HearLight – Turn the Colors Around You Into Playful, Pentatonic Soundscapes

This sounds interesting. I think of it more as a game though if you walk around here different walking around and hearing different musical tones. I can see why that might be useful for somebody who’s vision impaired maybe. I don’t have any light perception at all so I don’t know if this will be that helpful for me, but I still think it’s a really great idea.

Wow, this is a great idea. I don’t have any light perception—at least not now—but I think I might’ve had some when I was a kid. Or maybe it was someone else describing it to me and my brain filled in the blanks. Either way, I wouldn’t say I live in darkness, exactly. It’s more like the impression of light, like the memory of it without the actual sensation. I’m not entirely sure how useful I’d find this app personally, and I’m not saying that to be rude or dismissive—I genuinely don’t know what I’d use it for. I don’t typically worry too much about color coordination with clothes, even though, yeah, I probably should. I’m sure I drive the sighted people around me up the wall when I insist on wearing whatever I feel like, regardless of how it looks together. But I can definitely see this app being valuable as a teaching tool—especially for someone growing up trying to understand color from a non-visual perspective, maybe even musically. That part intrigues me.

Now, you did mention that the app isn’t necessarily meant to be practical or utilitarian, and that’s fair. It’s a creative concept. But for someone like me, I’m still trying to wrap my head around what the main use cases would be. Is it fun? Is it designed for creative expression? Sensory translation? I downloaded it out of curiosity, but I didn’t see a free version or trial option, which made it hard to decide whether or not to recommend it to others—especially in such a visual-heavy space. To be honest, most color-detection apps I’ve come across don’t do super well with accuracy unless the lighting is perfect, and even then, results can vary wildly. One app might tell me a shirt is “sky blue,” another might say “navy,” and a third might throw in something wild like “robin’s egg blue.” So I get that even for sighted people, color is subjective and inconsistent, depending on the lighting, material, and interpretation.

That said, I really do want to support innovation and creativity—especially when I see developers bringing something new to the table, even if I don’t immediately know how it fits into my life. And for what it’s worth, the app is only three dollars—about the price of a Kindle book on Amazon—so that alone made me think, you know what? It’s worth it. Not just for the potential use, but to support your work. You never know when an app might come in handy, or when the app might expand into a more influential project later on. I’m all for stocking up on good tools, even the niche ones, before they get more expensive down the road. So yeah, I went ahead and made the purchase. If I have any feedback as I explore it more, I’ll absolutely let you know. I know this is a niche app, and times are tough, so if buying it helps you even a little as a developer, I’m happy to support that. Wishing you all the best with it—and congrats on putting something creative out into the world.

I’ve been blind since birth, so I literally have no concept of what colors are supposed to look like. My brain tries to fill in the blanks based on what people describe to me, but honestly? I don’t know what green looks like—let alone something like lime green or forest green. It’s hard to wrap my mind around all the different pinks, purples, reds, and blues. Sighted people will say, “Oh, black and pink is a great combination,” and I’m sitting here like, “Cool… but what does that mean ?” I don’t have a mental image to work from. One time, I was doing an interview online and they asked that classic customer service question: “How would you describe the color blue to someone who’s blind?” And I’m thinking, if the person has been blind from birth, how on earth are they supposed to picture blue in the first place? I get that the question is probably meant to test creative thinking or communication skills, but it’s such a bizarre ask. What are interviewers even hoping to hear in a case like that?

A couple of suggestions I wanted to offer for your app: Right now, the tone that plays for the different colors seems to be very similar across the board. Would it be possible to add completely distinct sounds to represent each one? For example, maybe red has a soft chime, green uses a bell, blue could be a mellow guitar note, yellow could have a trumpet tone. Different sounds would help users immediately distinguish between the colors without relying on subtle variations in pitch, which can be difficult to catch when VoiceOver is also talking.

Also, in the training section of the app, could you consider adding the magic tab gesture to quickly pause or mute both the sound and VoiceOver speech temporarily? The two-finger double tap to stop the tones or hush the instructions. Right now, if I’m trying to navigate the screen, it’s hard to hear what VoiceOver is saying when the tones are playing in the background. And it’s even harder to hear the tone clearly when VoiceOver is reading the colors at the same time. A quick gesture to mute or pause either one would go a long way toward improving usability.

Another suggestion: have you considered implementing voice interaction? A hands-free mode where I could say, “Tell me the color,” or “What color is this?” and get a response without needing to hold the phone up the whole time? This would make it way more comfortable to use in situations where I might need both hands free or where the phone’s microphone and speaker need to stay close to my ear. If I have to hold the phone out to scan my environment, it gets farther from my ear, which means I can’t hear the output properly—especially if VoiceOver is speaking at the same time.

Lastly, I think one of the biggest improvements would be linking color recognition with object identification. If the app tells me “blue,” okay—that’s good—but what’s blue? Is it the pillow on my bed? The shirt I’m holding? A section of the wall? Is it my teddy bear or the throw blanket? Even if the app isn’t meant to become a full-blown object detection app along with the descriptions (which I get), it would help to at least say what object the color is being detected on. Otherwise, it’s a floating color label with no context. Knowing what the color is attached to makes it meaningful and usable.

Trace See does fulfill this task, albeit in a somewhat inconvenient manner, so it may better suit your expectations if you're looking for such a thing.