New Delhi: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur and Ambrane India Private Limited have joined hands under a technology transfer agreement to produce and market haptic smartwatches for blind and visually impaired people at industrial volumes.
Informing about this initiative, the officials shared that the gadget to help blind and visually impaired people was built by Prof Siddhartha Panda, Viswaraj Srivastava and the National Center for Flexible Electronics at IIT Kanpur.
The dial face of the IIT Kanpur haptic watch contains 12 touch-sensitive hour markings that the user's fingers can detect. When such markings are touched, a vibration pulse is produced, with a long pulse denoting an hour and a brief pulse denoting a minute.
This hybrid watch is a combination of a vibration watch and a tactile watch. Researchers developed the device at IIT Kanpur. It is designed to produce two pulses as opposed to the audio-based, public timepieces that are currently on the market.
In a press release, the manufacturer claimed that "the difficulty of a vibration watch producing more than 20 pulses has been simplified to 2 pulses, and the fragile character of a tactile watch is abolished, resulting in a simple-to-use, secure, inexpensive, and resilient watch."
This haptic watch also has smart capabilities that display the time, heart rate, and step count, and reminders the user to drink more water. More of these assistive gadgets are being developed by IIT Kanpur's centre for flexible electronics.
IIT Kanpur and Ambrane India technology licencing deal were signed in the presence of IIT Kanpur Director, Abhay Karandikar, Head of Research and Development, AR Harish, Innovators Siddhartha Panda, Viswaraj Srivastava, Director of Ambrane India, Ashok Rajpal, and Anuskh Sharma from PIC for Innovations and Incubation.
"The invention of the haptic wearable device for the visually impaired and blind is a groundbreaking creation from the team of Prof. Siddhartha Panda and Mr Vishwaraj Srivastava at NCFlexE, IIT Kanpur," stated Abhay Karandikar, Director of IIT Kanpur.
He added, “We think that just by permitting the blind and visually impaired to use technology without difficulty daily, this watch will have a significant positive social impact. Ambrane India will shortly begin selling the wristwatch at a reasonable price and readily available.”
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