SAN FRANCISCO, July 26 ― With Lechal shoes you can pretend to your friends that you always know where you're going, thanks to vibrating insoles that relay navigation information to the soles of your feet.
The smart shoes, which will be available as finished footwear or as insoles that can be slipped into an existing pair of shoes or sneakers when they go on sale in September, connect to a smartphone via Bluetooth and an app in order to pick out a route and navigate the wearer to it.
Once the route has been selected, there's no need to keep glancing at a smartphone screen. Drop it in a pocket or bag and let the hepatic feedback guide the way.
But the ingenuity doesn't stop there. The app can point out landmarks and other points of interest along the way and the shoes' smart sole can also be called upon to count steps taken and calculate calories burned.
Developed by Indian company Ducere Technologies, the shoes were initially conceived as an unobtrusive and intuitive way of giving people with impaired vision greater freedom and mobility.
However, the company's founders soon realised that this unobtrusiveness would appeal equally to most smartphone owners ― especially when compared to gadgets like Google Glass.
This same vibration-based guidance could also prove much safer than glancing at a smartphone, particularly for cyclists or runners, and with this in mind, Ducere Technologies has also added an option to the supporting app for creating custom workouts and setting goals as well as for simply keeping track of activity.
And despite broadening its scope, the company hasn't lost that initial focus. It hopes to use profits from selling the shoes ― which will cost between US$100 (RM317) and US$150 ― to subsidise future sales to the visually impaired.
Since first revealing the Lechal shoe (Lechal means “take me there” in Hindi) back in March, Ducere Technologies claims it has received 25,000 preorders. ― AFP-Relaxnews
