{"id":9695,"date":"2026-11-05T07:15:30","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T13:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/?page_id=9695"},"modified":"2026-11-05T07:15:30","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T13:15:30","slug":"feeling-a-smile-exploring-aleye-with-hapwares-jack-walters","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/?page_id=9695","title":{"rendered":"Feeling a Smile: Exploring ALEYE with HapWare\u2019s Jack Walters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Podcast Summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What if you could feel someone smile, wave, or reach out for a handshake? Jeff Thompson welcomes HapWare cofounder Jack Walters to explore ALEYE, a wearable wristband designed to translate facial expressions, gestures, and other nonverbal cues into distinct vibration patterns. Working with a smartphone camera or Meta glasses, ALEYE offers blind and low vision users another way to access the silent side of conversation. How do you learn those patterns? Can you choose which cues you receive? And what\u2019s coming next? Discover how touch could open new possibilities for connection, from classrooms and job interviews to everyday social moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Links of interests:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hapware.com\/\">HapWare.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hapware.com\/events\">HapWare.com\/events<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thanks for listening!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Full Transcript:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>{Music}<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>We were named one of time magazine&#8217;s Best Inventions of 2026,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>depending on the nonverbal cues. So kind of think of it as someone reaching out to shake your hand, waving, smiling. We communicate that to the sense of touch or haptics on the wrist.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>And I also want to give a super big surprise announcement. We&#8217;re adding object detection and text recognition without any need for prompts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>Welcome to Blind Abilities. I&#8217;m Jeff Thompson. Today in the studio we have the co-founder and CEO of HapWare, Jack Walters. Jack, welcome to Blind Abilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Hey, Jeff, thank you so much for having me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>I&#8217;m excited to get you on here and talk about ALEYE, the HapWare device, because I just got something on an email saying that you&#8217;re doing a bunch of events all over the place. So the Vista Center I saw was coming up November 18th and I dug in and by gosh, here we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Here we are. Yeah, we&#8217;ll be all over the country showing off our new technology that is here. The ALEYE wristband set to launch very, very soon. So on our website we have an events page. We&#8217;re going to be all over the place. We&#8217;ll be in CALEYEfornia, we&#8217;ll be in Florida, we&#8217;ll be in Colorado, we&#8217;ll be in Vegas. So chances are, if you want to see the technology in person, there&#8217;s a good chance that you might have the opportunity at one of these events that we&#8217;ll be at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>And you can find that@HapWare.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>That&#8217;s correct. HapWare.com\/events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>So we&#8217;re talking about HapWare. And I mentioned ALEYE, that&#8217;s ALEYE. Why don&#8217;t you give us a little overview of what this product is?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Absolutely. ALEYE is a wearable assistive technology that communicates all the different nonverbal cues like gestures, body language, and facial expressions through the sense of touch or haptics on a wristband. So it&#8217;s like a normal wristband that you would wear, kind of like a watch. It has these vibration motors integrated in them and depending on the nonverbal cues. So kind of think of it as someone reaching out to shake your hand. Are they walking away from you while you&#8217;re talking, waving, smiling. Any visual thing that people do, we communicate that to the sense of touch or haptics on the wrist. So if someone&#8217;s smiling, you get a vibration that feels like an upwards arc or like a you going up and around. Someone&#8217;s walking away. It feels like a little pulse going from one end to the other. And we do this all in wristband. But where people also really enjoy it is that we integrate with your phone. So we have a phone app that you can use the camera on your phone or the meta glasses. So many people in the blind community are using meta glasses. We have an app that integrates it with it. So you can say, you know, hey, meta launch app where you download the app, and then from your glasses camera, it will stream directly to the wristband and give you that information. And we&#8217;re really, really excited because just recently, a couple of weeks ago, we were named one of time magazine&#8217;s Best Inventions of 2026 for the accessibility category. So really getting a lot of recognition and a lot of people seeing the value and the life changing ways that ALEYE&#8217;s being used and the largest publications in the world are seeing it as well. So it&#8217;s a blessing. We really owe it to our community, has supported us and believed in what we&#8217;re building, and