- Hey guys, welcome to another Double Tap on YouTube, I am Steven Scott. - And I am Shaun Preece, hello. - Now Shaun, you know I love to talk about smart mobility - Of course, you do. - as a topic that I never shut up about on the radio show, but it's great today because we get a chance to talk to a company who have developed one of these products and we're gonna talk about the WeWALK Smart Cane. Very excited about this. I've never really asked you this, because I'm usually talking myself. - Yes. - Do you get excited about this kind of stuff? - Can't get a word in. Yeah, well of course, I do because it's technology, you know, I always get excited about whatever the technology is, I'm just a bit of a nerd. But when it comes to something that can help with my mobility, because I'm still not great at it, you know, anything that I think could help me out that I'm very interested in, of course. - Okay, well, let's turn to two people, not one, but two people from the WeWalk company joining us today to tell us all about the version 2 of their product. We have Joe Alfonso, who is the growth manager at WeWalk, and also, Dr. Jean-Marc Feghali, who is the head of research and development. And guys, great to have you both here with us on Double Tap. - Thank you so much for having us, it's always great to be here and to talk about all the technology that we've been working on. 'Cause yeah, we've been busy at work, I will say. - Yeah, no, Jean-Marc, you and I met before when I was doing the old show over at RNIB. You and I talked about WeWalk version 1, that was very interesting at the time. It was kind of, I think, first foray into this whole world of Smart Canes and smart mobility, a lot has happened since then. For people who haven't maybe caught up on the WeWalk story, maybe tell us a little bit about the history of the company, where the whole idea of WeWalk came from. - Hmm, sure. I mean, you've had us on for a second time now, which is always a good sign. - You must have done something right, yeah. - Yes, we're hoping. Yeah, so WeWalk really is quite simple, you know, it's actually born out of simplicity and born out of personal challenges that we've had, you know, as a founding team. So, you know, we have a lot of visual impairment in the team and we realized, hey look, we love the standard white cane. You know, we're absolutely not trying to replace it, but hey, we could do so much better if we just equip it with the right technology. And that was the premise behind WeWalk all along, you know, can we just chop off that rubber handle of the cane? You know, keep the way in which the cane operates the exact same, but just give the user that extra bit of safety and navigation confidence when they need it. And that's what we set out to do with version 1. So we had an ultrasonic sensor, a touch pad, speaker, microphone, and connectivity to our WeWalk smartphone app. And you know, it worked well. The app grew, WeWalk kept getting better with updates and soon, you know, three, four years later, you know, WeWalk version 1 could really almost do everything. It could take you on a multimodal journey across 3,000 cities. It could give you voice directions, it can talk to you. You can select nearby places, you know, straight from your built-in Smart Cane. And of course, keeping the basics like upper body obstacle detection intact and also, improving throughout its lifetime. But of course, because we, you know, had so many users and so much time in the market with version 1, we learned that hey look, it wasn't the perfect device and there were things that we could have done to make substantial improvements. And that's exactly what we set out to do with version 2. - So that's the history, essentially. what brought us to this place. And like you say, a lot of learning has been done. What specifically have you learned? What would you say are the sort of key learnings you have had or key learnings or key findings perhaps you've made that have brought about version 2? - Hmm, yeah, for sure. So I can start on this and then I'll pass on to Joe to do the fun bit, which is actually talk about the final product. - Yeah. - As opposed to just learnings. But for us, we wanted WeWalk to be a tool that could be used by anyone you know, be it someone that's been cane training and has been proficient at using a cane for years and people that have just picked up the cane for the first time. We also wanted a range of ages and a range of hand sizes. Now with version 1, we had to cram all the technology in there somewhere. So it was slightly bigger, slightly heavier than your standard white cane. And whilst that worked for a few people, for others it just didn't, even after a few weeks of trying to get used to it, their hand size and that slightly different shape didn't gel with them. And so with version 2, that was our biggest, you know, single design requirement. And it was actually a bit of an impossible task when we first set out. It was actually almost a crazy task. You know, a dreamers task, which was, can we get a Smart Cane that looks and feels exactly like a standard white cane? So no compromise in ergonomics. Get all the features that you've gotten with version 1 and more, but cram all of that in, into one of the thinnest assistive tech designs ever made. Which is a handle, I mean the handle always just had rubber in. It's not like anyone ever built a cane handle thinking, "Hmm, maybe someone will put an ultrasonic sensor or you know, computer in here." No one ever built it to do that, they've built it to fit someone's hand and that's about it. So for us, cramming it into that was our biggest challenge. On top of that, we also noted down a couple of extra features, you know, from version 1 that could be improved. For instance, a method of interaction. So say, you're moving around, you've gotta navigate, WeWalk version 1's touch pad, hey again, it worked great when you're static, but we wanted people to have more flexibility so that they could access information even when they're moving, even when they're doing crazy things like two-point touch and shorelining, suddenly you gonna find out when the nearest bus is coming. That was one of our design challenges as well. And so again, we tried to rectify that with version 2. And of course, on top of all of that, we wanted to make things faster. So faster connectivity, a better audio, better waterproofing. And I'll pass onto Joe here to talk about what version 2 actually is, and whether he agrees or disagrees as to whether we've managed to meet those designer requirements. - As Jean-Marc mentioned, we tried to design it to be very reminiscent to a traditional cane. So the field should be very similar to a traditional cane itself, apart from the improvements that Jean-Marc had already mentioned, we also built speakers into the rear handle to be able to output the audio directly at the user so there's improved sound quality. You can also use a Bluetooth