Full Transcript
Speaker 1:
Meet WayAround. It’s the smart assistant for people with vision loss that gives lots of information about everyday things. Versatile WayTags make it easy to tag items around your home and office. Pair them with the powerful WayAround app for your smartphone. Just create a description and any other details that are important to you. Then, tap a WayTag to store them.
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson and in the studio with me is Jessica Hipp and she is from WayAround. How are you doing, Jessica?
Jessica Hipp:
I’m great, Jeff. Thanks so much for having me on.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, you bet. I really enjoyed seeing your product at conventions and I’ve heard some other podcasts out there, but I heard a story about your father, Darwin Belt. That really was moving and I thought we’d bring you onto Blind Abilities and tell the story and talk about your product. Will you first tell people what is WayAround?
Jessica Hipp:
Sure. We say WayAround is a smart assistant. It’s an app for your smartphone, iPhone or Android, and it works with our smart WayTags. And you can attach those tags to just about anything in your home, office, even outdoors, things you use for hobbies, and you can put information on those tags that would be relevant to you, whether it’s a color or usage instructions or notes to self. Really anything you can think of, you can put it on WayAround.
Jeff Thompson:
So you do that all from your phone.
Jessica Hipp:
You do it all from your phone. It works with whatever accessibility settings you have. If you use VoiceOver or TalkBack, it will speak all of that information aloud to you. If you have other settings like inverted screen colors, large font, bold text, that sort of thing, then it’ll all appear according to your preferred specifications.
Jeff Thompson:
So describe that. Do I take a tag out, set it down, set the phone near it, or how does that work?
Jessica Hipp:
Yeah. NFC, near-field communication is the technology that powers WayAround. And if you’ve ever used Apple Pay or Android Pay, it’s the very same technology. And when they say near-field, it’s really, really close. So within about an inch and we often tell people, “Just go ahead and touch your phone directly to the tag.” And that’s what transmits the information wirelessly. So you’re not having to use your camera to, you know, like you would to scan a QR code or a barcode. You just touch your phone. On the iPhone, the NFC reader is in a really consistent place. It’s right on the very top of the phone. The top edge, not the front or back. So that’s the area of the phone that you would just touch to the tag and then whether you’re adding information to the tag, editing the information that’s on the tag, or just simply reading it, it’s all the same action. So you just touch your phone and once the app is opened, it’ll transmit. It’s a split second. It’s very fast.
Jeff Thompson:
So then it just pops up a dialogue area where you can insert like, “This is my blue shirt. Goes great with my khakis.”
Jessica Hipp:
Exactly. And we structured the information into two sections. The first is the description, which is exactly the kind of thing that you just said. Blue shirt goes with khakis. You could even put, “Wear this for important business meetings.” Or, “Don’t wear this to my in-laws house.” Whatever it is that’s important to you, you could put it in that description field. And then the second section for WayAround is the detail. So you choose a detail type, which could be things like clothing, or file folders, or personal care items. And then once you choose that category, WayAround will pop up with some standard fields. Let’s say with the clothing example, so it’ll have washing instructions, sorting instructions that you can pick from standard objects that way you’re not having to re-enter machine wash cold, machine wash cold, dry clean only. Time and time again, you just touch a button and it’s right in there.
Jessica Hipp:
And then each detail type also has the ability to add custom information. So we haven’t thought of everything. There’s certainly things that you could think of to add in that we haven’t thought of and you can do that with the custom field.
Jeff Thompson:
So how much data can you put into one custom field or one field?
Jessica Hipp:
So one tag can hold about 2,000 characters, which is a couple of pages in Word.
Speaker 1:
You can store as much information as you want. Scan a WayTag anytime to hear your information read back to you.
Speaker 2:
[inaudible], short sleeve, cotton shirt.
Speaker 1:
It’s a simple way to get better, faster information about your anything and everything. Imagine the possibilities. Tag your clothes with a description plus laundering instructions. Tag your pantry items with expiration dates and nutrition information. Tag your files, your toiletries, or even the boxes in your attic using your smartphone.
