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Launch HN: Sunu (YC S17) – Sonar wristband helping blind people navigate

199 points by marco_trujillo ↗ HN
Hey HN! This is Marco, one of the founders of Sunu (http://www.sunu.io/). We're building a sonar smartband that improves navigation for the visually impaired.

Sunu band combines an ultrasonic transceiver, an inertial motion unit plus a haptic module powered by a bluetooth Arm processor. All this hardware together driven by years of observation and product thinking, over 20 years of experience of blind travel training from our advisor Daniel Kish (aka the real life Dare Devil) and research from the Blind Mobility Research Unit at Nottingham University In England, result in a simple device that gently informs the user of obstacles on their way: proximity, surface density, edges, openings and other information provided in real time. This enables the user to take the best navigation course with ease. It basically works like a new sense: feeling your surroundings at your wrist.

I'm an inventor since I have memory (blame Dexter's Lab), and my best friend from childhood is deaf. I thank life to put these two on my way because early on I found my passion creating games and tools with my friend, which eventually lead me to study robotics, develop 7 assistive devices until this last one hit me to pursue something more. During a year long community service at an institution of blind children I had a life-changing experience which made me realize what I really wanted to do: create technology that serves the disabled community starting with a mobility device that helps the blind move freely.

I'm happy to talk and share more. Don't forget to share, someone in your community may thank you for that!

77 comments

[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 147 ms ] thread
noir-york
Brilliant! I wish you every success.
ludicast
Great idea. Wish you all the luck in the world.
educar
Apologies for the dumb question but what technologies do blind people use today?
jrowley
The cane is a classic. Portable, no batteries, waterproof - identifies you to others that you are visually impaired.
fer_albertorio
That's true for blind travelers who use a white cane. But, most people who live with low vision, like myself, and are legally blind, tend to not use a white cane, simply because we want to 'blend in' and avoid the 'social stigma'.
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rogerbinns
Not directly related, but screen readers are very interesting. It is amazing just how fast they can run, sounding unintelligible to most. There is an excellent demonstration in this youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92pM6hJG6Wo

I wonder if feedback could also be given by such a quick spoken voice (eg describing the scene in front of you as you walk).

adnama
Please don't. The whole point of the device is to provide us an extra sense. Words aren't an extra sense - they're just a distraction. I'm always trying to avoid the sightling who insists on narrating the world for me. Please don't strap this annoying person to my wrist.
teach
My friend who is blind uses an iPhone and a PC with screen reader software installed. She's a writer and is on Facebook all the time.
earlyriser
Do blind people have games on their iphones/android phones?

I checked some websites this week but it seems most of the audiogames are mostly for desktop computers and just a handful of iOS games.

fer_albertorio
I love using Apple's voice Over and zoom text on my mac. IMO being able to seamlessly zoom in and out of text while working is super helpful for people with low vision.
bramd
Your question is very generic, but in situations where this device might be used most (e.g. walking, getting around) I usually use the following:

  * Guide dog (still the non-technical, living and breathing version)
  * iPhone for GPS navigation if I don't know the environment
  * Aftershokz Bluetooth headset with bone conduction to listen to spoken announcements and still hear what's happening around me
In general, the blind use all kinds of standard consumer tech, smartphone, smartwatch, laptop/desktop etc. There are still lots of products out there specifically designed for the blind, but there is more and more a shift to standard devices.
ciro_langone
Hey! This is super cool, and I wish you the best.

I don't know where you're based out of, but in Washington, D.C. is a school called Gallaudet University which you may want to reach out to. They are a school that that provides education for the hard of hearing, and I feel like they may be the most open to new technologies like this.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallaudet_University