we&#8217;re really, really excited to continue to launch this product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>Well, congratulations on being recognized by Time Magazine. That&#8217;s awesome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Thank you. Yeah, we&#8217;ve gotten a ton of inbound interest. This is part of why we&#8217;re going around the country with these different advocacy and nonprofit organizations looking to scale, ALEYE and get into the people&#8217;s hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>You know, Jack, when I first lost eyesight and couldn&#8217;t make out facial expressions, I started listening to their voices and I would interpret the facial expressions like the rolling of the eyes. I can interpret that kind of, but to see a form of communication come back would be very interesting to try out. So one of these events, I&#8217;d love to be there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:<\/strong>&nbsp;And I feel there is a need because that&#8217;s one of the first things I notice in my communication skills is I don&#8217;t see the responses. I don&#8217;t know what they&#8217;re feeling. All those things that I used to take for granted. And ALEYE now brings that back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Absolutely. That&#8217;s exactly how we started. So a little bit of the origin story is Brian, my co-founder, is completely blind. He lost his sight when he was 18 years old. And over half of communication is visual nonverbal, like you mentioned. So it really comes from that lived experience of knowing, you know, when you&#8217;re at a job interview, someone&#8217;s trying to shake your hand or smiling or you&#8217;re, you know, hanging out with your friends or your family and they&#8217;re doing X, Y, or Z. That information is just inaccessible, but it&#8217;s very, very rich into what people are doing. So that&#8217;s really where it comes from. It comes from the lived experience. It comes from that point of view, and it&#8217;s really what we&#8217;re trying to spread awareness of and improve and create is that accessibility and independence. And we&#8217;ve seen really great results from it. Right now in beta, we always have people using our app and just getting life changing testimonies, like parents saying that they&#8217;re able to recognize their kids smiles when they&#8217;re walking up to them, or a person in work knowing what their peers or customers or other stakeholders are doing while they&#8217;re presenting it can just be super empowering. And we&#8217;re really excited to see those things and then double down on them as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>How long does it take for someone to be able to get those haptic sensations that come from the wristband to the point of understanding them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>That&#8217;s a good question. So it doesn&#8217;t happen instantaneous, people understanding and learning the haptics. You do have to sit down and take some time. Just how any technology takes time. Even though you might spend a couple hours getting comfortable with it or, you know, a day or two. And really that&#8217;s kind of what we see with the haptics is it takes, you know, a few hours. But really what helps people learn it is just using it and having the haptics going and the audio going. So what I mean by this is we offer with the meta glasses or your phone, that it will give you the haptic and speak it to you. So it gets that kind of reinforced learning. So if you&#8217;re smiling, you&#8217;ll get the haptic smile. But then it would also tell you smile. So a lot of people just learn from kind of using, besides just getting in the app and going through and pressing the buttons on the app and feeling the patterns directly. So you kind of have to do both. We have an onboarding sort of like tutorial workflow. Start using it and it will start sort of coming together. And it usually takes, you know, just a couple hours. And then the power of it is that over time, it&#8217;s like second nature. So if anyone uses the haptics or vibrations on their phone or their Apple Watch, they know what I&#8217;m talking about, right? Like when you get that phone call and you feel that first or second vibration in that rhythm, you know exactly what it is, right? You know, this is a phone call from John or, you know, the difference between the text or the call on your Apple Watch when it goes off, whatever it may be. That&#8217;s the same way that we do it. And it&#8217;s super comfortable, super familiar. And the reason that ours is so much better and why an Apple Watch or phone can do it, is because we have like esentually eight times the fidelity and motors and everything else that these other devices have. So it&#8217;s like a very, very holistic haptic experience that isn&#8217;t recreated from anything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>What about information paralysis? And what I mean by that is I&#8217;ve seen devices that talk\/describe everything to you, but it doesn&#8217;t seem like in public or during a conversation, you can&#8217;t double up on so much information that you&#8217;re not paying attention to what your intention was. I&#8217;m just wondering is I believe there&#8217;s 25 haptics that they receive from non-verbal cues. How do you weed through that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yeah. So plus or minus, you know, we&#8217;re kind of constantly iterating and making improvements and making sure that we roll out things that are good. So there&#8217;s a few things here. One is people can select and deselect