.lumen AI glasses offer ‘pedestrian autonomous driving’ for the blind and visually impaired

Romanian startup .lumen is bringing a new assistive technology option to the blind and visually impaired with AI-powered glasses. Referred to as ‘pedestrian autonomous driving’ by the company, the aim of the glasses is to enhance safety and provide more independence when it comes to navigation.

Cornel Amariei, the CEO and founder of .lumen, was inspired to develop the glasses by his personal experiences growing up.

“I was born into a family of people with disabilities. So everybody in my family but myself has a disability – mental disability, visual disabilities,” Amariei said during a briefing at AWS’ re:Invent conference.

Growing up in such an environment, I realised how much technology can help people with disabilities.”

Amariei’s prior experience in autonomous driving technology laid the foundation for creating a device that brings mobility to the blind and visually impaired.

The glasses combine sensors, a patented haptic interface, and real-time AI processing to guide users safely. The device computes safe walking paths 100 times per second, understanding obstacles both above and below ground and avoiding hazards like puddles, mud and uneven terrain. 

The haptic interface gently pulls the wearer’s head in the direction they need to go, mimicking the tactile guidance of a guide dog. The glasses also provide audio feedback. For example, when entering a narrow area, the voice will alert the user.

.lumen wants to offer a new solution 

“If you check what solutions are out there for the mobility of the visually impaired, the two most known are still thousands of years old. The white cane and the guide dog,” Amariei said.

Amariei said that while guide dogs are a good solution, they’re expensive to train.

According to Guide Dogs ACT/NSW, each puppy takes two years and around $50,000 to train. 

.lumen glasses integrate self-driving car technology into a wearable device. According to the company, it relies on semantic surface understanding and mapping to differentiate between footpaths, roads, and other complex pedestrian environments where traditional tools falter.

“If you think of roads for cars, they pretty much look the same everywhere. But if you do the same comparison for pedestrian infrastructure, on the same street, you can have 20 different ways through it. The complexity is much bigger in pedestrian environments than on roads, and that’s what we use AI for,” Amariei said.

According to Amariei, the .lumen glasses produce 10 gigabits of data per minute, processed in real-time to ensure accuracy in diverse environments. 

“We started with limited resources but used AWS SageMaker to train our models and develop a robust product capable of functioning globally,” Amariei said.

A quick test of the .lumen glasses

I personally tested the .lumen glasses in a bustling media room this week. 

Blindfolded, I navigated a maze of people, chairs, tables, and narrow pathways without bumping into a single obstacle. 

The glasses’ haptic interface buzzed gently on my forehead to signal even slight direction changes. 

Meanwhile, the device’s voice guidance alerted me to tight spaces – for example, squeezing between the chairs and tables occupied by my fellow journos.

A surprising moment came when I first heard the voice – one of many the device offers – and it had an Australian accent despite my being in the US and the device being from a Romanian startup. Delightful. 

I was genuinely surprised at how well the .lumen glasses worked, despite Amariei telling me this version wasn’t the company’s most advanced. While I was tentative through most of the demo, my confidence picked up as I got used to how the haptics worked and realised I wasn’t running into anything.

An aim to unlock the world

.lumen is aiming to open up the world to the blind and the visually impaired – not just the streets.

“What we’re doing is enabling independence for people who’ve never experienced this level of mobility before,” Amariei said.

Amariei told one story about discovering that, to their knowledge, no blind or visually impaired people had gone hiking on a trail unassisted, without already being familiar with that trail.

So they sent a user on a trail with the glasses for around an hour and a half successfully.

“Another tester went shopping in a very large supermarket completely unaided, without knowing the layout or needing human assistance. These are amazing moments,” said Amariei.

Amariei told SmartCompany that .lumen has raised over €10 million (AU$16 million) to date. €5 million (AU$8.17 million) was secured in a single funding round, including €1 million (AU$1.63 million) raised in just one day through SeedBlink. 

These funds will support the company’s roadmap as it prepares to launch into the market. The startup aims to sell 10,000 units by the end of 2026.

The author travelled to re:Invent in Las Vegas as a guest of AWS.

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