Ontario region switcher

Notice

For content relevant to your community in Ontario, Please select your region

Two hands holding a smartphone up to a document. The phone camera is scanning the document and the seeing AI app is displayed on the phone screen. © Microsoft

Seeing AI

By: Eitel Houedakor 
CNIB National Youth Council Member

For today's youth, technology is a part of our everyday life. It’s also an empowering tool that can help to keep us informed, educated, and organized. Being an independent young adult is not easy, but even more so when you have a visual impairment. I've experienced situations where I've had to ask someone for help to read a document, giving up my right to privacy because the information I'm presented with is inaccessible. That is until I stumbled upon an app from Microsoft called Seeing AI. 

Seeing AI is an app for iOS users who are blind or who have low vision. The app uses your smartphone camera to read out loud printed text and currency, describe physical objects, product labels and colors, and more. This remarkable free app includes several features that I use in my day-to-day life, including: 

  • The 'Short Text' feature reads printed text
  • The 'Document' feature scans my letters and documents
  • The 'Product' feature scans the bar code of products for identification
  • The 'Scene' feature describes the general layout of my environment
  • The 'Currency' feature recognizes the currency of Canadian dollars, US Dollars, British Pounds and Euros
  • The 'Light' feature generates different audible tones to assess the brightness of my environment
  • The 'Color' feature describes the perceived colour of something
  • The 'Handwriting' feature reads handwritten text

Seeing AI provides me with 24/7 visual support, making me feel like I have high-tech eyes. If you haven't used the app yet, I encourage you to download it from the app store and try it! 

CTA Link
More Blogs