I get asked all the time where the idea for Cyber Eyez came from and to tell the truth, I LOVE to tell this story. It’s one of the many things I love about this product and company…both came from a real identified need, not a board room with a white board. Let’s get started…
It all started at a Jimmy Buffett concert. No kidding. I was wearing Google Glass (he’s a proud Parrothead and a Geek) and a friend asked if she could try them on. He let her and a few minutes later, she began to cry. He asked what was wrong, did they hurt, pinch or burn her? No. She said, “This thing has a camera in the front and a speaker in my ear. You have no idea how powerful this is for people with low vision.”
Cyber Eyez was born at a hackathon in Arlington, Virginia a few short weeks later. The first version only read text in English and only on Google Glass. We ran a six month field trial with the DC Center for Independent Living that failed miserably. The device was too slow, the battery didn’t last long enough and worst of all, if the foil the image reflected off of got wet, it was destroyed forever. We went through 4 pairs of Google Glass in 4 weeks. Ouch!