earpiece, phone conducting headsets or any type of headset device. You would just pair it up directly with your phone and then the WeWalk will recognize that you're using some sort of audio device. Instead of the touch pad, we now have those physical tactile buttons that Jean-Marc had mentioned. With this push button design, it makes it much more simple in order to operate the WeWalk application. So the way it works, you basically have the WeWalk app that pairs up with the WeWalk Smart Cane through Bluetooth and through that you'll get things such as, turn-by-turn navigation. We've designed it from the ground up so it's fully accessible with screen readers. It's available for both Android as well as, iOS mobile phones. And then you also have things such as, low vision mapping, you have clock directions built into there, it's basically an all-in-one system for all of your navigation needs. And then, you have the exploration feature that allows you to discover popular points of interest as well as, a transport feature that allows you to be able to locate nearby metro or bus stops. And then apart from the speakers and the push button design, we've improved the obstacle detection sensor as well so that the cane is more narrow, it won't pick things up to the side. We've tried to make sure it only picks things up above chest level in front of you. So for example, the traditional cane may not necessarily be able to pick up things such as low-hanging tree branches, stop signs or anything above your chest that your traditional cane wouldn't be able to otherwise detect. So we've improved that sensor. You can still adjust it. In addition to the haptic vibration feedback, you'll also hear audio feedback. So you'll hear a beep, beep, beep, beep. And as it gets closer to the obstacle, that beeping pace will increase until you can get around the obstacle somehow. The bottom section is still your Ambutech foldable graphite cane with a hook-on tip. It's not any type of proprietary tip so if you wanna replace that with your own tip, you can go ahead and do that. A lot of people were actually quite surprised, we were at the CSUN Conference in the U.S. as well as, Sight City in Germany. And when people were trialing both the Smart Cane 2 and their traditional cane, they were shocked by how light it was. So that just shows you how slim and sleek the new design is compared to the prior version. There's also a torch light and a flashlight built into it. So for example, if low vision users want to be able to locate their keys in darkly lit conditions, they can activate that torch light. It is quite bright, bright to the point where I always have to warn users, please shield your eyes before I turn it on because it is quite bright. Or it could also be used as a safety feature, if someone wants to walk around late at night, wants to be more visible, they can keep that torch light on at all times. And then finally, one of the most notable changes as well, we have our own intelligent voice assistant. With a push of a button, it'll trigger an audio cue similar to Siri where you'll be able to ask a question to your voice assistant. For example, you can say, "Take me to the nearest cafe, take me to the nearest restaurant." It'll then pull up a search of the closest restaurants and cafes around you depending on what your question is. And then you'll be able to use a push button to navigate directly to your destination. So we've tried to simplify it as much as possible and I think it's very intuitive compared to the prior version as well where someone will be able to pick it up right away and get used to navigating around the cane - Yeah, the best part is, Joe's been testing it out for us in this scorching heat as well, so it's weatherproof. - I wanna make sure it's durable. So rain, snow or scorching heat, it'll work in all conditions. - Well, joking aside, that was one of the criticisms of the first one. In fact, I'm not even sure if it's a bit of a urban myth now about don't take the first, we walk out in the rain. So you mentioned about waterproofing before, has that been fixed or addressed? - Yes, so with the new version, we don't ever like to say, it's completely waterproof. However, it is very much water resistant so you can feel comfortable taking it out in the rain, we've redesigned the internal components as well as, the outer components to be much more durable compared to the prior version. So again, you can use it in the rain, in the snow and it'll be good in those conditions. We don't recommend, as with all electronic devices to stand outside in the pouring rain because there's always some chance it might get some water damage, but I will let you know, we listen to a lot of feedback from the first version, as you mentioned, Shaun, where we wanted to make sure this one was much more durable compared to the prior version. So just as long as you don't toss it in your pool, you'll be good. - Speaking of urban myths, there may or may not be a video of our tech team throwing version 2's around the office to make sure they survive, but you didn't hear that from me. But I will say, yeah, durability was a key thing for us as well, which is, you know, we need to make this withstand the rigors of a standard cane. - Yeah, and we'd like to thank you, our community as well so we partnered with various organizations like Canadian National Institute for the Blind, they've been instrumental and their partnership has been very valuable in order to be able to share that feedback so that we can develop better products as well as, a visually impaired community and other partners such as, Royal National Institute for the Blind. Just all of the input we've received from the community has really allowed us to redesign version 2 to make sure it met all the requirements of our community. - Well, that's something we've been talking about a lot on the show actually, is the engagement of the community, the end users of these mobility devices. How have you gone about that, getting that engagement, getting that feedback, seeing if what the changes you've made are actually making a difference? - Yeah, I'm gonna answer this question 'cause Joe's been so heavily involved in it and he's a humble guy. So we've got almost two methods of data collection at WeWalk. The first and most powerful for us is just day-to-day use and self-report. So we've put in an effort for users that have gone out there bought WeWalk with their own money to make sure that immediately right after buying it, they get a training session where they get to speak to Joe or one of our team members. You know, we immediately get to experience that out-of-box experience with the user. So what's immediately working, what's immediately not working, what the user tends to want to do first are things that we notice, but then after that we also try to stay in touch with users. You know, whether we invite them to follow up surveys or we just keep an