Comment by passwordoops | Hacker News Reader

Comment by passwordoops | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I worked in accessible tech for the blind for a few years. It's awesome that these guys are doing something that could be genuinely useful to a swathe of society who really needs the help, and I do wish the space got more attention and money.

However, and I hope I'm wrong here, this is looking like another case of techies with a nifty looking device that will be "available soon" but, more importantly, already tried multiple times and either never caught on for practical reasons or doesn't present a real improvement over what's already out there (0 - for three such mouth trackpads).

I wish the investors and incubators that take these companies to market would do a much better job of coaching the founders on product/market research with target users so they can focus on truly novel solutions to genuine problem spaces that are ignored, but would make a real material improvement to quality if life.

As an example, in BlindTech it was the "smart cane", which is dumb for so many reasons and will never, ever catch on, but every 6 months or so... Here pops another start up with a seed of $0.1-1M to go to market! That money would be better spent just buying "dumb" canes at a volume discount and reselling them... Or, if you insist on developing a BlindTech solution, an app that could tell a user when they missed a button on their blouse or shirt (I never worked in the paraplegic space, so I'm not sure what other challenges the users face).

(0) https://www.disabled-world.com/assistivedevices/smart-mouthw...

https://spinalcordinjuryzone.com/info/17816/glassouse-worlds...

https://quad.life/

Product 1 never reached the market. Product 2 and 3 are very different.

Product 1 - failed (why?) Product 2 - identical use case Product 3 - identical use case

I want to be clear - it's awesome they are putting in the effort to work in accessibility. But why will Product #4 prove profitable when it is a rehash of an approach that has been tried for years without gaining much steam above and beyond what is already there.

What is the evidence that their tweak in technology will be a major market breakthrough? Is it that much easier to use? Is it that much more comfortable? If the answer is inconclusive, then best to leave this application and find an overlooked problem paraplegics face that really could benefit from a technology solution

Agree that learning from past efforts can be helpful, but I think you're shooting things down way too early here. I'm not seeing any specific critique you're making about mouth-based input being a bad pursuit, in fact the three efforts you linked hardly qualify as evidence against the opportunity:

GlassOuse - very different form factor, bulky and limited appeal to a narrow set of the most extreme users (quadriplegics). Probably too early to market too (2017).

Smart Mouthware - what looks like a crowdfunded two person team, seems more like a brief project than a company. Doesn't seem like a serious enough effort.

Quadjoy - completely different, plugged-in product tied to a chair, very expensive ($1400).

There's all sorts of reasons for having many separate groups pursue the same idea over a period of time until one 'gets it' and defines a category [1]. This includes market timing, tech timing, component costs, financing, eng & biz talent, how the market opportunity is understood and pursued, the myriad of specific product decisions that make subtle but important differences in UX, etc.

Just from a tech timing perspective, a serious company building something in this category today would have a product that is considerably smaller, cheaper, and longer lasting than one launched just a few years ago, due to component & supply chain improvements. A smaller, cheaper device means access to a broader market, including out-of-pocket purchases and selling to users who are in a wider spectrum of disability.

[1]: I wrote about this process of getting to category defining products here, in case its of interest: https://nickpunt.com/blog/category-defining-products/

Even copycat competition might help in that it can lower prices for consumers. I use a Penguin mouse and they cost a lot for what is just generic electronics in an unusual-shaped housing. But I can't find any other ambidextrous vertical mouse.

I agree, more competition is generally better but the unfortunate reality of accessible tech is margins are usually already very low, and real market not that big [0]. So if a price war starts the result is usually a company deciding to leave the space entirely.

[0] Yes, there is a huge population of people who will benefit from accessible tech, unfortunately very often they cannot afford the technology and the funding is often limited

> I use a Penguin mouse

I couldn't help but chuckle when I saw what it looked like. I'm curious, what are the advantages to using this over a regular mouse?

> I'm curious, what are the advantages to using this over a regular mouse?

The advantages are probably similar to those of any vertical mouse: There's much less stress on the wrist, which is important if you're suffering from e.g. RSI.

But since in this case the mouse is also ambidextrous, you can switch hands, too. (-> Useful for ambidextrous people and, also, even less stress on the individual wrist.)

For a cheaper setup, I have a right-handed vertical mouse (Amazon $20 special) to the right of my keyboard, and a second left-handed mouse on the left, and I switch between them throughout the day. It makes my desk look a little silly, but it works great!

I've adopted a similarly-inspired setup with a tradtional mouse on the right and a touchpad on the left. I initially added the touchpad to assist with vertical scrolling on Mac OS, but now I move between the two depending on the task and it keeps my wrists happier.

Same setup here. Hoping for even more input devices in more places to spread the load. For instance there's also some folks building ergo keyboard with trackpads near the thumbs to replicate the MacBook experience of a trackpad below spacebar for the occasional pinch zoom or scroll. And having various buttons/knobs for specialized tasks would also be great.

Good idea.

Exactly that. It has a flip switch to swap the left/right buttons when you change hands, but I never use that as I'm used to thinking of right click as index finger and left click as middle finger on either hand.

I've never heard of a "smart cane", I'm curious why its a dumb idea?

I'll link to an open source project [0] because I don't want to throw mud at any particular company, and it is a cool project to develop for anyone motivated enough.

Having said that, it's a dumb product because the cane is very often beaten up, or misplaced so it's an expectation that it will need replacing every 12-18 months. The additional weight needed for the hardware throws off the natural balance of the cane making it more difficult to use and also interferes with the haptic feedback users depend on from a "dumb" cane. Also, the white cane is relatively cheap ($20-50 USD) - smart canes are usually $1000+, or if the "smarts" come as attachments to an analog cane, they would range $300-500 (my intelligence is 2-3 years old, so it might be higher now), so out of reach to most blind people. None are stand-alone and require synching with the phone, but many users who are tech savvy enough to use one of these already uses a navigation app, so one of the key benefits (GPS navigation) is redundant.

Overall the drawbacks (price, negative impact on usability, natural wear and tear) greatly outweigh the possible benefits.

Everyone in the industry is genuine, there is very little profiteering, and the goal across the board is to improve people's lives, but these products are always from young techies (student or technically advanced blind person) who made an awesome project that should be celebrated. But they should also be one-offs and open-sourced, with the money and effort spent on launching smart canes that will inevitably fail in the market better spent elsewhere.

[0] https://maker.pro/arduino/projects/arduino-smart-cane-for-th...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com