One symptom people don’t realise comes with sight loss is the excess levels of cringe.  

Walking into doors, returning to the wrong table in a restaurant, or touching the wrong body part while attempting to find the shoulder of a friend who has offered to carry the drinks and guide you through the bar, are among the awkward moments that have happened to me. 

There isn’t really a lot you can do about them for the most part, other than reassure folk that you’re fine, apologise profusely, or become so embarrassed you resolve to flee the country.

Blindness throws a lot of barriers your way – but more and more, technology is helping provide the solution to some of them.

And there’s one app in particular that aids me in navigating some of the more common inconveniences that come alongside sight loss – Seeing AI. 

Seeing AI is a free app, designed by Microsoft and available to Apple and Android users, that has provided me with brilliant ways to not just manage, but live with a degree of independence that was previously unthinkable.

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Available through the App Store on your phone or tablet, Seeing AI can be downloaded to your home screen, where existing accessibility tools on your device can help you to navigate to the application.

You simply point the camera on your device, and let the verbal instructions help you to find your target – you can scan long text that can be saved and enlarged or read aloud, read a short text, and scan barcodes, as well as describe scenery and people, or identify currency. 

I started losing my sight in my teens, around 1992, due to a degenerative condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa. The degeneration in my eyesight hit its stride when I was in my late twenties, and has continued apace ever since. 

As a result, basic tasks like reading, cooking, getting around safely and deciding what to wear all require careful navigation.

I only discovered the importance of the latter in particular when I went to meet someone, not in the plain black number I thought I was wearing, but one with a word that was, in the context, insensitive in huge white letters across the chest.

It’s just one of the reasons I feel grateful to be able to use an app like Seeing AI that quickly and easily helps me to identify everyday objects, products, currency, ingredients and kitchen utensils. 

I heard about the app around four years ago, and I can’t quite remember exactly where but it was probably a podcast or a web search looking for tips on accessibility. I do remember downloading it immediately though. 

The most important thing to bear in mind is, with so many access or mobility aids, Seeing AI isn’t infallible. 

It makes mistakes. I once used it to try to identify a pair of earrings to make sure they were the ones I wanted to wear. 

What the app described was ‘a small frog, sitting on a white counter’. 

The earrings were in fact silver bars, and I’ve no idea where the frog came from.

Where it comes into its own though, is in scanning and reading documents, short texts, and barcodes. 

Dealing with them together in one app, with settings that allow you to alter the speed of the audio description as well as the language, makes life that much easier. 

Now I use Seeing AI almost every day.

The app helped me rediscover my love of cooking –  I can contribute more to chores around the house – and that’s particularly useful given that I have an incredibly busy partner, and two perpetually hungry step-sons. 

I use it to help me to identify medication, describe ingredients both when I am shopping and when I am cooking, and reading text that is impossibly small for me to make out. 

Of course it isn’t perfect, there are small algorithm flaws and the occasional missed barcode. 

So while sometimes I do just have to get my nose involved or, in the shop, ask an assistant, there’s no doubt this app helps a huge amount in letting me go about my life as autonomously as is currently possible.

It’s intuitive, practical, and perhaps most significantly, free. Far too much accessible tech for those with sight loss is so eye-wateringly expensive that if your vision wasn’t already compromised it almost certainly would be after seeing the price tag.

The app is in its early stages, but it’s a step in the right direction

It’s not just the app itself, it can complement other tech.

Right now I am learning French, using Duolingo. And while that app is excellent and teaches in a way that fits well for the way my brain works, it falls a little short on explanations of grammar – particularly verb conjugations (if you know, you know.)

With Seeing AI though, I can complement Duo’s French lessons by having it scan verb tables in a text book, then read it aloud so that I can repeat and remember it, learning by hearing. 

The short text function identifies the page and the document reader will scan an entire page, so that the text can then be saved and read using a zoom function if that works, or read out by your phone. 

I previously registered for language courses, both in-person, and online. In each case I felt overwhelmed by trying to physically get to a class, and manage textbooks.  

I didn’t have this app at that time, and the constant battle to make my access needs understood was exhausting and ultimately defeated me. 

Seeing AI helps in practical activities, my ongoing learning, and has even helped a little with that clothing situation, with a new function that can identify patterns, colours, and likely clothing types. 

While the app still isn’t sophisticated enough to be able to read out all slogans on t-shirts, it would have identified the fact that what I thought was a plain black t-shirt in fact had white text across the chest reading ‘QUEER’ in huge letters front and centre.

A little on the nose for my first time meeting my girlfriend’s ex-husband.

The app is in its early stages and doesn’t get everything right, but it’s a step in the right direction. 

And when you just want a laugh down the pub, it very much enjoys describing people’s appearances, including their estimated age. 

I guess some cringe is immune to technology.

The Tech I Can’t Live Without

Welcome to The Tech I Can’t Live Without, Metro.co.uk’s new weekly series where readers share the bit of kit that has proved indispensable for them.

From gadgets to software, apps to websites,  you’ll read about all manner of innovations that people truly rely on.If you have a bit of tech you can’t live without, email [email protected] to take part in the series

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