Jessica Hipp:
So it’s a lot of information that you can put on one of these tags.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, that’s really cool because you definitely in 2,000 words get the idea of what article of clothing you’re going to be wearing.
Jessica Hipp:
Right. I’ve talked to some people who are really into games, you know, board games and they have actually put all of the instructions for the games on one of the tags so that they can reference that or read through it.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, that’s kind of neat. In the letter I saw some other examples. Gardeners labeling stuff, but it can go anywhere that you can attach a tag.
Jessica Hipp:
Anywhere you can attach a tag and we have four different types of tags. Stickers, magnets, buttons, and clips. And so, there’s really a tag for just about anything. You know, you would use a button for something different than you would use a magnet for, but the technology works exactly the same. You just touch your phone to that tag and boom, there’s the information.
Jeff Thompson:
Now say for canned goods, you could put the magnet on a canned good or use a rubber band to attach it to, but when you use that and then you buy more, you can just move the tag to the next one.
Jessica Hipp:
Exactly. Or if you decided to buy a different type of item, then you could just rewrite all of the information on that tag and put it on the new thing.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah because scanning and looking for a barcode, that’s time consuming, but if you have your tag on there, you could just touch your phone to the can. Boom, there you go.
Jessica Hipp:
That’s the idea.
Jeff Thompson:
Well that’s great. And, these tags. You provide these tags. They can go into the app and order them from there?
Jessica Hipp:
We have a link in the app that you can order the tags. The app is free. You can get it from the app store or from the Google Play store. And then the tags are all about $1 a piece. We sell them on our website, WayAround.com. You can also get them through the A T Guys or LS&S, and there’s more and more low vision stores around the country that are also carrying WayAround.
Jeff Thompson:
Some place for everybody.
Speaker 1:
WayTags are about the size of a postage stamp and they come as stickers, magnets, buttons, and clips. They don’t require any batteries or charging, and there’s no fussy camera required to scan them. WayAround leverages a powerful wireless technology that is affordable, secure, and easy to use. Your information is stored and automatically backed up in the cloud.
Jeff Thompson:
How did you get involved with WayAround? Let’s go back to Darwin Belt.
Jessica Hipp:
Yeah. So Darwin Belt is my father. So that’s the easy answer. The bigger story is that my father, Darwin, is… he’s had low vision his whole life. He was blind when I was born and that was surgically corrected very quickly, within a few months. Since then, he’s had diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, night blindness, color blindness, and he’s had lots of different procedures to correct various issues at various different times, but I think he would tell you that he’s low vision.
Jessica Hipp:
So growing up, I was aware of certain things that, you know, he would read large print books and things like that, but I never really thought of myself as having a blind father. But there was one time that I left my shoes out and he had tripped over them and ended up breaking something and was in a boot for several weeks. And that was sort of my clue like, “Oh, I really have to make sure I clean up all of my things because Dad can’t see and I can really hurt him.”
Jessica Hipp:
So there were certain experiences like that that I knew this is a way I have to kind of look out for my father. But, he had a successful career as an architect. And he actually wrote software for a residential architect. And then after he retired, he had reconnected with a former business partner. They had gone to architectural school together. Armand Fisher is the gentleman’s name. And Armand had gone blind in his mid-50s. He had a virus attack his retina and lost 90% of his vision over a very short period of time.
Jessica Hipp:
So Darwin and Armand are both retired. You know, they’ve had a career in architecture and started talking about vision loss and how communicating all the things you have to communicate as an architect could really benefit people with vision loss. And that’s really where WayAround was born. And you might guess from our name WayAround the goal is really to go into public spaces and not just have this technology available for home and office, but to have it available everywhere whether it’s supplementing ADA signs. We’re working with a gallery to tag an art installation where you can get a description of the artwork. You can get information about the artist. So in a way it’s like alt text for the physical world.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, that’s a neat way of putting it. That is. I like that.