open dialogue to say, "Okay, let us know how you do in a month, in two months, in a year even." That's key for us 'cause that's that long-term usage, it's where we can pick out things like, "Oh maybe, we should go from touch pad to buttons." Right, almost going simpler, you know, that was only something you can get by just having a user device for some period of time. But at the same time, we didn't just wanna rely on everyday use, we wanted to kind of push our system to its limits. And so we have something called, an explorer group, which we've put together with the help of the Royal National Institute of Blind People, the RNIB here in the UK who we know and love and who we've been working with for many, many years now. But not only did they take our existing version and conduct a full hardware and software test, you know, through a rigorous controlled report, but they also helped us recruit this explorer group of visually impaired individuals, 34 of them actually with a range of abilities, a range of ages, people who might not necessarily be confident traveling or have even considered a WeWalk, that's another sort of community for us. And actually giving them, WeWalk's and told 'em, "Okay, how is this system working for you, how can it improve?" And then running control testing with this group to sort of, again, push our system to the limits and also give WeWalk's to people who might not have considered it before to see what's stopping them or what could potentially change their mind with a product like ours. And so we've been running those two tracks simultaneously, so it's a marriage if you'd like, of the user team and Joe and our entire community as well as, the research and development team where we sort of taken these insights and actually try to action them and come up with new designs as well. - You know, it really does seem that you've given this so much thought. And of course, you've had a lot of time to develop this, I mean, the first WeWalk was, what, how many years ago was it now? Five, I'm thinking five, but I'm guessing it's longer than that. - We don't wanna give away our age, okay, we're still young. Five months, not five years. - Okay, but the thing is, I mean, it's been around for a while and you've had a lot of time to develop it and you know, there are two key things, I think that stood out for me as being reasons to perhaps not go down the WeWalk group. One was the size because it was a device, which was quite difficult. I mean, I should declare this, I also have an additional disability of a tremor in my left hand, which is my cane hand so it makes it a little bit difficult to hold onto a device that is the size of the original WeWalk. So the change in size, the fact that it is more standard in the size is far more appealing to me. And in addition to that, and this is an important thing, and it was brought up actually by all people, by Stevie Wonder when he was trying out Glidance at CE, CSUN, not CSS, CSUN this year, and he was trying out Glidance and he asked the maker of it, Amos Miller, how would this work in an area that's perhaps a rough neighborhood? You know, if I'm walking around with this thing in a rough neighborhood, what's gonna happen to me? You know, are people gonna see this and think, "What on earth?" Am I gonna stand out even more than I do already as a blind person? And this is where I think WeWalk has got something quite right here because to me, this sounds like it is as normal looking a cane as a standard white cane. And that matters to a lot of people. That's gonna make a big difference having the ability to have all that smart stuff inside the device, but in a device that looks like any other white cane. - Yeah, and that takes it back almost to the whole principle of operations of WeWalk, which is, we don't want visually impaired people to be walking around, smartphone in one hand, cane in the other hand, not just because we found from ONMs that the instant you sort of put a visually impaired person in a real space with a smartphone, you're almost focusing on the smartphone, forgetting cane skills. But also because of that constant fear that I experienced myself as a visually impaired person of just having your phone out there almost openly advertising to the world, "Here I am, I cannot see as much as you and I'm openly advertising my phone for you along with my cane." So for us, you know, that whole method of keeping your phone in your pocket, keeping things simple, giving you access to information without compromising ONM, but also making you feel more confident that, you know, your phone's tucked away, your cane looks as a normal cane. There's no reason to dubious, there's no reason, you know, for you to feel less confident. So yeah, I'm glad that we can even push that concept of operation further with V2 because again, it looks exactly like a standard white cane. - And do you think, 'cause I know some people in the community have been talking about, if technology actually gets in the way of these mobility devices such as the cane for example, so do you feel- - Well, I've brought this up many times. - Well, I wasn't gonna, you know, drop you in it, Steven, but yeah, okay. Steven Scott says, that technology gets in the way of mobility devices. So do you think- - Attending, yeah. Well yeah, I think you're right, but do you think that the improvements that you've made have actually improved on the white cane or do you think that it's just the evolution of the white cane anyway, and this is the way it's gonna go? - So in my opinion, I think we have cracked the code with version 2 because just based on the thousands of just users that we've spoken with as well as, the organizations that we've worked with, we've really tried to take all that feedback into account with the second one and with the users I've spoken with as well, even if they just get something useful from the application or the cane itself, whether that's the voice assistant feature or the exploration feature that encourages them to be more independent and explore places on their own. I think just even one of those things is enough where they feel like they've got their money's worth or they find value in the cane itself. There's some people where they just use obstacle detection sensor feature and they don't really care about the other features itself. That's why we've tried to really create something for everybody where if someone doesn't want to use the application feature, they can benefit from the above overhead obstacle detection feature that will alert them of those obstacles that their traditional cane may not be able to detect. Or there might be some settings where, we always like to say, we love our guide dogs, we love our traditional canes as well, but it's one of those things where we want to be able to provide an additional tool for visually impaired people where a guide dog may not make sense, for example, in indoor environments where they