The CSUN Exhibit Halls aren't always the places where you can find technology news. Sometimes they can be in the coffee shop, the line for pizza or even the lobby area of the Anaheim Marriot. J.J. caught up with Jessica Hipp, COO of WayAround, and Neva Fairchild of the AFB Center On Vision Loss in Dallas, in one of the quieter spaces at the hotel to talk about WayAround. In this conversation the pair talk about how the system is using tags for identification of materials and indoor navigation. For example, you can use WayAround to aid you in gardening, crafts and identifying specific products and objects in your home. Listen in as Jessica describes the differences between the iOS and Android versions of the app. And how you can enhance your experience with the WayLink. For more information about WayAround, you can listen to our coverage from ACB 2018
Or visit their website
Directly. And, full disclosure, the product is also available from our sister site A.T. Guys
CSUN 2019 coverage is Brought to you by AFB AccessWorld.
For the latest news and accessibility information on mainstream and access technology, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon offerings, access technology book reviews, and mobile apps, and how they can enhance entertainment, education and employment, log on to AccessWorld, the American Foundation for the Blind's free, monthly, online technology magazine. Visit www.afb.org/aw.
Transcript
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Hide transcriptTranscribed By Grecia Ramirez
Direct from Anaheim, it’s blindbargains.com coverage of CSUN 2019, brought to you by AFB AccessWorld.
For the latest news and accessibility information on mainstream and access technology; Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon offerings; access technology book reviews and mobile apps and how they can enhance entertainment, education, and employment, log onto AccessWorld, the American Foundation for the Blind’s free monthly online technology magazine, www.afb.org/aw.
Now, here’s J.J. Meddaugh
J.J. MEDDAUGH: CSUN 2019 coverage with Blind Bargains. A lot of times, we find things outside the Exhibit Hall. We wanted to get an update from WayAround. Jessica Hipp, the COO of WayAround, is here again with us.
Jessica, welcome back.
JESSICA HIPP: Thank you. Nice to be here.
JM: And joined by an advocate for WayAround and one of their most frequent users, Neva Fairchild from AFB.
Neva, welcome to the podcast.
NEVA FAIRCHILD: Thank you.
JM: So Jessica, I guess we’ll start with you. Go ahead and give people who might not be familiar the 30-second overview of what WayAround is, and then we’ll go into what some of the new things are.
JH: Sure. WayAround is a tag-and-scan system. It works with an app for your smartphone. It’s for both Apple and Android devices. And we have smart tags that come as stickers, magnets, buttons, and clips. So you can attach those smart tags to items around your home and office and then add any information that you want through the app. It doesn’t use a camera. You just tap your smart device right to the tag, and it transfers the information wirelessly. It’s quick, and it works with whatever accessibility settings you use on your smart device.
JM: So you mentioned the Android app. That is new since the last time we recorded last summer. How does the Android app work, or how is it different from the iPhone app?
JH: So it works very similarly to the iPhone app. One of the differences is the NFC reader in Android is, sort of, always on standby mode. So if you’re – if you’ve used the iPhone app, you know that you press a Read button before you scan. On the Android app, you will not see that Read button. You just touch your phone directly to the tag at the place where the NFC reader is and it reads. So it’s a quick scan, and that’s something that’s different from the Android operating system, so we’re able to work with it differently.
JM: Neva, you were just telling me about some of the unique or different situations that you were using WayAround in. Tell me about some of that.
NF: Absolutely. We have used it in our Center on Vision Loss in Dallas in the past as a virtual tour guide. So tags were at the doorway, on the door frame as you entered each room. And not only did the information on the tag orient you to where you are and how to get to the next place you want to go to, but it also gave lots of information about the products that were present in that room or the environmental adaptations that were made to just bring people’s attention to what was important, much like a virtual tour guide would do.
JM: Speaking of things that are important, one of the things that has been added recently are the addition of custom fields as well. How does that work.
JH: Yeah. So that’s – it’s a blank field in WayAround when you’re adding the details. We always encourage you to add the description, and that’s what you first hear or see when you scan a tag. And then, if you want additional information, sometimes, but not all the time, you can use the detail fields. And we have a bunch of different pre-populated fields for clothing, food items, files, and that sort of thing. But if one of our pre-populated fields doesn’t fit what you’re trying to tag, you now have the ability to do a custom field. So you could add any label and then any information that you want, and you have an unlimited number of custom fields that you can add to a tag.
JM: And you mention the phone apps, but you could also use that in conjunction with the WayLink.
