Mobility with mobile app

(From right) IT instructor Lim Yew Yi from St Nicholas’ Home Penang showing the app with his students Muhammad Rafique Farhan Saiful Nizam, 19, and Muhamad Sirajudin Sulaiman, 18, and Soon during the announcement of the trial run at Gurney Plaza, Penang.

A LOCALLY designed mobile phone app to help the blind and visually impaired with navigation and mobility will soon be made available.

St Nicholas’ Home Penang has developed the Visually Impaired Indoor Navigation (ViNV) app to help the blind navigate in unfamiliar places with the assistance of both audio and visual guidance.

Believed to be the first indoor navigation system for the blind in Malaysia, the app is Bluetooth-run and can be downloaded for free from Google Play Store and Apple App Store from June.

The home’s executive director Daniel Soon said the home started working on the app since 2016, noting that it was based on the principles of a universal design.

“The app basically guides the user on the present location and the direction and number of steps needed to reach a particular destination within buildings installed with the system.

“And, since the data cannot be updated in real time, users have to rely on their faithful canes for precaution against obstacles ahead,” he said when announcing a trial run for the app at Gurney Plaza in George Town recently

Soon said Bluetooth beacons needed to be installed within a 20m to 30m radius in the particular building to bounce off the system’s signals to users’ mobile phones.

A beacon is a small Bluetooth radio transmitter, powered by batteries. Beacons are similar to a lighthouse in functionality.

These small hardware devices incessantly transmit Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) signals.

Bluetooth-enabled smartphones are capable of scanning and displaying these signals.

For a start, he said, the home and the ground floor of Gurney Plaza had been equipped with relevant beacons for the app to work.

The app is presently available in English while a Malay version of it is in the pipeline.

“We provide the services of placement of the beacon, calibration and marking on the map that will be hosted in the app.

“The installation cost will be borne by the building operator. Subsequently, a subscription model may be introduced.

“We will maintain the system for the building operator and provide them with data on their shoppers, which may be quite helpful,” he added.

Soon said he hoped that the system would eventually be introduced in all government-owned buildings and public facilities.

He said the home was in the process of applying a copyright for the system.