# haptic shoes could bring you home

Category: Geeks r Us

## Post 1 by openminded_person (Generic Zoner) on Wednesday, 19-Oct-2011 23:12:15

Haptic shoe could replace the white cane
By Ben Coxworth
15:22 October 17, 2011
Le Chal is a navigational device for the blind, that guides them to their destination via vibrations in one of their shoes
Anirudh Sharma's system is called Le Chal, which is Hindi for "Take Me There." It is intended primarily to assist users in finding their way to specific geographical locations, although it also helps them avoid walking into things on their way there. Sharma designed the first prototype in January, while attending MIT's Design and Innovation workshop in the Indian city of Pune.
The basic idea behind Le Chal is that one of the user's shoes will provide haptic feedback, guiding the user toward their destination by vibrating in the front, back, or on either side - a vibration on the front indicates that they should keep going straight, a vibration on the left side means that they should turn left, and so on.
The user begins by entering their destination on Google Maps, using their Le Chal-app-running Android smartphone. That phone then communicates by Bluetooth with a LilyPad Arduino circuit board, located in the heel of the shoe. Following the Google-supplied turn-by-turn directions, along with locational data from its own GPS unit, the phone gets the Arduino to activate each of the shoe's four vibrators as needed. The vibrations start out low, but build in intensity as the user nears points where they have to turn.
A proximity sensor in the front of the shoe also alerts the user to obstacles, which it can detect from up to ten feet (three meters) away.
While there is no word of Le Chal being marketed any time soon, Sharma is planning to release the code for the app and the schematics for the shoe, via the Arduino community. He also plans on creating a Do-It-Yourself guide on Wikipedia, which users can update with their own improvements to the system.
Source: Technology Review India, Anirudh Sharma.
Source URL:
http://www.gizmag.com/le-chal-haptic-shoe-for-blind/20186/

## Post 2 by Remy (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Thursday, 20-Oct-2011 2:49:30

Well nw that's interesting. I wonder how well it would function.

## Post 3 by wildebrew (We promised the world we'd tame it, what were we hoping for?) on Thursday, 20-Oct-2011 12:44:45

Cool idea, the problem with all of these systems that I have seen is that they do not warn you of a step down (at least a proximity sensor is not necessarily going to pick up on that), so I can't see it replacing the cane, but it could be a very cool suplement to the cane for sure.

## Post 4 by forereel (Just posting.) on Thursday, 20-Oct-2011 13:33:12

I'll stick with my cane. You get some mud or snow on these babies and step off a bridge? Fun to play with, but for serious home going the cane is unbeatable.

## Post 5 by SilverLightning (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Thursday, 20-Oct-2011 15:51:03

I don't know about anyone else, but for me, I've had several times when I've been walking, and I've been passed by a big rig truck, you couldn't feel vibrations in your shoe over vibrations from that. Plus, does it only work in one pair of shoes? Do you get to choose the shoe its installed in? Is it a running shoe, a boot, a sandal? What if I'm walking somewhere cold and I need boots, but the system is in my running shoes? It seems like one of those thigns that sound good on paper, but don't really work that well in the real world.

## Post 6 by The Roman Battle Mask (Making great use of my Employer's time.) on Thursday, 20-Oct-2011 15:58:28

Slight problem with this, people won't know your blind. I'm not ashamed of my blindness and being able to stick a white cain out in front of me when I want to cross the street makes me feel better, even if it's mostly mental.

## Post 7 by openminded_person (Generic Zoner) on Thursday, 20-Oct-2011 22:47:27

well, nobody in this article writes that these shoes ought to become total substitution for a cane, of course, as I understood, they should be used both together. I have strong doubts that a vibrating device could be installed in a small girl's shoe or in a summer sandal. and about a stick and blindness: as regards me, when I even am going to get somewhere by taxi, I always take my cane with me. you know, a driver should be aware that i'm blind, so he could help me to take a seat, to get off and etc. a stick is our 'sygnaling system' without it we can look like drunk, narco or mad.

## Post 8 by LeoGuardian (You mean there is something outside of this room with my computer in it?) on Friday, 21-Oct-2011 13:39:55

Wonder when the blind are going to start piddling around with ROS (robotic operating system) also open source?
I don't know about making it accessible yet, but it drives mechanical objects and can even use the ConnectKit cameras as sensors.
Anyway Android doing this sounds like it's got a lot of promise. Device redundancy is currently a fact of life, not for the blind only, so having an insert I could put in a boot or a shoe could be helpful. How one gets around isn't a belief: it's just a means to an end.
I would love a device that ccould warn me in time, so I could go running in my neighborhood instead of being restricted to an exercise mat. I think any sensible blind person would like to have extensible sensory access that could approximate sight for all sorts of things. That's not so-called dependence, it's just being smart.
And now with Chrome OS and the Ice Cream Sandwich operating systems out, we'll see if Android can compete with ROS for robotics usage. It probably can, and equally cheaply.

## Post 9 by louisa (move over school!) on Friday, 21-Oct-2011 14:09:34

I think it's interesting the shoes that is. Just my thought.

## Post 10 by basket (knowledge is power) on Friday, 21-Oct-2011 15:38:06

at least now we have the technology to make it . this is a great step forward in developing something that can really not only replace the white cane, but tradditional talking GPS units.

## Post 11 by cowboy1 (the Zone BBS remains forever my home page) on Friday, 21-Oct-2011 17:05:34

never replace, enhance maybe.

## Post 12 by forereel (Just posting.) on Saturday, 22-Oct-2011 2:05:17

Shucks. You'd be running pretty fast and someone would have forgotten to close the man hole and well you'd gfeel it coming but. Lol. Naw not for me.

## Post 13 by openminded_person (Generic Zoner) on Saturday, 22-Oct-2011 14:00:53

a car for the blind is already invented in the US so we, perhaps, will be able to drive somewhen... but when? when??? there are hundrets of inspiring and interesting ideas but, i'm afraid, that hardly one of them will come true, find the logical materialization and get to customers.

## Post 14 by cowboy1 (the Zone BBS remains forever my home page) on Saturday, 22-Oct-2011 14:18:34

The car that can drive itself will come to pass as long as the driver has a manual mode as well. This is because many sighted people would love to be doing other things like texting or something else while enroute and it would help with traffic conjestion.