the cues that they want. If that is something that comes up. So that means you can select these five cues and deselect the others. And you can make presets. So you say, hey, I have a home preset and I have these cues that only get communicated to me when I&#8217;m at home. And then when I&#8217;m at work, I have these cues, handshakes, waves, head nods, whatever it may be. So you can do that. But what we found from testing. Actually with people using it for long terms, weeks at a time, a lot of people actually want a lot of the information because it&#8217;s not like something that is overly communicative, meaning that it&#8217;s overwhelming. Like it&#8217;s not like you&#8217;re getting like a ton of stuff. You kind of just get it once or twice, depending on how often the cues happen. So it really kind of takes away the cognitive load part. And that is the power of haptic technology when we&#8217;re using haptics. So you&#8217;re right, if something was talking in your ear the entire time during a conversation, it would be impossible to listen. The other day we did a webinar and Brian had to get a questioned, repeated to him because his screen reader was talking to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>At the same time, one of the audience members was asking a question, right? If you were in a conversation in person and someone was talking in your ear and you were trying to answer a question or listen, you wouldn&#8217;t be able to do both things at the same time. But with haptics, it kind of works like how a sighted person receives information with their eyes, like they don&#8217;t try to receive information with their eyes. They just do it passively, right? Like the eyes passively interpret or pick up their surroundings, like the wall being white, or there being a sign over here, or the speed limit. The haptics give that person that passive autonomous information. Like when you receive a phone call, you just interpret it and it doesn&#8217;t take away from the moment or other things that you&#8217;re doing. That&#8217;s kind of how the haptics work. It&#8217;s like a passive interpretation, and that&#8217;s kind of like the breakthrough in what we&#8217;re trying to build in our building is that you can, for people who are blind or vision, there&#8217;s no sacrifice. You know, it&#8217;s not like, oh, this is my screen readers going off. I can&#8217;t listen or I can&#8217;t talk or whatever it may be. You know, the haptics give you that independence, but they also give you the information that you&#8217;re looking to receive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>That&#8217;s pretty cool that it inadvertently you got that information and it didn&#8217;t disrupt any part of your other senses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Definitely. Yep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yeah. I like that example of you see the speed limit sign. If you&#8217;re driving down the road, it really doesn&#8217;t distract you. It&#8217;s just information that&#8217;s there for you to take in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:<\/strong>&nbsp;You mentioned ALEYE and that is the wristband. Can you explain that? I suppose just like a watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yeah. So the wristband is very similar to. Just like a watch. Except it doesn&#8217;t have a face that tells time. So the way that you can imagine it is it&#8217;s really the same size, very, very similar in size, super small and discreet. It has an adjustable strap so it can fit any sized wrist. And then the top of it has sort of just like this really sleek, not shiny, but not matte colored to it. It&#8217;s like a very just like discreet dark color black. Usually what we have, but you can get different colors. And on that top face of the kind of like where the quote unquote watch would be, are these different motors that are placed around in an array, an array. There&#8217;s eight different motors on there. So you put it on the top of your wrist, just like you would a watch, tighten it, how you would feel, whatever feels comfortable. And then that is where the vibrations occur on the top of your wrist, on the top of your, kind of like where your, your hand would be in a way. And there&#8217;s three different nerves on the top of the hand on the wrist, which is why we put it there. That is how it feels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s super small, it&#8217;s discreet. And the reason that we made it a wristband in the way that we did is because we want it to be aesthetic. Like people wear watches, people wear smart watches, they health, fitness sort of things, and they look good. A lot of assistive technology like not to, you know, talk trash to our counterparts or people in the industry, but a lot of assistive technology looks like assistive technology. It&#8217;s like a crazy thing that people would put on or a headset or something really, really cumbersome. So we&#8217;ve made it to be fit into daily life like any sort of consumer good or wearable would. So that&#8217;s really, really important to us. The aesthetics matter. You can get custom colors on your wristband. If you want something that is rose gold or pink, you can get that if you want navy blue. If you just want black gray, you have this optionality. So it really is something that like looks good. Like you can put it on going out to dinner, you can put it on at a date, you can put it on at work, at school, walking around, going grocery shopping. It&#8217;s super, super comfortable and sleek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>So like grocery shopping, if someone&#8217;s