Jessica Hipp:
Good. So, Darwin and Armand, they started thinking of this as just kind of a, you know, a hobby. Something to spend their time on and then realized, “Hey, we think we really have something here and we’re going to try to create a business out of it.” And I remember there was one day that my dad called me and said, “You know, I want to start this business and I want you to work for me.” And I think I listed 10 reasons why it was a bad idea and about two and a half hours later we had talked through all of those and I said, “Okay. I guess I’m going to be working for you now.” And the rest is history. And it’s been a wonderful decision. One of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Jeff Thompson:
So you’ve been at the NFB conventions, the ACB conventions. I’ve seen your booths there and are you headed that way this year?
Jessica Hipp:
Yes. We are. We’ll be at the NFB convention this year. Unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to make the ACB convention this year because of timing and we’re a really small team. We love those guys and look forward to working with them in the future.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s great. Because it’s neat to really get your hands on the product and actually see it in action as you guys did so well. Now there’s a package there. They can buy an assortment of tags.
Jessica Hipp:
Yes. So we have a starter pack and what that is it’s 60 tags. So get 5-10 of each of the different types of tags. We have a couple of different buttons, a couple of different clips, and that way you can try everything out. And most people find that they really like a few of the types of tags. And then each individual type of tag, if you really like the oval hole button, which is one of our best sellers, you could buy just that product in a package of 25. You get that sampling of everything and then you can add more to your collection just of those tags that you really like.
Jeff Thompson:
And that’s not too far away. We’re headed down to Las Vegas. A lot of places could be tagged there. I like what you said about alt text for real life because there’s so many times where it would be nice to just find stuff out. And the museum sounds really good because usually they have a placard there that people are reading, but if you could just walk up with your phone and touch that area or get near that area, you could get it right there and it’s an easy fix for a museum to have accessibility built in.
Jessica Hipp:
That’s right.
Jeff Thompson:
Because there’s a lot of things in Las Vegas that could be tagged, especially in the exhibit hall.
Jessica Hipp:
Yes. And we have worked with the NFB this year to actually do that. We’re going to be tagging every table with WayAround so it will include the table number, the exhibitor’s name, that description that all the exhibitors have. And so you’ll be able to get all of that information through WayAround and I know I’ve been to the NFB expo several times and there’s a lot of people there and they have the quadrant system with different booths. So this is a service that we’re able to provide this year to give people more of a lay of the land so that if you’re looking for a certain booth or a certain booth number, you’ll have more information about how to get there.
Jeff Thompson:
Now, if they have an exhibit list and the table’s numbered and that, that could actually put on a tag as well, couldn’t it?
Jessica Hipp:
Exactly. And probably this year we’ll have simply, you know, you’re at table A25 and the name of the exhibitor and a little bit of generic information about the set-up of the whole expo hall. But you’re exactly right. In the future, there’s a lot we can do with WayFinding systems, whether it’s creating more things within WayAround, integrating with beacon-based systems or other types of WayFinding systems. And that’s really the beauty of NFC is there are all of these WayFinding systems. How do you get from point A to point B?
Jessica Hipp:
You know, if you’re trying to get somewhere in an indoor space, where do you go? And most of those systems can get you pretty close, but if you’re looking for something very specific within a foot or two, those beacon and WiFi-based systems, that technology just isn’t meant to get you quite that close. But if you’re in a retail store, you’re trying to find a certain box of cereal on the shelf, you need to know exactly where you are. And that’s really where WayAround comes in. Once you’re at point B, are you where you think you are? And what’s immediately around you?
Jessica Hipp:
So that’s really what we’re going to be doing at the NFB expo hall is, what table are you at? What’s on either side? And, what’s the general lay of the land if you’re trying to get to somewhere totally different than where you’re currently at?
Jeff Thompson:
That’s really cool. And my mind was racing as you started talking about all the different applications you could use this for. You could even have a WayAround PenPal thing where you just send someone a something that they would have to scan and who knows what you could send them. You could send a document. You could send all sorts of stuff.
