At some point in your life you may have considered how difficult losing your vision could be. Not only would there be daily challenges of getting around, but functioning financially would take considerable effort and carry risk. With the advent of smartphone apps for everything, an app for optometry patients with limited vision to handle some typical financial dealings has appeared — EyeNote.
Why Is EyeNote Needed?
As you might imagine, a visually impaired person could have significant trouble differentiating the value of one piece of currency from the next. All bills are the same size, thickness, and construction. Other than the images printed upon them, there may be no way to tell the difference between a hundred dollar bill and a single. That is where EyeNote comes into play. Introduced by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, EyeNote is a marvel for those with low vision.
What Does EyeNote Do?
A free application currently available for iPhones, EyeNote uses the phone’s camera to detect which denomination of currency is present. The phone tells the user what bill he or she has either audibly, with the phone speaking the currency detail, or by feel, through a series of pulses from the phone that are associated with each currency value. For example, one dollar would be one pulse, a five dollar bill would be two pulses, and so on, even including a pattern for errors. It takes only a few seconds for the application to read each bill and provide the user with the information. The user can then pay for items with confidence knowing that he or she is using the right denomination and getting the correct change in return.
Are There Limitations of EyeNote?
Currently, EyeNote is only available on iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4G, iPod Touch and iPad 2 and is not yet on the Android platform. It is also important to know that EyeNote is just an optometry aid and does not detect if the bill in question is real or counterfeit, only the denomination of the bill being viewed. Also, only US bills produced after 1996 can be interpreted by the app with a high level of accuracy.
EyeNote is a marvel in the world of optometry, solving a very big problem for those who have vision impairment. Ask your optometrist about this and other smartphone apps that can help friends and loved ones with vision issues.