prefer to take a traditional cane with them. And with the voice assistant feature itself, we've also tried to again, make it a little bit more simple for people to be able to travel around places on their own without getting intimidated by technology because a lot of people are familiar with Siri and being able to push a button to ask for their command. So with the new feature that we've included in the WeWalk, you'll be able to benefit from that feature as well. So in my opinion, I do think that with Smart Cane 2, I don't wanna say, a perfect product, but it's one of those products that I think people will find some value in one, if not all the features in the device itself. And it's just a matter of trying to figure out what it is exactly that you're trying to do. Are you trying to be able to detect more overhead obstacles? Are you trying to be able to explore on your own a little bit more so that you can, for example, take public transport on your own? If that's something that you want to do in the future, the WeWalk will allow you to be able to do that because we've created sort of a Swiss Army knife of applications and a device that can do multiple things at once. Jean-Marc, I don't know if you wanna add anything to that as well. - I was gonna say, those are big words coming from Joe. Bearing in mind this is the same person that said, it's water resistant, not waterproof. So you can trust that Joe says, it's gonna work. - I like the Swiss Army knife analogy because you know, you might not want to use the screwdriver, but one day, you might need it, right? And that's the point that it's there for you when you need it. I think also, and I wanna talk about the AI, but I want to just mention as well, I think one of the great things about WeWalk that I always was impressed by from the first version was I've actually used the traditional Ambutech cane because it meant, it would be much easier to replace should something happen. Because for a lot of us, there's a concern about buying a smart device like this that you're using outside, you know, guaranteed as it's happened to me, and I'm sure it's happened to many people, maybe even happened to you. I got my brand new cane of the bag one day, brand new cane, not a Smart Cane, just a regular cane, got it out, was walking down the street and someone stood on it, snapped it and you're just like, "Of course, day one of new cane that's gonna happen." So you know, you do not want that to happen when you've invested a huge amount of money in something. The fact is you can just change it and you can use, you know, another Ambutech cane, always have a spare guys, I always say that, always have a spare, but you know, that's a great factor in this. So that's really important. I wanna talk about AI though because you know, this is moving at such a pace and you know, what you've talked about is essentially having that smart assistant that we've seen in our smartphones through ChatGPT and so on. And you know, it's great to see that come to a device like this, which will be standalone obviously, via a smartphone, I would imagine. But on your cane, you'll be able to talk to it and get response through the cane audio or through a headset. But this is moving at quite a pace with AI at the minute, I mean, we've just seen release of ChatGPT 4.0, which is just blowing everybody away. You know, it almost feels like the question is, when are you gonna put a camera on WeWalk so that we can also see where we're going because that's the next step of GPT, is it hard to keep up? - This is a great question, but I'm gonna almost take it a step back here on the AI discussion. You know, for us, we wanted to use AI to enhance the experience rather than actually be the experience for WeWalk users. So for instance, things like obstacle detection, things like finding out your current location or what's nearby or just triggering a journey. We didn't wanna wedge an AI layer in there for the sake of saying, "Oh well, we do AI now," right? So all those core WeWalk features remain the same and the obstacle detection can even work with your smartphone disconnected. Same with the flashlight, you know, same with anything that doesn't require a data connection. We know the cane is a safety critical device, it's a mission critical device. So your core functionality is always there. AI only enhances it, rather than just being a buzzword that we wanna stick on everything. But we realized, "Hey look, we could do a lot with AI that we couldn't have done before, if we implemented carefully." And so as a separate function to WeWalk's existing voice menu feature where we can just click a button and it'll talk to you, you can click a button and enable the voice assistant so it's not like it's the only way you can interact with it. You can choose to totally not use it, if you don't want to. It's not something that's mandatory. But with a voice assistant, again, as Joe mentioned, you simply click a button and you can ask it things like, what's the nearest restaurant? Or give me information as to what I could do in this city. So for instance, we were in Norway last week visiting our Norwegian partners and you know, I literally reached out to WeWalk and said, "Hey, check this out, what can I do in Norway?" And it said, "Hey, you know, you can visit the Fjords, you can walk around the market." So we sort of had WeWalk almost reciting to us what we could do with a press of a button. And I think that's the AI we're trying to achieve here, which is giving you that extra information that would've taken multiple swipes, multiple taps on your smartphone to open up a web browser, open up GPT, here's a simple case of just clicking a button and you have that information. And hey, I mean, in terms of using a camera to enhance the experience, we're already doing that with our WeASSIST service. So you know, we were thinking, "Okay, how do we use a camera in a way that still is mission critical?" Well, we don't think as of today, AI is perfect in terms of computer vision. So in the meantime to give users that extra experience, let's professionally train some WeWalk agents, let's have users click a button in the WeWalk app to connect to one of our trained agents and let's have the agent then see through the camera and guide the user because nothing beats that human assistance. And as we develop those computer vision models, at least we can roll them out in a controlled way to make sure that, you know, we're not putting anyone at risk, we're slowly phasing in these models, we're not beta testing with anyone and that we have something that, you know, in the end works without detracting from the experience that users have enjoyed today, and actually, for the last few years with WeWalk and I'm giving away again our age again. So I'm gonna stop mentioning the number of years. - So can you tell us a little bit more about WeASSIST, because I did see that on the website, the day you unveiled and