marco_trujillo
Thanks for sharing, haven't heard of it. I see they teach to Deaf and Blind (and both) so definitively a fit. Thanks!
avip
Interested to hear more about the tech - how this differs from existing products? Is there a reason this product does not exist (if it does - what makes yours better?) The IP on this kind of things goes +25Y back.
graeham
In some ways 25 years is an ideal amount of time - means that key patents recently expired. A similar factor lead to the explosion of consumer 3D printers about 5 years ago.
marco_trujillo
Sure, main difference from previous products are: - Form factor: prior devices couldn't get this small, most devices were heavy, obtrusive (mostly hand held), noisy and not precise (haptic actuators weren't miniaturized and optimized as today are). Making it wearable allows the user to rely on it only when they need it and in way that doesn't stick out or represent a hard task for them to do. - Connectivity: probable the most powerful factor, none of the previous was a connected device isolating the device for future improvements and fixing the way it works for most of the users. Visually Impaired come in different variants so people have very different navigation challenges depending on the condition behind their impairment (e.g. some have light perception, some have minimum peripheral vision or only central vision, etc), so customization is key. Connectivity permits the device to be prescribed as the user needs besides from allowing us to gather data and enhance the technology constantly so it becomes each time more useful. In general previous products had a "once fit all" approach in an inconvenient design. There still a few of these devices out there but with low user adoption.
kaybe
What does 'connectivity' entail? The way you put it sounds potentially highly intrusive.
rogerbinns
What is the angle/spread of the sensor? eg if you point directly in front of you, then at 2 metres away how wide and tall does it detect things?

In the video you can see someone duck out of the way of an overhanging branch. I'm curious how much they had to move the sensor to figure that out.

marco_trujillo
Sure, range and sensitivity can be adjusted from the App, maximum ratings are 5 meters and 35° angle at the sound cone. So at two meters you would be able to detect head level obstacles with no problem. To improve the receptivity you can also slightly bend your elbow to give a little angle to your forearm and aim the band slightly up, that will catch even the ceiling of your room, fortunately the IMU permits us to understand the position you are aiming and trim the sound cone only to cover areas that represent a hazard, trying to drag attention of the user only with needed.
ENadyr
Interesting that you are going for a limited direct to consumer model for your orders. Is this something YC is recommending as means of showing traction? I remember Thalmic (W13) going for a similar approach, though in their case it was a pre order campaign.
marco_trujillo
We are also exploring other specialized channels with good response so far: - Sunu band is currently being prescribe at NECO Center for Eye Care in Boston as it is proving to be a catalizer in the rehab process of patients who lost their sight. - We are about to start trials with O&Ms (Orientation and Mobility Specialists) from the board of AERBVI (Asociation for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired) to prove the effectiveness of the product to be a complimentary mobility aid and a maximizer in the process of developing O&M skills.
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bramd
Congrats on your launch. As a potential blind user, I've some questions. How can I reach you? Your email doesn't seem to be listed in your profile.
marco_trujillo
Thanks for note I'll update my profile. My email is marco@sunu.io you can also find about us at sunu.io
abelfiori
Hi Marco, as founder of Flicktek I would like to propose our tech in case you want to add more functionalities and interaction to your device, check what we do at flicktek.com!
indescions_2017
Congrats! This is awesome and the best startup idea I've heard in months. Rooting for you guys and wishing you much success :)
rockmeamedee
Just curious, since your clients are visually impaired people, what steps did you take to make your website accessible?

It seems to be from a pre-made template, did you check the template ahead of time? Do you have visually impaired engineers, or do you do things like go through it with a screen reader/iOS VoiceOver every so often?

marco_trujillo
Thanks for asking. We did tried to find accessible templates to screen readers with no luck. So we picked a template we liked and turn it accessible. How? we found good resources (like https://webaccess.berkeley.edu/resources/tips/web-accessibil...), download most used screen readers (NVDA, VoiceOver, Windows Eyes) did our homework and bounced it with some blind friends to make sure.
mikekchar
I'm curious why you didn't go the other direction: build an accessible web page and then try to make it attractive to sighted people. No need for a template -- just straight HTML with black text on a white background.

I'm not trying to be facetious here. I'm genuinely curious if there are market pressures that make a "good looking" website higher priority than an accessible one -- for example a need to look impressive to stake holders who are not visually impaired.

"We didn't think of that" would be an OK response :-). I'm just curious about the challenges for a startup in this kind of market and where one might have to make surprising compromises.

mholmes680
not OP, but i think the overall challenge is cheaply coming up with a not-cheap product than can apply to the largest section of the limited market. Its expensive to advance the tech here, for a limited economic benefit to the company trying to advance the tech.

As the brother to a visually impaired person, I found the website fine. If only you could ship by his August 1 birthday! :)

mojomark
I'm not knocking this initiative, I hope it is very successful and helps the blind. However...

About 10 years ago I sat down with the folks at the Maryland School for the Blind (1) to demo a similar mini LIDAR based design with haptic feedback. They thanked me for coming in and promptly brought in a box of similar devices and contraptions and dumped them on the desk. They told me these devices were fine, but really they were happy using canes.

