Tacit, A Glove That Lets Blind People Navigate Using Sonar

Tacit is a sonar-enabled glove that signals the proximity of nearby objects to the wearer using touch feedback. The glove allows visually impaired people to navigate complex environments with relative ease. Tacit was designed and built by San Francisco-based inventor Steve Hoefer of Grathio Labs. Designs for the glove are available via Creative Commons license.

This is a project I’m calling Tacit. No, I didn’t bother making an awkward backronym for it, it just seemed like an appropriate name that’s a lot shorter (though less descriptive) than “Hand-Mounted Haptic Feedback Sonar Obstacle Avoidance Asstance Device”. It measures the distance to things and translates that into pressure on the wrist.

We’ve written about some of Hoefer’s previous work:

– Rock Paper Scissors Playing Glove Competes Against Person Who Is Wearing It
– Not Your Ordinary Book Light, A Reading Light Inside of a Gutted Book

images via Steve Hoefer