Jessica Hipp:
That’s right. And that reminds me, I should mention that right now if you order WayAround, anything you write with WayAround, it’s private to you. So it’s account-based. So Jeff, if you write a tag and you want to tag your clothing, or medication, or a document, only someone who’s logged in with your account would be able to read that. And what we’re working on now with things like the NFB expo hall and some of the other beta sites that we’ve done, we’re doing this museum. We’ve done a couple of retail environments. Those are all public WayAround examples where there’s an admin who has read and write access, but the general public would just be able to read it so you can’t go into a grocery store and change all of their information and get people really confused.
Jeff Thompson:
Lower their prices.
Jessica Hipp:
Exactly.
Jeff Thompson:
Read only. So that, for the public areas, that makes perfectly good sense. This is a neat way… Say I was exhibiting eight different products from a line, I could put them right down there and someone could come along and just touch it and get the information right down the line that way too.
Jessica Hipp:
Exactly. And there’s some manufacturers that we started talking with about, “Gosh, wouldn’t it be great if you could send a box and someone could scan a tag and get all of the instructions for how to use something and if there’s a serial number that could even be included.” So there’s really a lot that’s possible with this technology.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. It makes really good sense because there’s so many products that I got. I just got a 40 year old turntable and I had to go online and try and get the manual. Then it’s a PDF and stuff. I just kind of wanted a story. I mean I can go to YouTube and get these stories, but it’s so visual and stuff, but it’d be interesting just you open the box up, you take the tag, you scan it, and there it is. That’s boom. You know? I like that.
Jessica Hipp:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And with that, you could also put your own information. So if you have your turntable example and if it’s 40 years old, NFC wasn’t even around then, but if… Let’s just say it’s a new turntable and they’ve put some information on an NFC tag, then you could also add information on top of it that would private to you. So you might say, “Here’s a cleaning schedule.” Or, “This is finicky and I need to make sure I use only this type of needle.” Or whatever it is that you’re wanting to know. There’s a layered approach to the information so you can make it really useful.
Jeff Thompson:
So I could label the buttons from left to right [crosstalk] just be like whatever I want to say into it, I could say, “This is return. This is cut. This is play.” And so forth.
Jessica Hipp:
Exactly.
Jeff Thompson:
And just store that maybe underneath it or near it or behind it.
Jessica Hipp:
Yes. Even on the very same tag. You know, you could use separate tags for each button, or you could just put… have one tag and add that information in.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. I’m just carrying on here about different ways that I could do it and I just started thinking about it. So it’s like, “Yeah, each item you could have for labeling.” Like a blender there’s eight buttons going across the front or a Crock-Pot or something. That’s really cool.
Jessica Hipp:
Right.
Jeff Thompson:
The more I think about it, the more I’m diving in here.
Jessica Hipp:
I love having these types of conversations because there are so many ways that you can use it and especially with appliances, maintenance is a really important way. And this is an aspect that goes beyond the BVI community. You know, to sighted people and I’m sighted. I have some sighted colleagues and we’ve all started using WayAround. So it’s one of these technologies that it was created with accessibility in mind and now we’re realizing, “Oh, there’s a huge amount of utility for everyone. It’s not something that’s limited just to people with vision loss.” I have a colleague who is really into house plants and each plant has a specific fertilizer schedule and light requirement. So she’s taken a WayTag, one of the clips and just stuck in the soil for each house plant and she has really detailed instructions for what needs to happen so that she doesn’t have to keep track of it on paper and go look it up. It’s just right there whenever she’s trying to take care of that plant.
Jessica Hipp:
And I have tagged a bunch of boxes for my kids’ clothes. I’m constantly sorting through and instead of having a masking tape system and scratching it out as in terms of what size they are, I just have WayTags to where I can rotate through things and update it really easily. For appliances, Darwin, my father, he’s tagged his refrigerator and washing machine, put in the phone number of the service person, and the last service date. And you know if… had to replace a part. So it’s kind of a log of what he’s done.
Jessica Hipp:
For the refrigerator, I know he’s used it several times. So we say that the only limit is your own creativity because there’s just so many different applications that you could use WayAround for, regardless of whether or not you have vision loss.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah that’s… When you talked about the public read only, that would be kind of neat. I don’t know if it’s capable yet. Say like family members want to access it too. So that would be neat in the future if you could open it up. Someone could actually turn that on or off, especially I have… collect record albums and I have some on the wall in frames that I could be like a museum in my own house.
