To make the lives of blind people better, a company named YGA has developed a smart walking stick that it calls WeWalk Smart Cane. The product attaches itself to a normal cane and expands its accessibility features.
The smart cane provides users with warnings regarding obstacles found at their body and face levels, thanks to its obstacle detection feature made possible by ultrasonic sensors equipped in the device. This is a lifesaving feature in my opinion since a lot of blind people get hurt from obstacles at their face level without realizing its presence.
Making the experience even more seamless, the cane pairs with smartphones through Bluetooth. Moreover, the touchpad present in the cane can be used to control the smartphone and access some necessary features like voice assistant and navigation.
The device charges through a micro-USB port. In terms of battery life, WeWalk claims 20 hours of battery life on a single charge.
Coming to the pricing and availability, the WeWalk smart cane is priced at $499 and comes with 1 year of warranty. The company also has worldwide shipping through UPS, TNT or FedEx, in case you’re wondering.
It is worth noting that the CEO and co-founder of YGA, Kursat Ceylan is himself a blind person. “Beyond being just a product, WeWALK is a social platform and a movement which unites all blind people in the world, creates awareness in society, and fosters accessibility, social inclusion, more and equal participation in social life,”.
Being an open platform, WeWalk aims to integrate support for ride-hailing apps like Uber in the near future as the next step to expand the product’s usability.
Buy WeWALK Smart Cane($499)
