HOME (Helper of My Eye)

Inspiration

Our team got inspired by the challenges faced by individuals with visual impairments, particularly their daily struggles with navigating through unfamiliar environment. Simple tasks like walking though crowded streets, avoiding obstacles can be difficult and dangerous for them. This motivated us to design a solution that enhances their independence and safety by providing real-time feedback.

What it does

HOME is a navigation device designed to assist individuals with visual impairments. It is integrated with AI with real-time audio sensory feedback to help users safely navigate unfamiliar spaces by detecting obstacles.

How we built it

We first combined esp32-CAM, speaker, esp32s, battery and a speaker driver for hardware build up. We code the esp32-CAM with Arduino and used an AI module MiDaS from PyTorch. After several trials, we removed the speaker and esp32s, and instead, we use laptop to output audio for for functionality.

Challenges we ran into

Our team ran into code uploading errors, causing by being not able to connect esp32-CAM to WIFI. The problem could not be resolved even after hours of work.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Since the camera is essential our project, we had to get it working. After spending hours on it, we the datas being sent and received successfully.

What we learned

We learned that AI and real-time processing in a dynamic environment require far more resources than first expected.

What's next for HOME (Helper of My Eye)

Some possible future improvements include enhancing AI accuracy to improve object recognition, adding a speaker to convert AI processed information into audio to inform the user, and extending the battery life