coming at you, would it recognize that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yes. So we do all the presence cues too. So someone walking up towards you, walking away, turning left, turning right. And I also want to give a super big surprise announcement. Kind of was I was wondering when I should bring this up. But I think right now is the right time. So we do the non-verbal cues. But one thing that we&#8217;re adding right now, and we&#8217;re actually going to be beta testing this, I don&#8217;t know when this comes out in November is when we&#8217;re bringing this to our users and our beta testers is we&#8217;re adding object detection and text recognition without any need for prompts. So for instance, say you&#8217;re in a grocery aisle and we have all this now features going on and you walk into the grocery store, you look up, it tells you exactly what it is, what kind of food and objects are in front of you. And then you also get the information of the people, someone walking away, someone smiling, someone pointing in a direction. So we&#8217;re really building it to be a holistic experience and then adding our area of haptics to make it that autonomous and low cognitive load aspect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>So what you&#8217;re saying is it&#8217;ll identify the aisles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yeah. If you look, it will tell you this is IL two and then it will read and you wouldn&#8217;t even have to ask. You don&#8217;t have to say like, hey, meta, it&#8217;s all no prompt. So zero prompts, meaning that there&#8217;s no like asking for it or telling someone to do it, pressing a button, it will do it for you automatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>Mhm. Yeah. I was preparing for this interview and I was walking around the house and I was thinking, I always had this thing about telling people, what kind of information can you get when your arm bumps into a door jamb? How fast can that knee jerk reaction be that you move over four inches to pass through it? And that&#8217;s just something that you develop over the years. But with this type of technology and being so discreet by the haptics, if you have it set for like doorway passages or something of that nature, I was just, I was thinking maybe they could have two dots on the side and show that you&#8217;re way off to the right or way off to. I was just brainstorming and what it could be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yeah, 100%. And like, that&#8217;s where the feedback and the community is so important. Anyone that pre-orders our device, they automatically get access to the app now for the wristband is live and they give feedback on this stuff. And this is where it all comes from. So like if you were like, oh, you know, just door, right? Like knowing where the door is in a room and which door it is, or if it has a sign on it that all just comes from the community feedback. And then we&#8217;ll add that so many of the things that we added and have, and cues and features and functionality really just come from the people that are using the app and using the technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yeah, that would be neat if you could align yourself to the door as you&#8217;re walking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yeah, that would be, I think we could, I mean, like with haptics, like there&#8217;s probably a future path where we could do that in some way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>It&#8217;s kind of like a Atari game on your wrist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>(laughter)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>Nothing against Atari, but.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yeah, yeah, I dated myself there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yeah. 100%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>Well, that&#8217;s really cool, I like this. I remember when it first came out, I don&#8217;t know, probably a year ago, I started hearing rumors about it. I don&#8217;t know if it was a year ago. How did you get the company started? I mean, what brainstorm brought it together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>It started when Brian and I met at Colorado School of Mines, which is like an engineering school on a research project around haptic wearables. So I was building something that was like wearable haptics related around like tapping inside the sense of touch. And then Brian being someone who&#8217;s blind or low vision with all the lived experience and having a PhD in haptics and computer science kind of brought in this like, you know, overarching, like, oh, well, like visual information, like there&#8217;s other things that would really, really be important to people who are blind or low vision. And we could use haptics to do that. So we kind of just went from there. It was like, you know, a lot of lived experience. We were on this research project together, working on things kind of in this space, but obviously it developed and grew from there, doing problem discovery and doing beta testing and everything else. But that&#8217;s really where it came from. Was, was that sort of like lived experience working together on a research project in the haptics area?