Technology to assist visually impaired people is progressing far beyond the dog and cane. These technology concepts  – all of which are still in the design stages and not available for purchase – could someday bring the world into focus for those who can’t necessarily see it unassisted.

The Tactile, Temperature-Enhanced Wristwatch

Watches for blind folks are all about feeling, rather than seeing, the time. This concept from designer Jung Hoon Lee is known as the Rub Feel Know watch. It puts a rather unusual twist on the expected raised bumps on the watch face. The hour hand is represented by an indentation near the center of the watch. The minute hand is a small bump which is situated closer to the outside of the face.

If feeling the positions of the indentation and the bump doesn’t give enough haptic information, there is another helpful element. The hour indicator feels warm when you touch it, and the minute hand feels cool – along with the concave and convex indicators, the temperature lets users feel exactly what time it is.

The Finger Mounted World-Seeing Camera

The 3D-printed EyeRing, developed by a team at MIT, is worn on the finger like a ring. It’s equipped with a tiny camera, a processor, a Li-ion battery, and a Bluetooth module.

To identify an object, the user only has to point the EyeRing at it and then press a small button on the side of the device. It snaps a picture, which it then sends to the user’s smartphone. After giving it a simple voice command, the app can then identify colors, currency, text, or price tag information and relay the information to the user’s Bluetooth earpiece.

The concept still needs a lot of development to be viable as a real-world product, but the creators think that they’ll be able to produce the module at a consumer cost of less than $100.

The Solar-Powered Retinal Implant That Could Restore Sight

Retinal implants are nothing new, but current iterations aren’t perfect. They’re often painful and need to have a physical link between the implant and a pair of sunglasses – an arrangement that doesn’t sound pleasant at all. Researchers at Stanford took the traditional retinal implant idea a step further by making the implant wireless.

The user still needs to wear sunglasses which contain a small camera. The camera projects images directly onto the user’s retina so – while they won’t be able to see perfectly – it will restore at least some of their vision. As a bonus, the entire setup is solar-powered so there’s no need to wear a bulky battery.

The Smart-Talking, Walk-Guiding Brick

Using a white cane to navigate sidewalks is a huge help to people who can’t see well enough to navigate by sight alone, but the cane can’t tell you where you are or how to get to your destination. The Blind Guider concept works by embedding “smart bricks” into city sidewalks that work with sensors on an electronic cane.

The cane comes with a Bluetooth earpiece that fits into the cane’s top when not in use. When the earpiece is in use, it relays information from the smart bricks. Each brick is equipped with an RFID tag that transmits information when the cane makes contact. It tells the user what intersection they are standing at and, when moved around to other parts of the brick, can give information about the surrounding areas as well.

Using this system, visually impaired walkers could easily find their way around a city with minimal knowledge of its layout. It seems that this product is just a dream, though, because the infrastructure needed to make it work would be expensive and complex for cities to install.

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Blind Ambitions 11 Game Changing Visual Assistive Concepts

It’s difficult for those of us with sight to imagine just how different daily experiences are without this ability – but all of the challenges associated with visual impairment are being addressed at an amazingly rapid pace with stunning modern gadgetry. These 12 inventions for the blind featured on Yanko Design use today’s technology to read, navigate, learn, solve puzzles and create art.

B-Touch Mobile Phone

Imagine how much easier it would be for the visually impaired to perform everyday tasks like talking on the phone, reading a book and recognizing objects if they had an accessible all-in-one device like the B-Touch Mobile Phone concept. Designer Zhenwei You incorporated braille, voice systems and optical reading devices

Braille Rubik Cube

It may take a bit more time to actually feel out the face of each individual square in a Rubik’s cube than to attempt solving it visually with colors, but this braille-equipped version is certainly an interesting challenge even for those who aren’t visually impaired.

Safe and Sanitary Mug

How would you like having to burn yourself on hot coffee just to keep track of how much you’re pouring into a mug? Most blind people have to use their fingers, but the awesome Braun Bell Concept Mug by Sang-hoon Lee and Yong-bum Lim makes the process much more safe and sanitary. The mug emits a certain sound when liquid reaches each water sensor.

The Eye Stick – Walking Stick that Sees

Sonic vibrations provide one of the most accurate ways for the visually impaired to get their bearings in an environment, so equipping the end of a walking stick with a little sensor can instill confidence even when dealing with stairs and other potentially dangerous scenarios.

Tactile Flash Cards for Learning

When you can’t see, you rely upon hearing and, of course, touch in order to learn – so tactile flash cards imprinted with the name of an object in braille on one side and a physical texture on the other are a particularly effective way to become familiar with new things.

Feel the Time

The design of the ‘Feel the Time’ watch is so brilliantly simple, it’s amazing that it’s not already commercially available. The minimalist black face features two separate discs, each with one tiny nub – one that signifies the hour, and one for the minute. A break in the outer circle at the 12 o’clock mark acts as a guide to get an accurate reading.

Braille E-Book

It’s hard enough to lug around multiple heavy books, but doing so with expensive, extra-bulky braille books is downright impossible. So as convenient as E-readers are to those with sight, they would be far more so to the blind. This Braille E-Book concept, which dynamically changes the surface pattern with an electromagnetic signal, could revolutionize books for the blind.

Sign Language Voice Translator

One particularly troubling communication scenario is that of a deaf person and a blind person, unable to hear or see each other’s voice or gestures, respectively. So the Sign Voice Language Translator is an interesting prospective solution – a gadget on a necklace that converts gestures to voice and voice into written text.

Navigation Bracelet

What looks like a modern piece of plastic jewelry is actually a navigation system that uses GPS, voice commands and audio and haptic feedback to provide the blind with a level of independence that is currently impossible for many. Yanko Design notes that it could benefit the sighted as well, simply making it fast and easy to navigate a new city.

Touch Color Painting Tablet

Sure, people without sight can paint and often produce stunning artwork without ever having a real sense of color. But when color temperature becomes literal, cool blues and hot reds are differentiated in a new way that permits far more creative expression. The Touch Color tablet uses thermal energy and a hand-held color wheel to create works of art. The color wheel can even capture actual colors from a user’s environment and transmit it to the tablet.

Color Sensor Helps See with Sound

Art is invaluable, but why not bring the ability to sense colors into everyday life with a more practical application? The Bright-F Color Sensor can help the blind “see” colors by associating each color with a particular sound – a huge help when sorting laundry or picking outfits.

Braille Polaroid Camera

Touching an object may help a blind person get a sense of what it is, but unlike the sighted, they can’t use photographs to capture and keep memories. The Braille Polaroid Camera, however, acts as an instant braille printer, translating the basic shape of an object into texture so that the blind can collect “images” in an album.