Step-Hear – Accessibility for People with Blindness, Visual Impairment or Mobility Disability

Step-Hear is an audio-guide wayfinding system for blind and visually impaired people. It works indoors, outdoors, and on public transportation. It assists people with mobility disabilities to remove some obstacles in their daily activities. 

You can get an idea about the system in the short video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J2O6dpR_uo.

The system combines a free application (or personal wrist-activator) that automatically activates Step-Hear’s unique audio signs – a smart loudspeaker with several audio notifications, active when a user of the app is nearby. 

Step-Hear is the most advanced system of its kind since the audio sign is essential: it is an anchor for the blind and visually impaired, within the relatively wide Bluetooth range – to find a specific point as an entrance door and to know exactly where to stand, so that the guidance to other points of interest, is the most accurate. 

The application provides quite a few features in three different sectors:

Step-Hear Guide

Pinpoint accurate guidance inside buildings and outdoors

• Helps to find the entrance in a wide range of building façades

Step-Hear Assistant

The app allows people with disabilities to remove some obstacles in their daily life

• Notify a reception of a venue that a person requiring assistance has arrived
• Open coded doors with the app
• Activate a Wheelchair Lift

Step-Hear Urban

A unique system for public transportation

• Bus system – After selecting the required line – sending the bus driver a message that a person with a disability is waiting at the next stop. 
• Train system – Audio indication of the train door closest to the user and automated longer door opening times 
• Pedestrian traffic lights – Automated sound indication to find the crossing, audio description of the junction, automated activation of the indication sound for a red or green light

Accolades

• Step-Hear system has won the 2019 Zero Project Award, awarded to the most innovative and effective technologies for accessibility – https://www.step-hear.com/news/zero-project-award-2019/
• Step-Hear has won the Seal of Excellence from the EU program for innovations, Horizon 2020
• Already installed in thousands of venues in Israel and Europe, The Step-Hear system is present in Banks, Universities and Colleges, Shopping Malls, Tourist Attractions, Theatres, Government Offices, Hospitals, Bus Stops and Buses, Parks, &c.

If you know of any entities that could supply or distribute Step-Hear in Australia or New Zealand, we would love to learn about them and connect them with Step-Hear in Israel.

Please email Electronics Manager: jeremy.ungar@israeltrade.gov.il