With O&Ms since day 1

From the very first sketch, biped involved Orientation and Mobility (O&M) specialists, low vision experts and end-users. biped's team has been actively developing NOA with the Ophthalmic Hospital in Lausanne as well as various centers around the globe.
Watch this 14-minutes video at your next O&M meeting to learn more about NOA and the training templates.

The mobility app

The hardest, when training someone on a new device, is to understand what the device could enable the user to do. That's why our team developed a smartphone application that helps O&M specialists during training sessions.

The app connects over Bluetooth to the NOA device of the user and provides a full transparency on what is happening in the device: the GPS that the user should follow, the location of the obstacles and the descriptions that the AI system provided.

Download on the App Store

Download on the Play Store

The training program

A screenshot of the training template

If you're interested to introduce NOA to a customer, but not sure how to get started, this is your starting point!

We created a full onboarding manual. It's quick to read, helps you become a product expert, and most importantly, it has a full training template that we designed with mobility trainers locally.

Book a demo

NOA was designed with communities of Orientation and Mobility trainers. We host frequent demos of our device with O&M centers, OTs and low vision experts to gather feedback on our development, the next features, and user training.

We scheduled 100+ demo sessions with end-users to test NOA, building the largest community possible, and most importantly, collecting data on a wide variety of use-cases: children, elderly, mobility impairements or hearing loss.

2 batteries with magnetic connectors that can be inserted in a NOA device A travel bag holding with a NOA device inside, a charger and batteries.

Contact our team to schedule an online discovery session with NOA. If we have demo units and distributors nearby your center, we can even set up an in-person demo. A list of our distributors and partner centers can be found here.





O&M feedback

This is so cool. It's really useful for town travel training with adult.
Australian mobility trainer

NOA can be used by anyone that has completed cane training: kids (above 10 y.o.), young adults, and adults, elderly users, people who site in wheelchairs...

NOA can be used as a complement to white canes and to guide dogs.

Getting started with NOA is easy. Users follow the user manual to get all of the information needed.

That way, when you jump in as a mobility trainer, you're ready to start the mobility sessions and follow if you want the template that we provide. No need to become a product expert by yourself!

Our manifesto

We're convinced that we're going through a transformational era in O&M.

AI & robotics are bringing what GPS systems brought decades ago. A tool, that becomes an interal part of daily lives, and of O&M training.

We're also conviced that white canes and guide dogs are here to stay. Not because technology cannot be as "good".

But because fostering independence should not mean building technology dependency, especially in mobility.

Because technology can run out of battery in the middle of a walk. Because technology can be wrong.

And most importantly, because technology should not undo what O&M training skills teach. Cane technique. Walking with a guide dog. All of these fundamental learnings are here to stay.

But teaching O&M skills to millions of people around the world is a challenge. And continuous training with O&M practitioners over time is even harder to envision at scale. There are simply not enough O&M trainers..

This is where technology plays a role. We believe in continuous learning after O&M sessions. NOA users continue to use their cane, but gain the confidence walk more. The confidence to take a new route. The confindence to rely on their cane or dog, while accessing visual & safety information without having to walk with another person.

We observe, among our user base, that most users start by using NOA on know routes. And gradually feel empowered to discover new routes.

We minimize the interferences of NOA during walks, to leave the ears of the users as free as possible. We never intend to guide a user along a very specific path with a continuous feedback. We've seen near misses on demos of such products, as users focus on following the feedback and tend to ignore their surroundings.

On the other hands, we replicated, from the ground up, the features and training methods described in book: "Foundations of Orientation and Mobility". The way NOA describes the surroundings, the way it describes an intersection, the concepts of obstacles detection...

At biped, we commit to a safe and transparent use of technology. We commit to building reliable technology that helps empower users. We commit to building things that have a long-term positive impact.

Mael, CEO. Paul, CTO. Marco, COO.

From 1 to 100+

For most startups, going from 1 prototype to hundreds of units is a massive challenge. The developement of a hardware product can take years. We have of course been through that valley, experienced long delays, iterated on the product dozens of times, before reaching a stable version: NOA. This device is now stable, scalable, and produced in growing volumes.

A line of multiple NOA devices produced and assembled on a table.

2021: First prototype

We started biped out of a Hackathon, a 1 week challenge to create an impactful solution. biped started as a belt that can describe surrounding objects. When we introduced the first prototype to end-users & O&Ms, we quickly realized that the field of view needed to be higher to allow space for white canes and guide dogs in front.

We tested our software extensively with that version and added night vision for users struggling with low light. We focused on developing a new version that would sit on the chest and be easier to mount.

2022: First vest

Early 2022, we developed our first vest. We added night vision to our system and reduced a lot sensory overload by only focusing on obstacles that have a real risk of collision. At that time, NOA was still only an obstacle detector.

We organized many user testing sessions in standardized environments for the vest and came to these conclusions: the vest needed to be clipped on the chest, but it was still challenging for users to put on their device alone. The field of view was also too limited on the ground-level and on the side for lateral obstacles. Back in the lab!

Late 2022: First O&M tools

O&M trainers during test sessions highlighted that it was challenging to train users without knowing what the device percieves from the environment.

So we focused on building a smartphone app capable of streaming what the device perceives from the surroundings, in real-time. This tool was put in the hands of O&M trainers from day 1 to get feedback on the information to present.

2023: Doing more

As our obstacle avoidance technology started to reach maturity, we realized that our technology needed to do more than avoiding obstacles. We followed O&M trainers during white cane session, we joined guide dog training sessions and converged to the following idea:

We need NOA to give accurate GPS instructions that respect O&M rules, and most importantly, to be able to guide the user to a specific element such as crosswalks, stairs, doors & exits, just like guide dogs would do. NOA now had the ambition to become a real all-in-one mobility solution.

2024: Buttons

In 2023, NOA was tested with over 200 end-users, and used on a daily basis by dozens of beta-testers. As NOA grew in complexity, the smartphone app was needed more and more to change settings, control the device, etc.

We saw many requests to make the device work without a smartphone app. For our first commercial product, we focused on adding these buttons, designed the layout with end-users, mapped the features with O&M trainers, and quickly got awesome feedback.

To learn more about our tech, read our blog.

Over 2500 km walked with NOA! Built with over 250 beta-testers.