Jessica Hipp:
Right. I love it.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. We could go on and on with this stuff.
Jessica Hipp:
We really could. The retail project that we did was at a micro-market for the business enterprise program which is blind entrepreneurs who are running, you know, just small convenience stores and federal buildings and that sort of thing. And we’ve done smart shelf tags. So all of the different products, if there’s a bunch of Pop-Tarts or granola bars, we’ve labeled not only the name of the product and the price, but all of the nutrition information, the certifications if it’s nut-free or gluten-free or kosher or things like that that are really important for people to know just to meet their dietary requirements.
Jessica Hipp:
So you can get all of that really easily and I’ve had so many people who consider themselves sighted say, “Oh, I can never read that stuff on the back of the package.” Or, “My family member has a certain requirement and if I could scan it that easily, it would cut down my shopping time by at least half if I could just scan through and know, ‘Yep, this meets the gluten-free requirement. I’m good.’ Or, ‘This isn’t gluten-free, I’m going to pass it over.'”
Jeff Thompson:
So if I do scan a tag at the retail store and I got that information, can I save that?
Jessica Hipp:
In the future, we will have more interfacing options to where you could save that information or you would be able to look through a whole list of all of your tags. Or there’s a lot more that we have planned that is still in development. So in the future, yes. That’s a great idea.
Jeff Thompson:
So what you said there, if I was looking at a product and I got product X and I scanned it at the store, I could take out my own tag and dump that information onto there so when I’m at home, I could have that labeled.
Jessica Hipp:
Exactly.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh wow. That’s pretty good. So not only are you buying the product, you’re buying the information. Easy access to it.
Jessica Hipp:
Correct. And I just want to be clear. We’ve done two locations so far. One in Connecticut and one in Atlanta. So and they were very much beta projects, but we’re working with the NFC and the Enterprise Program to be able to roll this out to other locations. And also some micro-market companies to roll it out to a more mainstream audience. So it’s coming soon and if you happen to be in Atlanta or Connecticut, you might happen upon those two locations that we’ve tagged so far.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. I was just talking to a gentleman from the Business Enterprise Program and those micro stores are basically, some of them, there’s not even an attendant at some of them. So there’s no one to ask anyway.
Jessica Hipp:
Exactly.
Jeff Thompson:
So it’d be nice to be able to just get the information right off the tag. The WayAround tag.
Jessica Hipp:
Exactly.
Jeff Thompson:
Well Jessica, I think this is great information and the story about your dad. Out of necessity, him and his partner came up with a tool that I think everybody can benefit from and I think I’m going to go to the site. What’s the site again?
Jessica Hipp:
It’s WayAround.com.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, I can go there or I downloaded the app and just input your username. Well, basically sign up for an account by an email address and a password and you’re in.
Jessica Hipp:
That’s it.
Jeff Thompson:
So is there anything else that you have to do with the app? And how user-friendly is it?
Jessica Hipp:
The app is really user-friendly. Often the thing that is hardest for people is finding that NFC reader on their phone. So again, if you have an iPhone, it’s that top skinny edge. If you have an Android, it’s not in a standard location, but what we recommend for people to do is to get a tag and just methodically move your phone over the tag and whenever you hit the NFC reader, your phone will vibrate and make a chime. So that’s how you know, “Okay. That’s where the NFC reader is in my phone.” And if you really can’t find it or you get stumped, just give a ring and we can help you out.
Jessica Hipp:
For an iPhone, you need to have the WayAround app open and then for Apple, the NFC reader is always in standby mode. So you have to push a button. So in the WayAround app, if you’re using an iPhone, there’s a read button. And you need to tap that read button and then it activates the reader. That’s the way Apple is currently working. There may be some changes coming out for iOS 13. We’re still exploring to see what all of that will mean, but it is for Apple you need to press that read button and then it’ll activate the scanner. And that’s when you touch it directly to the tag.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. Apple was a little late at coming onto the NFC technology as the Androids had it from day one it seems like.
