Two researchers from IIT Kanpur have developed a touch-sensitive, tactile, haptic watch that may assist visually impaired folks be taught what time it’s by touching the face. The watch makes up for two of the disadvantages of watches made for the use of visually challenged folks: first, the lack of privateness in watches that audibly announce the time and second, the massive sizes of contact delicate watches.
The prototypes had been developed by Siddhartha Panda, who’s a professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering and the National Centre for Flexible Electronics at IIT Kanpur, and Vishwaraj Srivastava who’s a Senior Project Associate at the Centre.
Telling time
The watch conveys the time in the type of vibrations when an individual touches the proper spoke on the face. For occasion, if the time is 6.15, the watch provides a vibration of barely lengthy length when the sixth spoke is touched and a brief vibration when the third spoke is touched. “The watches have resolution of five minutes right now, but with an improvement we are planning, the resolution can go up to one minute,” says Mr Srivastava. They have filed for a patent for the watch.
Not simply the easy watch, the researchers have additionally developed a prototype sensible watch which may, along with telling the time, measure important well being parameters.
They began engaged on the watches solely in September 2020 as part of an older and longer venture to develop a instrument that may assist a visually challenged individual interface with a pc. “This was basically the low-hanging fruit,” says Prof. Panda, about the venture. “The interface is more complicated and is in the process of being developed.”
The watch has been examined with the assist of an individual from IIT Kanpur who’s visually challenged. They plan to have a extra formal testing accomplished quickly.
The different venture – a pc user-interface that’s pleasant to visually impaired customers – is gaining floor. The machine consists of a wearable headset or headband, to which is hooked up a digicam eye, and a haptic glove. The phrase haptic refers to expertise that permits transmission and reception of knowledge by way of contact.
Virtual display
By coupling the digicam to the touch-sensitive glove, visually challenged customers may be helped to navigate a digital display unfold out earlier than them. Further if this digital display is coupled to a sensible cellphone or ATM, they’ll function the identical even when they aren’t capable of see it. This machine remains to be in the works.
Both Mr. Srivastava and Prof. Panda say that the tasks are near their hearts as they’ve been deeply affected by folks near them with visible impairment.
