Haptic's touch-based navigation helps blind and sighted alike get around without looking
Smartphones and navigation apps have become second nature these days. But for those with blindness and low vision, it’s not quite so convenient. Haptic has been building a non-visual, non-verbal way of telling people where to go, and they’ve decided it’s time to scale up and take it global.
Haptic presented onstage today as part of the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024, showing their progress from concept to prototype to platform. The company got started in 2017 when, after a friend lost their sight in an accident, a group of colleagues began looking into ways someone could navigate without using visual or auditory cues.
Though there are plenty of screen-reading options and spoken directions in apps, these options aren’t always convenient or practical. But as co-founder and head of business Enzo Caruso pointed out, there are other interfaces we could be using. Touch, for instance.
“Why not receive info in a more robust, intuitive, and accessible way? Everyone can understand the sensation of touch. It’s global, it’s worldwide, it’s universal,” he said.
The advance Haptic has made — and patented, Caruso noted — is a way of using vibration and other tactile sensations to communicate the simple, intuitive idea that the user is going in the right direction. Your device will send a steady pulse when you’re on track, then quicken or intensify if you veer off course; they call it a “haptic corridor.” Though it’s hard to imagine, they say it’s intuitive enough to get after just a few seconds.
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