In today’s modern world, there’s an app for pretty much anything you want to do, but it’s rare they can have such a positive impact on someone’s life as this one does.
Be My Eyes allows complete strangers to assist visibly impaired people by being their ’eyes’ for them.
It was first launched in 2015 and since then it has gone on to help 130,000 visually impaired users, with more than 2 million volunteers signing up to help others.
The app works by allowing the visually impaired user to video call sighted volunteers from anywhere in the world. This can be for anything from helping blind people find lost or dropped items to reading labels on household products.
Both visually impaired users and volunteers have flocked to the review section to praise the ‘lifechanging’ app.
One user wrote:
I’ve had this app for many months and just got my first call today. I helped a lady identify dollar denominations. It feels good to be able to assist people. It’s too bad I don’t get the opportunity to assist more often, but looking at the number of volunteers compared to the number of blind users it makes sense.
Another person said:
I saw this app while browsing the Google play store a few days ago and thought the concept was quite interesting. I set up a profile as a sighed volunteer, which took under two minutes to do, and didn’t really think much more of it not expecting much really.
But tonight I got a call from a lovely man looking for help to search through a stack of CDs to find the one he wanted to listen to. This app is an amazingly simple and easy way to make everyday living easier for visually impaired people.
A visually impaired user wrote:
I am a first-time user today and I am truly impressed. I needed help seeing my TV screen to change an input setting and I worked with a lady named Tiffany who lives in Alaska. She was very patient, very kind, very helpful and quickly got me on track.
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.