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>I&#8217;m wondering, like, I&#8217;m in front of a TV screen or a monitor or computer monitor right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:<\/strong>&nbsp;Zoom calls would\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:<\/strong>&nbsp;yes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:<\/strong>&nbsp;I would. Oh, yes. Good. Sounds good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yes. Isn&#8217;t, ok, It doesn&#8217;t work. We don&#8217;t have a Zoom extension. But Bryan and some other people do use it on like their TV. And I&#8217;m not saying it&#8217;s perfect because it&#8217;s not because there&#8217;s like, it&#8217;s two dimensional and there&#8217;s a screen. So there&#8217;s like glare, you know, when you&#8217;re pointing a camera to something, but it does, it does kind of work the way it is now. We do want to eventually build like Zoom and Google Meet and sort of like virtual call extensions, but it does have a lot of capability right now, just the way it is. So we do see that coming in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>Oh, that&#8217;d be really cool. Yeah, that&#8217;d be really cool. So how can people find out more about HapWare and ALEYE?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yes, they can go to our website HapWare.com, H A P W A R E.com. That&#8217;s where you can find information if they want to use the app. Now we have an option where people can put down a $59 preorder deposit. So with $59 down, you can start getting the app now and you can secure your 20% off of the preorder of the retail price. So you get a good discount. You start using the app now and then we also have just like an overall newsletter that will really encourage people to stay up to date with, find out where we&#8217;re going to be, what we&#8217;re going to be doing, go to our webinars and stuff like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>And what kind of price is the ALEYE product?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>So for retail, it&#8217;s going to be 449, but for preorder it is $359. So nearly $100 saved. And then if you put down the $59 deposit, it locks in that preorder price. And then you don&#8217;t have to pay the rest until it&#8217;s ready to ship. And it&#8217;s all, everything&#8217;s obviously fully refundable, 30 day money back guaranteed, and a one year warranty. So if the device doesn&#8217;t work for you or you don&#8217;t like it, you can ship it back, get your money back. If it breaks within a year, you can get a new one. So really, really friendly terms and just like making sure that it works for you because we understand that, you know, people have to get, you know, yeah, not every technology works for everyone. So giving people the opportunity to really feel it and try it out before they go all in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>So in upgrades and everything like that, is there a subscription?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yes, there is a subscription. And you know, we do have like free trials and stuff. So you can use some of the app without paying it. And then the subscription, which includes all those sort of feature like everything and support maintenance, new updates, new things is $20 a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>Well, it seems like that&#8217;d be worth it because you seem to like, be going places with this as you got such a beta test group using it. That&#8217;s the way to go. And sounds like you&#8217;re really on top of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yeah, we have a great community and I think that would just continue adding like new things and functionality and improvements. I mean, almost every week it&#8217;s happening now, it seems like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>Well that&#8217;s great. Well, Jack, thank you so much for coming on the Blind Abilities and talking about the ALEYE. That&#8217;s A L E Y E and HapWare, and you can find them on HapWare.com. This is a great product. Thanks for coming up with it. Tell Brian thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:<\/strong>&nbsp;yeah. I&#8217;m looking forward to seeing you at an event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jack:&nbsp;<\/strong>Thank you. I appreciate it, Jeff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">{Music}<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Jeff:&nbsp;<\/strong>For more podcasts with a Blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com. And if you want to leave some feedback, give us some suggestions. Give us a call at (612)&nbsp;367-6093. We&#8217;d love to hear from you. I want to thank you for listening and until next time, bye-bye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>[Music]&nbsp;&nbsp;[Transition noise]&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When we share-<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What we see<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">-Through each other\u2019s eyes\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Podcast Summary: What if you could feel someone smile, wave, or reach out for a handshake? Jeff Thompson welcomes HapWare cofounder Jack Walters to explore ALEYE, a wearable wristband designed to translate facial expressions, gestures, and other nonverbal cues into distinct vibration patterns. Working with a smartphone camera or Meta glasses, ALEYE offers blind and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9311,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-9695","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P6rcRg-2wn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5855,"url":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/?page_id=5855","url_meta":{"origin":9695,"position":0},"title":"iPhone101: Adding an Alternative ID or Second Person to Face ID on Your iPhone. Note: If you pull your mask just below your nose area, your current Face ID should work)","author":"Blind Abilities Team","date":"May 1, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Full Transcript Jeff: Welcome to Blind Abilities. I'm Jeff Thompson. If you're wearing a mask, will your phone be able to recognize you using face ID? You can use your original face ID just by pulling your mask down to expose your nose, and that's all it takes, really. