, bad and the ugly when it comes to feedback on what we're doing. People are paying for a product and trusting us to deliver and so it's on us to fix the problems people are facing and provide value.
We're working on the issues people are facing right now but I'm excited about the new things we have coming up like Ela being able to help with multi-step tasks, better leveraging memory and more.
By the way that's a funny story about your experience with the Dolphin Computer Access Lottie, hopefully, with everyone's help we're able to create a great product and then we can all look back at the early days lol
Some thoughts and observations
Hey all,
I received the glasses yesterday, so I've had a full day with them.
I did experience a few connection issues when trying to connect to my hotspot.
However, I managed to resolve them without contacting support, though it did require a moment or two of tinkering.
I've encountered some issues with Ela, the AI assistant, but I went into this knowing it's technically a beta and still very new. The problems I've faced so far aren't deal-breakers at this stage.
Why did I get the glasses at this early phase?
I love cutting-edge technology.
I enjoy being involved in projects from the ground up.
When purchasing these glasses, we need to accept and approach it with the mindset that we're essentially getting in on the ground floor.
Instead of just complaining about our issues, we should discuss them, yes, but also share some positive experiences we've had.
We shouldn't speculate on whether they'll succeed or not, express that the company will fail if these issues aren't fixed, or expect production-quality software.
It's been made clear that this is still a very early version.
We need to support the developers.
Think of it as an investment in the future.
These glasses have tremendous potential.
Today, I read a restaurant menu using the scan text feature. That was such an awesome experience!
I also had the chance to look out of the window in my Uber as we were driving down the road. That too was an awesome experience.
I believe that over time, these glasses will advance and improve, and we'll look back on this and be amazed at the progress.
So, let's hang in there, be supportive, and back the glasses.
Let's recognize where they currently stand, meet them there, and grow with them.
Let's help make these glasses the best they can be, without becoming a source of stress for the developers.
I know we can do that.
Even if they do fail, that doesn't mean nothing came out of it. Who knows? Maybe the next project will succeed, and the developer will take what they've learned to wow us all.
I prefer to focus on the bigger picture of these glasses and the company succeeding, where we had a significant impact in making that happen!
They may not be for everyone, but that's okay.
Tips and tricks with ela
So just so yāall know, you can continuously ask the assistant to do things like:
Continuously describe my environment,
Continuously describe the people around me,
Continuously describe whatās at the car window,
But my fave one:
Continuously describe whatās going on on the television screen.
Some tips:
If you make a phone call, use dictation, use Siri, the glasses assistant will glitch out.
Some times I have to just go into the app, sometimes I have to turn the smart assistant off then back on and sometimes I have to restart the app. With the original set up yes you do have to tinker with it just a bit.
All of those issues though the devs are working on so have faith.
Yes there is some latency, but itās actually better than what it was before. Iām sure it will get even better with time.
I havenāt used them in a few days because Iām waiting for the new Shokz OPENFIT to be delivered as I hate wearing the AirPods for long periods of time.
@ Stephen
I have a set of SHOKZ open fit, and unfortunately, them and the glasses do not fit well together. The glasses donāt really fit over the loops of the open fit that wrap around the ear. At least, that has been my experience.
Ror!
Well they better fit on mine! I didnāt spend $250 for nothing lol.
Am I a paying customer or a beta tester?
I am still broadly excited to see how the future emerges through the Seleste smart glasses. I do need to point out the fact that I have purchased these glasses for cash money, have 30 days to decide if I want to keep them and then carry on paying $50 a month. That is a significant investment of my limited resources. I am not a beta tester I am a paying customer.
I've been a beta tester for products before, i know how it works. I am happy to consider myself an ultra-early adopter of this product, but being on a list with beta testers who were 'lucky' enough to get into the betta test (for that read get the product for free) is OK, as long as I am not constantly told I am being unreasonable with my higher expectations.
I am facing a different question, evaluating a very different value proposition, it is very different to deciding if I want to be a beta tester for a pre-release product. I am happy to put this down to youth and inexperience, but that is only on the part of the people behind the product. It is not correct and not right for any fellow customers of Seleste Co to suggest we are beta testers and should shape our expectations accordinglg.
