Be My Eyes

With so much unrest in the world today it is beyond refreshing to be apart of the Be My Eyes community. Helping individuals from all over the country and creating an app that connects visually impaired individuals to sighted being able to communicate not only for the purpose of the call itself but being able to relate and learn from a demographic that one may never have had the chance to be a part of let along understand the challenges and offer nothing more than time is just a beautiful thing. This was a truly inspired idea and possibly the most important and meaningful app I was so lucky to come across. I will continue to utilize this platform to help as many people from all walks of life for anything they need, as well as even a conversation or education I would never have had the opportunity in my life to benefit from the way that I have with every interaction since using Be My Eyes. 5 stars is not enough for the connections that can be built from simply helping a stranger. If only more people took the time to help one another, what this world could become would have no limits. Thank you to the developers for offering me the chance to participate in such an amazing and gratifying experience.

I would love to give this app, a higher rating and I would have except that it’s recent behavior is frustrating. I use the app mainly for reading mail. Occasionally, it will tell me that it can’t read the recipients name or address, because it is not supposed to disclose information from an image. To me, that kind of defeats, the purpose of using the app for reading mail as a blind person. yet, other times, it will read the mail, including giving me the name and recipients address. So the inconsistent application of this rule is confusing. But ultimately, the real frustration is that it applies this rule in the first place, meaning that I can’t always use this app, because I have to switch to another app to read the image. In other respects, though, Be My Eyes is wonderful at describing images and scenes. when I sent a message about being frustrated, with the fact that it wouldn’t disclose this information, it responded that I could cover the personal information with the piece of paper and that way it wouldn’t reveal such information. This implied then that it would reveal all the information if I didn’t cover the page, but that wasn’t the case. since this behavior just started in the last month, I’m presuming that it might be a response related to how the European Union wants Apple to handle images. So, this is why I’ve rated the app reluctantly as a three star rating.

If you are blind or have low vision and don't have this app, get it now! It means never getting stuck anywhere with nobody around where the one piece of information is a sign, or something, that you have no way of accessing. It is just amazing that so many people have volunteered to be part of this that you can call on them almost anytime and get someone right away. With the tap of one button. I've used them to read error messages on a new computer when the built-in speech would not start, to look over the manual for a new product, to read the menu in a restaurant which was not on-line, while I was waiting for a friend, and to tell what color a little indicator light was. But I can think of so many places this would have been helpful, and it's really nice knowing I won't get stuck again. Like when the bus isn't coming and there's a print sign about it that I can't read, when an office is closed and there is a sign on the door, when I want to grab a bite to eat and it would normally take me a half hour of poking around on my phone to figure out what's in the neighborhood, I could just call someone and have *them* look around. And so much more. All the little things that can cause so much trouble just don't have to be a problem. I particularly appreciate being able to work with volunteers to whom I am anonymous and therefore are doing this for their own reasons, maybe just to contribute to the better good, instead of people who kind of expect an ongoing relationship of gratitude. It is much more dignified. Thanks to all the volunteers who do give their time this way.