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"BlindAbilities Logo A black square with white initials, B A.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4874,"url":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/?page_id=4874","url_meta":{"origin":9695,"position":1},"title":"CSUNATC19 From a First Time Perspective: Learn How Brian prepped and Managed His CSUN Conference and What His Experience Taught Him for Next Year","author":"Blind Abilities Team","date":"April 19, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Full Transcript Speaker 1:If you're blind or have low vision ... Speaker 2:Be my eyes is a must have tool. Speaker 1:No matter where you are ... Speaker 3:... or what language you speak ... Speaker 4:You can call up on-demand visual support in seconds. Speaker 2:In seconds. Speaker 5:From\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/That-Blind-Tech-Show-Mic-2.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/That-Blind-Tech-Show-Mic-2.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/That-Blind-Tech-Show-Mic-2.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/That-Blind-Tech-Show-Mic-2.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/That-Blind-Tech-Show-Mic-2.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/That-Blind-Tech-Show-Mic-2.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9351,"url":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/?page_id=9351","url_meta":{"origin":9695,"position":2},"title":"Blind Abilities &#8211; The Musical: O&amp;M and the Scarlet letter B","author":"Blind Abilities Team","date":"January 31, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Podcast Summary: Blind Abilities \u2013 The Musical: O&M and the Scarlet Letter B explores the deeply personal moment when a white cane shifts from symbol to tool, from stigma to freedom. Through music, storytelling, and candid conversation, the episode traces the emotional arc of orientation and mobility\u2014hesitation, acceptance, learning, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Image of 5 fictional anchors on a musical stage theater.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Blind-Abilities-The-Musical-Image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Blind-Abilities-The-Musical-Image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Blind-Abilities-The-Musical-Image.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Blind-Abilities-The-Musical-Image.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Blind-Abilities-The-Musical-Image.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Blind-Abilities-The-Musical-Image.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6159,"url":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/?page_id=6159","url_meta":{"origin":9695,"position":3},"title":"Around The World with COVID-19 from a Blindness Perspective Episode 13 &#8211; Tim McIsaac: A Different Perspective from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada","author":"Blind Abilities Team","date":"August 23, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Full Transcript Pete: The coronavirus \u2013 creeping onto the world\u2019s scene only a few short months ago and then exploding into our day-to-day lives. Every day we hear about the impact of corona and COVID-19 on \u2013 well, almost everyone. But how is it affecting disabled individuals? Today on Blind\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"BlindAbilities Logo A black square with white initials, B A.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4637,"url":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/?page_id=4637","url_meta":{"origin":9695,"position":4},"title":"Meet Mike Kelly: Persistent in His Drive to Fight Any and All Challenges, and Ultimately Persevere","author":"Blind Abilities Team","date":"March 5, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Full Transcript Pete Lane:Welcome to Blind Abilities. This is Pete Lane. My guest today is Mike Kelly, and his story promises to evoke an emotional response on the part of you, our listeners. Mike Kelly:I got hit by a car. I was in traction for a couple months, then I\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"BlindAbilities Logo A black square with white initials, B A.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blindabilities.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blind-Abilities-Logo.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1860,"url":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/?page_id=1860","url_meta":{"origin":9695,"position":5},"title":"Apps: Tools for success","author":"Blind Abilities Team","date":"April 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"these accessible apps are great for students, for the workplace and for getting things done. DropBox Sharing files from your computer, phone and with others is a breeze with DropBox. It is a cloud based platform that allows you access to your files anywhere. The app also allows you to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9696,"href":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9695\/revisions\/9696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blindabilities.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}