That being said, I have no regrests
As I said in my original post, the 30 day money back garantee has given me complete confidence in my purchase. It also gives me time to make a proper decision, based on facts not emotions.
I knew going in that that reality wouldn't match my expectations.
A long, useful experiment!
I just went out for an hours walk with my Guide Dog and throughout that time I used continuous scene description. The battery on the glasses dropped by 20% and the battery on the phone dropped by about 10%. That was a pleasant surprise!
I was using my AirPods Pro as well as the glasses and had audio in the Seleste app routed to the iPhone. This made a huge difference to my experience! The voice you get describing things is much more human-like.
As I walked along the Voice did describe some features in front of me but it was very sparse: I would get very bored of hearing that there was a sidewalk going straight ahead in front of me with a hedge on my right and the grassy area on the left with some parked cars! Occasionally it did make more interesting observations about items. What I did notice was that it only recognise a pelican crossing when I was about 2 yards from the traffic lights, whereas it spotted features like roundabout much further away. It also uses American terminology so for example it kept announcing that there was a pedestrian crossing ahead or on the right whereas there was simply some tactile paving. In the UK most people would understand by pedestrian crossing that there are white stripes on the road and beacons or traffic lights with a red or green figure illuminated - so this can be a bit confusing.
In order to get the glasses to report the name on a street sign, I had to stand and wait for nearly 30 seconds. I think it would be useful if there were some audible beep to indicate that the glasses had just taken a photo which it was preparing to describe to you because otherwise I was constantly left guessing at what point the photo had been taken and therefore how far back the description corresponded to.
It would also be useful if the assistant could indicate that the pavement or path in front is narrowing because it did not pick up such features nor that the pavement narrowed because there was a car parking space there.
Great potential!
Harry
@lottie.
You are beta testers because you're going to be testing new features as soon as they come out, well,, if you decide to keep the glasses.
What other word would you prefer they use? You're testing features as they develop, isn't that what a beta tester does? The only diffirence is you're paying to support the company and it's not free.
The app isn't on the app store yet as far as I know either so that's still being ironed out too.
I'm afraid I don't agree
I purchased a product being offered for sale, I wasn't asked to 'support' a startup - the glasses weren't offered on KickStarter. Therefore I expect to be supplied with a minimum viable product.
Nobody on this list can use this as an excuse to respond to any comments on this list they don't like agree with.
In the spirit of full disclosure, are any of the commenters on this thread beta testers? do you want to declare and interest?
ok.
well then we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
Interesting question
When is a beta tester not a beta tester? Say in a few weeks Seleste introduce a new feature and want feedback then at that point you are by definition a beta tester. Most people would update to that new feature and try it out. However, I do agree with Lottie that if a product comes with a set of features that have already been tested and bugs removed then that should be the minimum the person purchasing the product should expect to work. So in this instance, Lottie should receive what it said on the tin but going forward she may become a beta tester for future releases. Envision I believe introduced a feature last year called Describe scene and at the time they actually put in their updates it was a beta version. A couple of months later they released the full version. So I don't see any issues with that process. Afterall, say 2 people testing a feature can't be certain they have found all bugs etc whereas 100 people may well do.
following progress
Hi all, I agree with Lottie in some respects but i think what Brad and others are stating is that okay, you are buying the product with a down-payment. then, as you pay your 50 canadian dollars per month you are able to test i believe weekly features as they emerge and i understand, the new hardware comes out and you get it as you are a paying customer, yes beta testing the product but you will be helping from what i understand to shape its future. what i would like to know is on a differing note, when say i want to read a book will it describe any pictures in the book as well as reading the text and allow me to batch scan? i find with Be My Eyes i can't say batch scan a few pages and recognise in one go.
Full release, to me, means aā¦
Full release, to me, means a feature set that works 100 % of the time. Beta is as yet unreleased public features that still may have issues.