had the WeWalk 2 Event, but I didn't hear much about it in the actual event itself. Is this a new service or has this been going a while? - Legend had it with WeASSIST, if you click a button, you may or may not speak to Joe Alfonso, which again... No, but over to you Joe, please feel free. - Yeah, of course. So there is a good chance you may speak with me when you do click that button, but it is available right now in the UK as well as, in Turkey. And we're looking to roll it out globally in other regions as well. But it allows you to connect to a professionally cited trained agent that will provide visual assistance to a visually impaired person. For example, in indoor environments such as airports where our navigation system is not designed for that, they can use the WeASSIST platform in order to be able to use their phone's camera to provide the visual information to the cited agent. So for example, if you need assistance with getting from one gate to another or if you're just shopping around and need assistance with reading the food labels, you can go ahead and use the WeASSIST platform for that. - I didn't realize that it was a service like that, I thought it was more of a volunteer type network. I didn't realize these were professionally trained staff so this is something obviously, you're gonna have to build up because I imagine over time, this is going to get very popular. - Yeah, for sure- - We seen plenty of other examples of it. - Yeah, and that's exactly why, again, we're rolling this out in a controlled way. So we've built our own training protocols, again, with our experiences of being guided as visually impaired people where each of our you know, our agents, we already have a few of them go through this whole sort of process, this two to three week process of learning different visual functions, learning the right words, whether someone wants cardinal directions or clock-based directions or left to rights. So that level of depth and detail to make sure that, you know, as a WeASSIST user, you can feel confident that the person on the other end of the line, you know, sort of will know how to guide you. And we've got the RNIB helping us out on this. So we're trialing out the system, whilst we've already got it in a few international airports. We're also running trials here in the UK with the RNIB helpline team as those cited agents, you know, people who have been helping visually impaired people for years. Now using our system above the existing telephony system to get that visual access to what the user is doing. So yeah, you know, giving you more reasons to have us on for a third time, hopefully. - Well, I wanna ask you- - We're gonna have to keep coming up with ideas. - I wanna ask you, why you would decide, and I'm sure there's good reason, but I'm just wondering, why you would decide to start your own service when there are other services out there doing this. And of course, I'm talking, Be My Eyes, although granted, they're not in the professional realm, you would say, they're in the volunteer-driven side of things, but you also have Aira as well doing this and they're quite well-known in the community for that. Why would you not pair with a company like that instead actually create your own service? - That's a great question. I think there's really two elements of this. The first part is, we think that those services are great, we think that they have their own sort of place if you'd like in the market. But we realized, we've got a few WeWalk users, we've got our WeWalk navigation app and we don't want people to have to jump apps necessarily to get that experience. So we thought, hey, let's try building this ourselves, the WeWalk way. The second part is, the ability for us to really have a deep level integration with our existing navigation system and hardware with the WeASSIST system. So right now, if you were to call, you know, one of our agents through WeASSIST, our agents get full access to your navigation system and your WeWalk app as you're sort of walking around and getting that experience so we can sort of guide you, we can see what your journey is and we can make modifications to that agent . experience as well to make sure that they're well-informed, to make sure we know what the agents are doing or saying. But just to streamline that whole experience. You're not jumping between a bunch of different apps with sort of surface level connections. For us, it's really all built-in. And it also means that we can start to experiment and trial some new technology for those that choose to be part of it. So again, going back to discussion of computer vision, you know, we don't need a human agent to do everything. Things like text detection, street furniture detection, even crossing detections could be done with computer vision. And so as we start to roll out those features, we can start to run them alongside WeASSIST to see if users prefer using AI or if users prefer using an agent. So it gives us a bit more flexibility, if you like, but at the same time, if we have WeWalk users that say, "Hey, look I'm an existing Be My Eye user," or, "I'm in the U.S. and I use Aira," then there should be absolutely no reason why you shouldn't use those other services alongside with your WeWalk cane. As we sort of like to say again, everyone has options here, it's just tools in a toolbox and we thought, let's try building another one of those tools. - Is that standalone, the WeASSIST service? Or is that part of, you know, you only get that if you own the WeWalk cane? - No, it's actually standalone. So you, of course, with the full WeWalk ecosystem get the whole experience, but WeASSIST is built into the WeWalk app. So say, you've just downloaded the app, you've got your, you know, navigation going and what will you, you can then just click that WeASSIST button and it all runs as it should. - And is that free at the moment? Is that free to use? - So our app is based on a subscription service. This wasn't the case before. Before, you had to sort of buy the hardware to be able to access the app. But one of our key intentions was to sort of for people that might not necessarily need a WeWalk, but still want to benefit from our app services, that they'd be able to at a lower cost access that experience. But I'll pass onto Joe to talk about what we're doing with airports for WeASSIST. - So for WeASSIST, we're actually partnering with airports such as, Gatwick as well as, various airports in Turkey in order to be able to provide in-airport service. So far, it's been receiving some great feedback from the organizational partners that we've been working with in order to be able to provide those services that we partner with organizations such as, RNIB in order to provide customer service for people that are calling in through WeASSIST. But hopefully, we'll be able to expand that through other regions such as, Canada, for example, where if someone is traveling through