Jessica Hipp:
Well they both had it from early on, but Apple really limited it to Apple Pay simply for security. NFC is known as a really secure technology and what Apples has said is they wanted to make sure that if they let third party developers like WayAround access the NFC reader, that it wasn’t going to compromise security in any way.
Jessica Hipp:
So, if you have an iPhone 7 or above, you’ll be able to use WayAround with your phone. I should mention iPhone 6, 6s, and SE has an NFC reader. You can use Apple Pay, but they don’t allow any third party developers to access that NFC reader. So iPhone 7 and above you can use WayAround. If you have an older iPhone, we have a little device called the WayLink and it’s an external NFC reader. And it’s about the size of a credit card and it connects to your phone via Bluetooth. So can just use that to scan instead of your phone. And some people just prefer that. It’s a pretty small device and it lets you scan really quickly without having to touch your phone to things that, if you’re cooking or something like that, you might not even want to be touching your phone to things.
Jeff Thompson:
Right. So I got a question for you.
Jessica Hipp:
Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
Last time in Orlando when I went to your booth, you guys had a little packet that if you signed up, downloaded the app, you’d get seven tags. Have any specials going this year?
Jessica Hipp:
We will have a free tag for everyone with some Braille instructions. So if you want to stop by our booth either WayAround or A T Guys, we’re going to be right next to each other. You can get a free tag and try out WayAround, and we’ll also have some other specials that we’ll be able to share really soon. So follow us on Twitter or Facebook. We’ll be announcing those also through email. So I just don’t want to… I need to check before we finalize everything.
Jeff Thompson:
All right. Well everyone who’s to Las Vegas, check them out in the exhibit hall and you can also find them on WayAround.com and download the WayAround app on Android or iOS. And start labeling your stuff.
Jeff Thompson:
Thank you, Jessica. It was really nice to hear your story, hear how this was developed. We’ll see you in Vegas. We’ll be down there enjoying the convention and hopefully we’ll see all the listeners down there too.
Jessica Hipp:
Great. We look forward to it. Thank you so much, Jeff.
Jeff Thompson:
Well thank you so much for taking time out of your day to come on here. I know you’ve been traveling lots. So thank you for sharing all this information for our listeners.
Jessica Hipp:
Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.
Speaker 1:
We developed WayAround specifically for those with vision loss, assuring it works seamlessly with VoiceOver and other accessibility tools. The free WayAround app is available for Android and iOS. WayAround, the smart assistant that puts information at your fingertips.
Jeff Thompson:
Such a great time talking to Jessica Hipp. Be sure to download the free WayAround app from the App Store or Google Play store and click on the link and get your WayTags today. And if you’re going to be at the NFB convention, look us up. Blind Abilities will be there. We’ve got Simon and John going down there. I will be there. Pete will be back at the studios holding down the fort. Nick’s headed to Italy. Serina’s headed to Disney. Allison’s settled in in Ohio. And Brian, well he’s back on the couch.
Jeff Thompson:
Enable the Blind Abilities skill on your Amazon device just by saying, “Enable Blind Abilities.”
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
Jeff Thompson:
For more podcasts with the blindness perspective:
Check us out on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com On Twitter @BlindAbilities
Download our app from the App store:
‘Blind Abilities’; that’s two words.
Or send us an e-mail at:
Thanks for listening.
*****
Contact Your State Services
If you reside in Minnesota, and you would like to know more about Transition Services from State Services contact Transition Coordinator Sheila Koenig by email or contact her via phone at 651-539-2361.
To find your State Services in your State you can go to www.AFB.org and search the directory for your agency.
Contact:
Thank you for listening!
You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities
On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com
Send us an email
Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Storeand Google Play Store.
Check out the Blind Abilities Communityon Facebook, the Blind Abilities Page, the Career Resources for the Blind and Visually Impairedand the Assistive Technology Community for the Blind and Visually Impaired.