Smartphones and navigation apps are commonplace these days. However, for people who are completely blind or have low vision, it is not so convenient. Haptic has been building a non-visual, non-verbal way to tell people where to go, and we decided it was time to scale it up and take it globally.
Today, Haptic presented on stage as part of the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024, showcasing the company's progress from concept to prototype to platform. The company was founded in 2017, and after a friend lost his eyesight in an accident, he started looking into ways groups of colleagues could navigate without visual or auditory cues.
Apps are full of screen reading options and voice instructions, but these options aren't always convenient or practical. But as co-founder and business director Enzo Caruso pointed out, there are other interfaces available. For example, touch.
“Why not receive information in a more robust, intuitive and accessible way? Everyone can understand the sense of touch. It's global, it's global, it's universal,” he said. .
Caruso said the haptic advancement is a patented way to use vibrations and other tactile sensations to convey a simple, intuitive idea that the user is heading in the right direction. The device sends out a steady pulse when in orbit, and speeds up or strengthens the pulse when out of orbit. They call it the “tactile corridor.” Although it is difficult to imagine, it seems that you can intuitively understand it in a few seconds.
Image credit: Haptic
This approach has many advantages. It works in any language, requires no special hardware, and can be used to guide someone on a crowded city sidewalk, in an open landscape, or even inside a building (though that part is still in development is). .
Initially, this tactile corridor was communicated through the company's wearables, but the company has since embraced advances in the market.
“As you advance, so does technology, and smartwatches are getting better. So, do you want to compete with Google and Apple? Or do you want to be allies? We can move to a billion users,” Caruso said.
CEO and co-founder Kevin Yoo explained that this year marked a shift in the company's focus from proving products to getting them into the hands of as many people as possible. Partnering with the likes of Google and Uber would certainly be a big step towards making that happen.
Imagine not even having to take your phone out of your pocket at the airport, instead heading straight for an Uber or finding your way through a crowded venue with the help of your smartwatch's heartbeat, he said. Not only can it be a daily navigation tool for people with visual impairments, it may also be useful for everyone.
Here's one of our users, James, using the app to navigate his neighborhood.
“Google and Apple, telecommunications, Uber, government…all these things are coming together on common ground,” Yoo said. Combining the capabilities of today's smartwatches and mobile phones with new software that Haptic focuses on “ultra-accurate location,” it hopes to introduce indoor navigation and integration with other services.
Haptic currently partners with Waymap, Cooley, WID, and Infinite Access, and is in talks with more companies. They just signed a $1 million deal with Aira, an app that allows people with visual impairments to receive live assistance from sighted helpers via their mobile phones. Haptic navigation reduces the need for your assistant to give step-by-step instructions and instead just drops a pin on a map or provides other services.
Yoo emphasized that this is how they intend to make money, rather than monetizing their own apps. “We have a free app that's available all over the world, and we're in 31 countries right now… and we have a licensing and integration model. That's the business.”
The company is in the middle stages of raising money and hopes to complete a funding round that will allow it to pursue larger partners in earnest (the Ubers and T-Mobiles of the world).