This sounds like a well intentioned product, but I'm not going to bother. There are going to be far better and more stylish products coming out with a wider user base in the near future. I don't want to be testing a product I've paid for, I want to use it.
Cafe menu reading
Just been out to a cafe and ELA read the menu out to me beautifully! The only snag was that the other 3 sighted people I was with kept interrupting my listening by talking to me! I will have to go into town alone to a cafe to practise asking ELA questions about their menu. Good excuse? Harry
@wil.
Exactly.
It's going to be interesting to see what comes out in a couple years.
I think it will be soonerā¦
I think it will be sooner than that. I've read several articles naming 2024 as the year of the AI glasses. Some have suggested that Open AIs first device will be glasses.. Though I'm not sure. Meta have certainly opened the door though, you're right, in a couple of years we'll be looking back on these devices and sniggering. Fools we are, fools we were.
We shouldn't be surprised that this product is a little rough
We shouldn't be all that surprised that the Seleste glasses aren't as smoothe as they're going to be with more work and development. From the begining on this Site, Brad let us know that this is a startup, and Shubh has been clear that this is early days, and the product will significantly improve. In addition, the app is clearly a beta app.
That being said, although connecttion hasn't been as smooth and easy as I think it will be in future, I'm hard pressed to know what the glasses fail to do the that was promised?
Recognize text within about 5 seconds, check.
Describe a sceen at the push of a button, check.
I haven't tried the walking around features, but read here that they work.
I have ideas on how they can be improved, but they do live up to their promise IMO.
Re: beta testing
They sound less like a beta than most major OS releases from Apple or any other bit of mainstream hardware or software I try to use. I know maybe there are different expectations with something actually built for us, but since I've been blind I feel like everything is beta.
I think being an early adopter of something like this, I would probably expect a few wrinkles. And I don't think we can consider anything that mentions AI as anything other than a beta. (That's not AI-bashing, I love it, but also we have to accept its imperfections) I think I would have been pretty annoyed if I had been unable to set it up when the meter is effectively running at that point, but it sounds like the company is pretty responsive.
The question is more around whether in its current form it does enough for you to warrant the price which is something only you can answer.
I don't think it does for me personally just yet but I'm continuing to read these posts with great interest and a tiny bit of jealousy. And I can't wait for someone to do a demo of the continuous mode! (OK I may have mentioned that already.)
I think really for anything that's a bit pricey I'm going to wait a generation or two and see how it settles down. The sound quality is going to have to improve as I don't want to have to buy another device just to use this one. Maybe I can somehow balance them on top of my Meta Ray-bans for that true 4-eyes look.
We are so close to the perfect blind person accessory - whether it ends up being the Celeste or Meta Ray-bans or something else, it's a really exciting time and it's hard not to get a bit impatient.
The experience when outputting audio through phone
Is very different to the one when just using the glasses. I don't know if it is me or a 'thing' but the the feel of a voice has a big influence on me. This 'feels' like a much better more polished product when used in this way.
I would go so far as to say I despise the builtin speaker and voice. The sound effects soften the blow of the delay and it doesn't seem quite as bad.
So far, this is more like the experience i hoped for.
My next task is to try them with my AirPods. But I am reluctant to accept that as a longterm solution, we had that discussion a few weeks ago.
I still believe the glasses part of any wearable solution need to be the platform for both cameras and speakers.
I am only on day four, so I have a lot of time to continue my evaluation. As everyone says the crator is so approachable, I am hoping to have a chat wiht him in a week or so, whei have learnt more.
beta-testing label
Lol this beta-testing label discussion is interesting, honestly, it's something that I struggle with as well. I think the best definition is what Lee said. We're constantly adding new features and so those newer features like using ELA to remember things are "in beta" since their less reliable whereas things like describing the scene are more reliable.
At the end of the day you are paying money for a product and we need to provide enough value to people such that it's worth that $50 a month. At our stage I guess part of the value also comes from being first to get access to new features. But what people find valuable varys a lot. That's why I like getting on calls with people to understand what they want from the glasses and I'm upfront about if we'll be able to do it and our timeline to do it.