Canada and wants to get some WeASSIST service through a particular airport, we'll be able to guide them to wherever they need to go. As Jean-Marc mentioned, we again wanted to create tools for people that they'll be able to use in various types of environments, not just outdoor environments, but indoor environments as well. But also, if for example, they're navigating to a destination, perhaps it's, I don't know, a hockey stadium and they need to get to a specific entrance, with navigation technologies, we know that they try to get you as close to your destination as possible, but they might need that extra guidance in order to get them to the exact entrance that they need to go to. Just the convenience of not having to close out your app, open another app to do that, you can do it directly into the WeWalk application to get you to the final steps of wherever you need to go. But lots of exciting stuff there, not just for outdoor indoor environments, but just in general, if someone needs that cited assistance because we use those professionally trained agents. I do think that's something that sets us apart from some of the other items available right now that offer similar services. - And the best part is, you know, with our WeASSIST service in certain businesses like airports, we have things called, free zones where users don't actually have to pay to access the service, it's typically funded by those venue operators, if you like. So you just have to take out the WeWalk app, it knows that you're in a free zone, you can then pull out WeASSIST and just call away basically. So again, offering more flexibility to venue owners and users themselves. So in the end, as a visually impaired community, the more places it's available, the better it is for us, right? - Yeah, absolutely. - Since Shaun decided to throw me under the bus earlier, I'm gonna throw him under the bus now. - Oh nice. - Yeah, well you know, that's what we do with each other, we help each other. - Well, I will say, if you had a WeWalk, you would not be thrown under the bus. We hopefully built this system before here. - I shall listen out for my delivery at the door. But here's the thing, you know, it was interesting when we both watched the demo or the introduction to WeWalk 2 and I was kind of interested as Shaun was as well, we both were interested in fairness as to why you didn't demo anything on that feature or that video essentially that live introduction. You talked about the product, you talked about all the features but we didn't see any demo. Why no demo? - Joe, why was there no demo? Joe, why was there no demo? - Blame Joe, throw Joe under the bus. - Are you throwing me under the bus now, Jean-Marc? - Yes. We're all throwing each other under buses, this is ridiculous. - Joe, I'm gonna watch my back for the rest of this. Well, I'll quickly touch on this and again, I can pass to Joe, if you'd like to mention. No, we're open to demos. I think for us it was just timing. We had so much to talk about. We also wanted to do a panel session. We had the video going with the features, but we were totally open to demos. So I mean, we often travel all over the world. So again, we were in Norway last week, we were at Sight City, Frankfurt several weeks ago. We're also going to be inside Village Central, so in Birmingham in July. So we're always at these shows and fairs and we believe, you know, feeling is believing for Smart Cane 2. So definitely coming up to us saying, "Hey look, can I just try it out?" And we'd be more than happy to do that. To give you that hands-on live demo. - I think, the thing that I raised and Steven's quite right to throw me there 'cause I did mention this straight away, is that the video that you played there just seemed very polished and very produced. It was very good. But as a user, I just think, I wanna see it actually being used, I don't want the computer graphics overlaid over the top when it was asking for directions and lines coming out. I totally understand why from a marketing point of view, but as the event, it was drawing a lot of attention. I know a lot of people now are very curious about the WeWalk 2, and I just think it would've been really nice just to have a live demo, practical demo of some of the features live on stage or even if it was prerecorded, you know, just an actual user using it. It just, I think would've answered quite a lot of questions. - Yeah, no, that's really great feedback for us. And hey, if we ever have any sort of extended launches or if we have our next generation devices coming out, we'll take that on board. We're always keen to try new things and you never know, we might even do it on Double Tap, so let's see. - Excellent, let's do it. I mean look, the thing for me, it's about the challenge for us is often that a lot of this technology is great technology, we wanna get our hands on, but for obvious reasons, you can't be everywhere. We can't always travel to where we need to go for a lot of people, you know, getting to Sight Village might be a wonderful thing or getting to Sight City, but it's not practical for some people. So they want to be able to at least get a sense of what these products are about, which is why we brought that up. I wanna ask you though, because you say, feeling is believing and I think that's a really interesting thing here because, and I wanted to ask you about your time at CSUN and I guess, at Sight City as well. What are the reactions of people 'cause I'm sure there's skeptics like me, like lots of people out there who say, "Eh sounds okay, yeah, sounds good, but what's it really like?" And then they get hands-on. What's the reaction from people when you talk to them, when you actually put that cane in their hands? - Overwhelmingly positive actually. I think one of the first things they do is, they just pick it up and they ask, whether or not all the technology is in the cane itself because it just feels way too light to be a Smart Cane. And then afterwards, they start playing around with the buttons. We give them just a general overview of how to navigate and then after that, they're up and running, trying the voice assistant feature. They also ask, how can they get their hands on the cane itself. And I mean, I hear everything from, "That's so cool," to, "That's so easy to use." So in terms of simplicity, I mean, it's there and I know this sounds very marketing as well, but I'm just sharing feedback directly from the users that did visit our booth during CSUN as well as, Sight City. So it's been overwhelmingly positive where people are very accepting of new technologies and trying to see what other items are available out there that could replace their traditional cane. Speaking of being able to trial it as well. So CNIB is actually trialing the Smart Cane 2 upon release and then once they go ahead and trial it, it'll be available at their stores in the Canada region. So if you have CNIB Smart Life store