How Bluetooth Can Help the Blind
London's Underground is one of the biggest underground transport systems in the world. There are 270 stations and it is very easy to get lost there. This is especially true for the people who have troubles with the sense of sight. Recently, Ustwo, a group of developers who created a video game called Monument Valley, teamed up with the Royal London Society for Blind People's Youth Forum to create Wayfindr.
Basically, Wayfindr is a system that tracks the position of a smartphone owner and provides the user with directions. The system consists of a smartphone app (which is most likely to be voice controlled), a set of bone conduction earphones, that allows the wearer to hear the surrounding sounds as well as the audio instructions, and a set of Bluetooth beacons scattered around the Underground. These beacons are used to track the current position of the smartphone owners and provide them with the most basic information that may help the blind and partially sighted people navigate the Underground alone.
The project is currently being tested, but as Engadget reports, Transport for London is looking forward to further tests and may be considering a wide-scale integration of the beacons.