Also, Harry you can reread what was previously said on the app under previous AI result, in case you get interrupted by someone talking or just want to read it again. You can also copy the text from there too if you want to save it somewhere else
The only metric that matters?
I've ben wearing the glasses for over two hours now. That has probs doubled the time I've worn then in total in four days. I haven't even used them in an hour, but for me, the measure of how useful these glasses are will be in how soon they become in indispensable part of my life.
Someone said to me today that they thought the subscription was high. My reply was simply "it's not a lot to be able to see" - of curse I can't see through thee glasses, but i can, sort of, can't I?
An Odd Thought
I read "The Murderbot Diaries," by Martha Wells, and the humans have some sort of internet-like connection in their brains. When they're looking at something in their brain connection, they get a blank stair in their eyes.
So is it going to be noticeable to the sighted people when, if wearing these AI-type glasses, we are receiving audio descriptions because we just kind of get this... look?
Patricia Cornwell also has a couple of characters in her "Kay Scarpetta" novels that use AI fed sun glasses in their Secret Service jobs. They're always getting information in the glasses that they don't talk about. So are sighted people going to be asking us how our glasses are describing them or other sighted-people-type questions?
Cost
Compare Seleste (Ā£600 per year). With Envision glasses (Ā£3500 plus Ā£200 per year). How many years of paying Seleste sub before they equalize? I reckon gettimg on for 9 years! Envision is quite old hardware. Do your own maths. Seleste seems pretty good to me
I've got used to not being able to see...
Nobody is saying the Seleste or any other smart glasses allow us to see. But it is something I am wearing that could give me visual information if I wanted it. I have realised that I am used to not being able to see, used to missing out on an ocean of information, used to spending far more time with my thoughts than sighted people.
Let me give you an example. Every day a bunch of crap is put through my door ā leaflets for fast food delivery, gardening, catalogues Etc. I throw them all in the recycling, I never have and never would use Seeing AI on my iPhone to see what they were, it just wouldnāt occur to me.
I have asked a few sighted people, all of them say they do the same. Most of them say they do āglance at things as they put them in the bin. I am wondering if I need to start forcing myself to 'look' at things through Seleste's eyes? I pride myself on my curiocity, but I haven't thought of getting my kitchen described to me - even though I spent a fortune on it two years ago! Of course I have had it described, but I have no idea wwhat colour my air fryer is!
Junk Mail
Sometimes I scan the junk mail of certain sized cards because neighborhood alerts are interesting. The rest gets used as scrap paper
I don't have a choice, my mind gives everything a color or appearance, sometimes just from it's name. Your air fryer is a kind of steel blue/gray, and I will have to fight with my mind if it turns out to be wrong. I did use the Clothes Color app to confirm that my pizza cooker is red, which I knew before I bought it, but is white in my mind part of the time.
I guess it might be nice to have instant color information about something before it is set in my mind. It also comes in very handy to know the actual color of things for when you have to talk about something with a sighted person.
Describing people?
Maybe I missed it. Has anyone with these glasses shared how they describe people around them? Appearance? Facial expressions? Body language? Clothing? Age? Attractive orunattractive? Make up? Neat or dirty? hair style? Complexion and eye color? Race or ethnicity? Jewelry etc. being worn? Mood? Abnormal features, such as big mouth or close set eyes? Height? Physical endowments, such as bust size, muscle mass, or fat? Sitting, standing, running, walking, crawling about on the floor (as if there was anywhere else to crawl)?
This is for the OldBear
The picture shows a black COSORI Air Fryer on a countertop. The air fryer has a digital control panel at the top with various touch buttons and icons indicating different cooking modes such as air fry, roast, and broil. There is an orange light on, which could indicate that the air fryer is either in use or on standby. The air fryer's basket handle is visible, suggesting the basket is currently inserted into the machine. There is also a small red bowl with some remnants of food next to the air fryer on the left side. The countertop appears to be dark grey, and the wall behind the air fryer is white.
Image description provided with Be My Eyes.