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
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.
More questions? Check out our FAQ.
Book a demo
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
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.
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.