somewhere around you, you can actually go ahead and just trial it at one of those locations as well. But it's one of my favorite things about my role is just being able to go one-on-one with our community and just show them this tool. And then I always like to step back first and see if they're able to figure it out because then that lets us know whether or not we did our jobs in terms of making it as simple to use as possible. So the learning curve is quite low on this. It's one of those things where they should be able to pick it up fairly quickly. But as Jean-Marc mentioned, we do offer training options as well in case someone needs that extra handholding. But so far, I've been quite pleased in terms of the reception it's received at both CSUN as well as, Sight City. - Yeah. And you know, I bring this up from my perspective of skepticism because I think it is good to have some skepticism. You know, I cannot be excited about everything, although I am in fairness excited about this particular device. In fact, I am excited about all these devices. You might not believe that from what I say sometimes on the show because people like to pick up different things from what I say. The truth is, I am just always concerned about the idea of replacing the smart or the regular cane, if you like, or a guide dog. I think it's all about choice and I think it's about options and I think more options is a good thing. I also think it's good when you know, and you're clearly working with the community that is proven and you know, yourselves, you know, being visually impaired as well makes such a difference in this. But of course, as I've said before, and I've said it to other people who come on here who sell similar products, I often say, you know, it's all right being visually impaired in the room with the idea, but you have to engage with other people because, you know, it cannot just be your great idea and suddenly that solves everything because that might not work either. You have to get other voices on, you are doing that. So I think healthy skepticism is good, but clearly, you guys are working hard here to make this a useful product and I think you've gone a long way with that. Version 2 sounds great. And another thing that is interesting of course, about the technology we have today, unlike say, 10, 15 years ago, is that you can update this software as you go along. So I'm guessing the product itself is built to have quite a long lifetime, but of course, you'll have those updates that can roll into the device so people don't feel like they're putting their money out and then next year is gonna be the WeWalk 3 that will just change everything. - Yeah, no Steven, and that's a great example of that healthy skepticism, which is, we know we can make the product better. We're not just locking it down and saying, "Hey look, we made the best thing ever." You know, go out there. That's the whole idea of having that smartphone integration because we can make it better because we want to take on board feedback. We want those early V2 adopters, not just to get a great experience today, but to also feel like they're gonna get a great experience three, four years down the line. And I wanna talk about that cane replacement thing that you mentioned earlier 'cause that's key for us. For us, Smart Cane 2 should not change the way you hold a cane. It shouldn't change the way you were to use your constant touch or two-point touch or shorelining or any other ONM technique. WeWalk at its very core is always going to be a white cane with those extra features only when you need them as opposed to running all the time. And as a great example of this, when we first launched our navigation system, we actually gave users the option to completely mute WeWalk or to only have it give directions when it's interrogated or every 60, 70, 150 meters even, if they so choose. So we almost said to our users, "Hey look, you've got a WeWalk, you might just want to use it for one little instruction in one journey. We're more than happy to let you do that. You can make it shut up completely by just hitting that button." And I think we're taking that forward again with Smart Cane 2, where that technology kind of fades into the background. You know, you're not buying necessarily a Smart Cane, you're just buying a cane that could do a few more things when you really need it to do them, if that makes sense. - And speaking of a few more things that it can do as well, the cane does have a gyroscope, accelerometer as well as, a compass. We were accepted in Microsoft's AI for accessibility program and through this program, you may have heard of our AI mobility or AIM technology that we've developed. This actually generated a lot of excitement in both Sight City as well as, CSUN. We met with a lot of ONMs and some of their feedback that they had shared is, "We work with visually impaired people, but we'd like to be able to measure how they're using their canes and such." So with the technology built into the Smart Cane, you can actually give someone a Smart Cane 2, if they choose to share their data. ONMs will be able to monitor cane habits such as, cane swipes, walking speed, cane angles to make sure that they're using correct cane technique. So as an ONM, if they choose to share their data, you'll have a dashboard of all your students, you can select one of your students. For example, I wanna make sure that Jean-Marc is holding his cane correctly. I can tap on Jean-Marc's name, I can see his walking speed, the routes that he's taken, his average confidence level. So there are self-reported confidence measures, after he takes a journey, he rates himself in a scale of one to five, how confident he feels. But I really feel like this is going to be a game-changer in terms of how ONM instruction's provided visually impaired people so that's just another example of our evolving technologies where we're listening to our community to find out what do you guys need in order to be able to do things better, to be able to serve our community better. - I'm really excited you brought that up because that is an amazing feature inside this device and I think that, you know, my wife for example, that's her job and she is very interested in this because the ability to be able to track someone's progress almost in a real life environment without having to constantly monitor that individual could actually have a big impact. And in particular and oftentimes, you find these little areas where you see huge amounts of benefit to an area, but you don't even realize at the time. I think for people like my wife who's a visually impaired ONM instructor, being able to not have to be out with the person all the time can help her. I mean obviously, she would have to be doing it at some point, but the point is that she would be able to do it a little bit less. So potential benefits down the line there as well. You know, it would allow more people who are