What came next blew my mind. They told me what they really wanted/needed was a way for a blind person to use AutoCAD so that bling people who wanted to work as engineers or architects could do so. Obviously, that's an exponentially tougher challenge, but certainly not not doable.

1. http://www.marylandschoolfortheblind.org

marco_trujillo
Thanks for sharing. We have heard this too, in fact many visually impaired I've talked to are skeptical initially. Can't blame them since after many attempts to develop an Electronic Travel Aids (ETA) there was not a good product people love. It is also true that many blind people feel comfortable with their condition, specially if the have good echolocation skills. That doesn't mean they won't appreciate a good product when it arrives, but more like they embraced the problem as part of their lives and aren't looking for a mobility solution (that's usually the case for people who born blind or have been living blind for over 20 years). But that's not the case for the vast majority, people losing sight or people who recently lost it are actively looking solutions. Is matter of digging and finding, there is a lot of variants when it comes to disabilities, definitively a hard puzzle to solve (I've been connecting pieces for over 3 years) but very rewarding.
mbrookes
"many visually impaired I've talked to"

This says it all really.

mbrookes
Apparently insensitive language is ok, but questioning it is not? HN, you've lost your way.
prawn
I think the founder is originally from Mexico so it's possible that English is not their first language. And either way, there's a more polite way to bring something to their attention than as you did. It's possible to have your heart in the right place, but misstep with language.
rurounijones
I am a native English speaker (UK) and I cannot figure out what the problem was. Instead of assuming why not explain?

I am GUESSING that some people think "visually impaired" is insensitive?

ajeet_dhaliwal
Why is this insensitive language? What do you think he should have said instead? I'm curious because I would not want to offend anyone. 'Visually impaired' seems like a standard way to describe people who have either full or some degree of partial blindness, in the UK you can even register as 'visually impaired' with the government and the NHS (National Health Service) uses this term.

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Visual-impairment/Pages/Introdu...

GordonS
I guess their complaint is that the phrase "visually impaired", rather than "people with a visual impairment", or even the less respectful "visually impaired people", sort of makes it sound like the people he spoke with are defined by their disability.
JackC
It comes across pretty badly in my dialect of American English to turn adjectives about people into nouns. For example, "I saw a disabled on the bus today" or "a visually impaired" or "a Chinese" without "person" afterward would all be really weird phrasing, and if you were otherwise fluent in my dialect it would imply that whatever you were about to say next was likely to be pretty clueless about that group.

BUT I wouldn't apply that inference to someone with a foreign accent, even a British accent. It's a fine point of style that I can't assume will translate across dialects. (For example, "I saw a German on the bus today" would be much less weird than "a Chinese" to anyone speaking my dialect. How do we know? We just know.) So here I think mbrookes has the wrong idea.

srean
All I can say is thanks for taking the time to write this. For the life of me I could not figure out what did the op do wrong.
mmjaa
What should it be? I found this a much nicer way of describing 'blind' people than you, apparently, did. What is a better, more polite way to describe someone whose vision is impaired?
throwanem
You're not questioning; you're attacking. Why?
filipncs
In what way does it "say it all"?

Do you feel there's a lot someone could learn about you that isn't immediately clear from your comment above? Or does it "say it all" about you?

ndarilek
As a blind person myself, I think I get from where you're coming here. But, as has been suggested by others, my first read of this was "non-native English speaker" rather than "offensive." I can't count how many times we've been referred to by folks as "blinds," which cracks me up every time (in a good-natured way, that is.) My girlfriend, a wheelchair user and speaker of 4 languages, regularly finds such things amusing as well, particularly as she can usually understand the linguistic reasoning behind much of the awkward phrasing.

That said, I'm glad they seem to be working with blind/visually-impaired folks. I hope they likewise staff their company with blind developers/designers as well, since we're still not terribly well-represented in tech, and it always makes me a little sad to see companies building products for us, but only involving us in the testing/final steps. I'd love to hack on something like this myself, and have played with Arduino-based echolocation augmentation for help with solo cycling/sports/other non-basic use cases. I hope there are blind developers working with you on the firmware.

