Earlier this year, we discussed the app Seeing AI , developed by Microsoft, that can help blind and visually impaired users identify currency, recognize and read text, and scan bar codes. In 2019, a Boston-based startup by the name of Mediate released an app called Supersense for Android, which employs a unique design for efficiency and ease of use, and in April 2020 made it available for iOS users, too. Said one user about the app, “Totally blind dude using this app and it makes me frigging unstoppable. It really works for fully blind people. I love it.” The big plus is that Supersense works out of the box—the App Store. Supersense simply lets users point at text, bar codes, or money, and the app does the rest; there’s no need to set the app to a particular setting for recognizing denominations or reading text in advance. This simple design makes the app especially handy and appealing to less tech-savvy users. A visitor to the Supersense website will find a well-described video that demonstrates all the features, and points out which require in app purchases. Supersense does lack the multilingual and light intensity support that Seeing AI offers, and has difficulty detecting some currency denominations.
Menu