visually impaired to be ONM instructors, in my personal view, they're the best. But then I would say that because I'd be told off otherwise. But here's the thing, I want to ask you before you go because there's so much we could talk about, but one area that has intrigued, shall we say, some people is, what happens to those who have the original WeWalk cane? Are they expected to pay full price for the new one or do you have a scheme that will allow them to upgrade at a reduced price and what is that pricing? - Yes, so we do have a trade-in program because we wanna make sure anyone who purchased WeWalk Smart Cane 1, we're taking care of them and we can go ahead and give you a discounted price for it. However, in order to get the price, you can go ahead and contact CNIB for that. Again, they're going to be distributing it in the Canada region, so I don't wanna speak on behalf of them, however, if you are interested in purchasing one, you can contact them directly. They can also give more details about the trade-in program as well. - And that's the case across UK and other countries as well, yeah? - Yeah, you can just reach out to us as well. I mean, we have different distributors, different pricing across regions. We wanna make sure everyone worldwide can get their hands on one. And if you don't immediately find your distributor by doing simple Google searches, just reach out to us @wewalk.io and we'll be more than happy to help. - And what about the overall price of the device for those who who are new to WeWalk? - Yeah, so the price of the device itself, again, if you're in the Canada region, I'd wanted to revert you to CNIB because they are our distributor in that region. However, if you aren't in the Canada region, you can go to our website and then you can get the exact pricing for your region because it is region-based as well. So I would revert you to our website in order to be able to get the pricing details. Or if you're in Canada, please contact CNIB and they can give you the details in terms of pricing for it. - Talking of pricing 'cause I can hear our listeners screaming at us right now when it comes to WeASSIST, is it less expensive, more expensive, or the same price as an Aira subscription? I went there. - Well done, Shaun. - Thank you. - They'll never come back though. - I'm so sorry. - Let's see how we can word this. We want to be the most cost-effective solution for visually impaired people. And we certainly have the pricing models in specific locations that would help us to achieve that as well. So there you go. I will quite simply say that, yep, you should hopefully find, especially, if you're in our partner airports, you can get it for the best price ever, which is free. So we are trying to find ways, you know, to make it as accessible to everyone as possible and to make sure that if you are in one of these, you know, locations, if you'd like as a visually impaired person, it's not a competition of who's more expensive, who's less expensive. - Oh, it is in my book. - But you get an example of, I've got a location which wasn't covered by anyone before, which is now free for me to access and to get a good experience. - Well, okay, let me ask you this then. So in terms of the pricing for the device, so you've got the device pricing, then you've got I guess, a subscription pricing for WeASSIST or for the app, is that right? Is it different if you say, for example, just sign up to the app alone and you don't have the WeWalk Cane versus buying the cane and using the WeWalk subscription or the WeASSIST subscription? - So we wanted to make sure that anyone that buys a WeWalk Cane gets our full-fledge navigation system free of charge. So if you do have a WeWalk Smart Cane, as has always been the case, it will be the case, you simply pair up your WeWalk Smart Cane to the app and that's it. With version 2, just for the voice assistant feature 'cause of course, there is a cost for us to access GPT and AI. There is a very low cost and I mean, very low cost monthly subscription fee, if you'd like to be able to access an additional voice assistance. But the core WeWalk features, including the app itself, will be free for our WeWalk Smart Cane users that purchase a Smart Cane. And if you don't have a Smart Cane, but still have the WeWalk app, but for instance want to access WeASSIST in an airport, but aren't paying a subscription for instance, then you're welcome to do that. It's available for you and if you do wanna access our navigation system, but don't have a WeWalk Smart Cane, again, it's a very low monthly fee just to be able to use navigation and the WeWalk app as it is. So again, very transparent in our pricing structures, if that makes sense. And if you've made that initial investment to buy a Smart Cane, again, we've tried to make it as cost-effective as possible, but it's not free in the end. It is still a Smart Cane, it's still an investment that you've had to make as a user. We want to give you all those core experiences without an ongoing monthly fee and that's exactly how we're doing it. - Well, I wish you all the best with it. Good luck at the summer conventions as well, if you get out to those and get a chance, for everybody to get a chance to see it. I think a lot of people are gonna be very interested in hearing about this product. I know there's a lot of excitement already and come back soon. Let's not leave it so long this time, let's get you back on soon. Let's continue this conversation because there's so many aspects of what you've talked about. I mean, you know, I think about one area which is airport navigation, something I would love to do more independently, not rely on assistance for lots of reasons. And I think that this kind of technology can enable that and we're starting to see that come through with other products, but having that cane as well and the capability of it and you know, the knowledge of where you are and, you know, knowledge of distance from one thing to the next, I think could be really useful. So yeah, really exciting times. Guys, come back soon. - Yeah, we will do. Thanks for having us. - Yeah. Thank you for having us, we really appreciate it. And yeah, contact us if you have any additional questions. - So Shaun, earlier I asked you, if you were interested, are you more interested now after you've heard about the features of WeWalk? - I am, yes. I definitely wanna get my hands or hand on the cane, definitely. - Yeah, just one. - As I said right at the beginning of this, you know, if I think it can help me out then why wouldn't you give this a go? The fact that you can get a demo and trial it, I'm very interested. - Yeah, definitely. Well, interested in your comments as always. You can type them in below here on YouTube or you can send us an email to feedback@doubletaponair.com or you can call us on 1-877-803-4567. We will catch you for another Double Tap on YouTube, certain. Thank you, Shaun. - Thank you, bye-bye.