marco_trujillo
Thanks for jumping in. In fact one of the founders is Visually Impaired. Fernando is a tremendous asset to Sunu, he has a Ph.D. in Physics by Harvard, has built two successful companies before Sunu and is one of the smartest, hard-worker and good persons I know.
marco_trujillo
Woow, that was a long discussion for a peculiar observation. To be honest I didn't clearly understand what the observation was at the beginning, I did feel it was pointing some sort of incoherence in my reply although I didn't know what it is exactly, and from all your reply's its evident everyone understand something a little different, so... it doesn't really "says it all". Yes, I am from Mexico and we don't have a problem saying "Visually Impaired" (they don't have a problem either), in Mexico we say "Ciego" for blind but people who want to be gentle say "Invidente" which means "no vidente" which can be understand as "not seer" or "no clairvoyant" which is funny and not accurate. In summary, this is not racism, is a medical term for a real condition. It doesn't makes sense to be gentle, embracing the disability is important for adaptation, starting from the term. This is my market, this is the people I love and I want to encourage to be active, the term is just a term, the product and my work spent over the years does says it all.
amorphid
>> They told me what they really wanted/needed was a way for a blind person to use AutoCAD

That's a fascinating idea. I wonder how that'd work. Is there an existing interface, that allows a blind person to experience a 3-D object and it's interior? For example, how would a blind person understand a blueprint for the Leaning Tower of Pisa, exterior walkways, interior staircases, etc.

saulrh
The model for the interaction has already been figured out by all of these tools that people are trying to create, hasn't it? Point a probe into the world and get back a signal that corresponds to some geometric property of the world - distance from the probe, edge-detection, etc. It's like virtual reality: replace the world with a rendered scene and the lidar range detecter with something like a Vive wand.
cuauhtli
yes, the trick right here is to have something that is of everyday use, we actually embedded an IMU and have the ability to recognize the space and map it with very low power consumption in the wrist. gathering the info from the environment without the use of a camera that uses a lot of processing power and mAh. What we developed is a fashionable navigation watch for the blind and visually impaired.
xkcd-sucks
Possibly modeling the acoustic characteristics of a space + simulating its response to pings/white noise bursts/etc.?
mojomark
So after tgat meeting at the MSFTB, I delved into the possibilities for a CAD system for the blind. An engineer myself, I'm very familar with standard CAD.

Yes, you can have a haptic feedback probe (e.g. a wand) that can be used to trace the surfaces and edges of a virtual object, but imagine trying to understand say, a sky scraper model with a single probe. Or a nest of pipes, valves and cables. And what about understanding precise scale, turning layers on/off, or slicing a model to understand interior arrangments? The challenge is overwhelming.

However, at the time I thought "OK, first things first - how do you sense basic objects like blocks and spheres without sight." It seemed to me that you'd want to exploit as many body sensory inputs as possible to get the job done. Also at that time haptic feedback glove research was growing - mostly for remote 'robotic arm' controls.

Now, I see there has been a lot of progress in this area: http://dev-blog.mimugloves.com/data-gloves-overview/

It would be great if a human could reach into a model and explore surface contours with both hands (all fingers). I think the ideal 'gloves' would not only impart resistance on fingers and wrist, but also the elbow, shoulder and perhaps torso to give the most accurate sense of realism of a model. In addition to resistance, it would be ideal for the glove to simulate texture using vibrational haptic feedback for even more realism. After that, the UI would really need to be fine-tuned to enable scaling, slicing, layering, measuring, and constructing in a virtual space using tactile/audio feedback vice visual feedback. What this UI is exactly, I dont know.

vinceguidry
Sad, but we'll probably fix blindness before we'll ever fix our software to be able to accommodate it.
bluGill
I looked into this years ago in college. What I discovered is there are two different problems the blind face: obstacle avoidance and navigation. Most people focus on the first, but in fact a cane works just fine, and the can also plays the useful purpose of telling everyone that I need you to pay extra attention to me because I won't avoid you (there are a lot of negatives to advertising that you are blind)

Where the blind have problems is larger scale navigation in unfamiliar places. An example is a few years ago a blind person stopped me to ask how to get to a building - we were standing right in front of it so this should be easy, but it wasn't. What I would do is jump over the flowers, duck under a railing and I'd be on the ramp. It is a good thing he knew to be suspicious when I gave him those directions or he would have got hurt. I eventually got him there, but it was a lot harder than I expected, and this is for a case where he only had a few meters to go. Imagine trying to get around a new city - most people rely on sight far too much.