JH: Exactly. So the WayLink is that external scanner that makes scanning really quick and easy. It connects to your device via Bluetooth. You do still need your smartphone because that’s where the app is, but the WayLink is a really nice accessory, especially if you use WayAround a lot and in environments that might be a little messy, like the kitchen or a workshop or gardening, things like that.
JM: It essentially is a little – would you say it’s a square box, and it has a little NFC reader built into it. It’s very tiny and compact. I have one of those now.
JH: Yeah. We say it’s about the size of a credit card and about a half an inch thick.
JM: So one thing that’s really interesting to me as well is your vision for the company, which goes beyond personal spaces into public spaces. Tell me more about that.
JH: Right. So WayAround was started by two architects with vision loss, so public spaces has always been, really, where they want to see this technology go. And we’ve just installed, in a micromarket, it’s a test location up in Connecticut. And on the shelves, we’ve tagged every single item, so you can scan and know, are you getting Cool Ranch Doritos or the Nacho Cheese Doritos. You get the product name, the price, and then if you want, you can swipe down and get the nutrition information as well. So it’s a great accessibility tool that really is powerful, you know. And retail environments, museums, pharmacies are other places that we’re in active conversations and planning to introduce this technology in the near future.
JM: So are you exploring ways to take a system like that and make it so it could be a bit more automated? Because if you have a large retail store updating every product and price every time it changes, could become a bit of a chore.
JH: Exactly. So, you know, just like in the home and office product, all WayAround information is in the Cloud. So for a retail environment, all of that information is already in a database. So it’s – for someone who’s updating the tag, it’s a pretty quick scan, and then they can link it to their database of existing products so they’re not having to type in information all the time.
JM: Is there an API so people could program -- automatically, directly tie into the system?
JH: So that’s exactly what we’re working on is making sure that it has the flexibility for, you know, both end users, as well as sighted or blind installers and then people who may be using it from a desktop version.
So all of those things are in the works, and we’re working with different organizations to make sure that it’s able to basically plug and play with existing systems.
JM: How do you both see WayAround coexisting or competing with other systems that help with indoor navigation information? Do you see yourselves coexisting as a part of a tool, or how do you envision working with other systems that are out there?
JH: Yeah. That’s a great question. So, you know, a lot of people hear our name and hear we’re founded by architects and automatically think indoor navigation. And WayAround is not way finding. There’s a lot of really interesting solutions that are doing that, getting you from point A to point B. WayAround comes in once you’re at point B, and it gives you the microinformation about a very specific location.
So if you know you’re on the cereal aisle, but you want to know, are you in front of the Cheerios or the Honey Nut Cheerios or the Lucky Charms, that’s the kind of information that WayAround can give you. And so it works hand-in-glove with systems that are more for the indoor GPS, the navigation type systems.
JM: So for someone just starting out, what would you say are some of your most popular tags, or where might someone get started?
JH: Sure. And I’d love to hear Neva’s thoughts as well. Our most popular tag by far is the oval-hole button. It’s about the size of a quarter and you can use it with a safety pin or a rubber band, so you can attach it to lots of different things. It’s waterproof, heatproof, cold proof, so if you want to put it on your clothing, you can – it can go through the washer, the drier. You can also use it in the freezer. And the most creative thing that I’ve heard is a lot of gardeners love this tag. They’re tagging their tomato plants to know the cherry tomatoes from the heirloom tomatoes or, you know, talking about seed starting. And they can put all sorts of information using our custom fields.
JM: What about you, Neva?
NF: Well, I like the stickers. I have a -- extensive crafting inventory of stamp art and knitting supplies and that type of thing. And so a sticker on the package that holds the stamp set or a sticker on the paper band around a skein of yarn lets me read it later. Even though when I bought it, somebody told me what color it was and what it was made of and how many yards there were, when I get around to using it, it’s a very different story as to how much I remember. And so my tags tell me all those details that I need when I’m ready to start a new project or ready to use my stamps to create a birthday card or something like that.
JM: Thank you so much. I appreciate the updates. Where can people get more information?
JH: Sure. You can go right to our website. It’s wayaround.com.
JM: And I should also mention in full disclosure -- and we are happy to be doing so – A T Guys is now carrying the WayAround products, so you can go to the AT guys website as well if you want to get more information.
Thank you so much, Jessica and Neva. I really appreciate it.
JH: Thank you, J.J.
NF: Great to see you, J.J.
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Joe Steinkamp is no stranger to the world of technology, having been a user of video magnification and blindness related electronic devices since 1979. Joe has worked in radio, retail management and Vocational Rehabilitation for blind and low vision individuals in Texas. He has been writing about the A.T. Industry for 15 years and podcasting about it for almost a decade.