marco_trujillo
You are completely right, thanks for pointing it out. The problem is the mobility and the orientation. The first one can be trained and the second needs external support. Orientation is being solved with Apps like Google maps and other navigation apps for outdoor and indoor spaces (blindsquare, overthere, overhere, seeing eye gps, near explorer...). Mobility though, is a hard one because of the training involved (not everyone develops the same skill) and although canes work pretty well, they are limited too. Canes won't catch upper body obstacles, won't anticipate any obstacle until you hit it when it is close enough. Sunu band doesn't intent to replace a cane, but to enhance the navigation experience for the user with a complimentary aid that provides an extra layer of information that reduces anxiety, augments spatial perception and foster the development of the users mobility skills. Thank you.
elmar
Really interesting project, do you envision the usage of this technology on other use cases like for example robot navigation?
maneesh
Marco! This is Maneesh from Pavlok (pavlok.com)! We met on Skype, and your co-founder worked with me at MassChallenge. Congrats on your success -- I hope I can help!
marco_trujillo
Hi Maneesh, good to find you here! your wearable is stunning too, we should catch up soon. Cheers
codegladiator
The top banner at your site says "Only days left" ....
shanselman
Super useful, but with respect, your page is an accessibility mess. So much so that I can't really show it to my blind friends. http://wave.webaim.org/report#/http://www.sunu.io/

Don't just buy a template. If you care, do the work.

marco_trujillo
Thanks for the straight feedback and sharing the accessibility tool. Agree we have to work the accessibility for Low Vision (constrasts, rezicing, colors). For now it seems to be working very well for people using screen readers. We are also enhancing it on the go with feedback from people who find new things. Thanks
Raphmedia
I'm getting an antivirus warning when accessing your site :

"Bitdefender Endpoint Security Tools blocked this page The page is blocked by Bitdefender Endpoint Security Tools Cloud (Malware).

Access from your browser has been blocked."

dpflan
This is very cool; thanks for sharing. I remember listening to an Invisibilia episode entitled "How to Become Batman" [1]. It mentioned that blind children grow up and can learn to use echolocation, generating clicking sounds, to explore and to understand their surroundings. But the clicking is not socially acceptable, so many times the child is forced to eschew this technique. I am curious about this technique, what parts of the brain are involved in that, and how to improve upon or supplement or complement this technology to assist the visually impaired by somehow hooking into the similar neuro-pathways used in the echolocation technique. What're your thoughts on this? Have you had children us your device yet?

::Reference(s)::

[1] http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/378577902/how-to-bec...

marco_trujillo
Great feedback. It is proven (Adelson E. & Fraiberg, 1974) that sighted children need directed reaching (approaching, touching, feeling) to connect the visual system to movement. The same happens for echolocation, the user needs to "confirm" what he is hearing by touching it in order to establish a relationship between sound and space. Unfortunately, as you mention, many children are being limited by their parents in the process of developing this association, ultimately blocking the activation of the visual cortex and depraving the kid to develop spatial perception (which is fundamental to develop other skills). We have tried the device with kids, although it takes a time to train them, when they understand what they are feeling they start to run everywere to explore the sensation. The band has worked so far as a catalizer of exploration, but we are also in the process of developing scientific data with our current partnerships to prove that this device can accelerate the time it takes for a blind person to develop echolocation skills as well as to remove initial barriers in the process of learning the skill (fear).
faceplanted
Would it be possible to have headphones, bone conduction or otherwise, something they can still hear normal sounds through at least, which could convert an ultrasound "click" played by a speaker into a human audible "click" so they could use this in place of the audible clicking of human echolocation?

So a high frequency speaker on their head plays the sound, and the headphones convert the returning reflected sound in the correct frequency range into a lower frequency and the brain does the rest. Seem like if we can have active noise cancelling headphones removing sound frequencies, we can have a headphone with microphones converting a frequency.

marco_trujillo
Brilliant idea. Daniel Kish has a patent on a similar device that clicks at an audible frequency, you can adjust the clicking rate, power and pitch (different pitch provides different information).
tabeth
Heh, in college a friend and I wanted to make make an "echolocation" headband that would allow blind people to "see" after watching the video of the young man who possessed this ability [1].

Unfortunately, neither of us had the hardware expertise to make such a thing despite buying a Lego Mindstorm and the accompanying ultrasound sensor [2].

Best of luck to you all! The difficult thing we found was teaching blind people how to use it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wby1CIhnYWI

[2] https://shop.lego.com/en-US/EV3-Ultrasonic-Sensor-45504

a_c
A tangential thought, would the ultrasound bring discomfort to pets?
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Naushad
All good... but as someone else said. The accessibility for the webpage needs a proper fix.