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beluga

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Research prototype. Not a medical device.

For blind & low-vision pedestrians

Hear what's in your way.

beluga warns you about obstacles with short sounds that come from the obstacle's side. It also turns lasting hazards, like a scooter left across the sidewalk, into a fix-first list for the city.

Try beluga(Android Chrome)City dashboard

beluga is a research prototype built at Hack the Hill III. It is not a medical device. Use it alongside your white cane or guide dog, never in place of them.

depth checks a second
10×
walking corridor ahead
3 m
network calls to warn you
0
Headphones onHear a warning

Made for walking with a cane or guide dog

A pole on your left sounds on your left. A step down ahead sounds ahead. Your hands stay on the cane.

Hear it

Hear a warning

Put your headphones on. beluga plays three warnings, one from each side, the way the bone-conduction earbuds would. Each sound repeats faster as the obstacle gets closer, then says what it is.

  1. Leftpole, 2 m
  2. Aheadstep down, 3 m
  3. Righthead-height sign, 1.5 m

How it works

From the sidewalk to the city

The phone sits on a chest mount with the camera facing forward. Everything that keeps you safe runs on the phone. The city part only starts when you turn reporting on.

  1. Step 1 of 4

    Depth on the phone

    Chrome's WebXR and ARCore depth measure everything in a narrow walking corridor, ten times a second. This part never touches the network.

    01 Depth

  2. Step 2 of 4

    Sounds from the obstacle's side

    A short sound plays from the side of what is in the way and repeats faster as it gets closer, made for bone-conduction earbuds that keep the ears open to traffic. Drop-offs and head-height hazards have their own sounds.

    02 Sound

  3. Step 3 of 4

    Ask, and civic triage

    A tap on Ask sends one camera frame to an ElevenLabs agent that sees with Gemini, and the answer is spoken from the object's side. The same kind of agent answers questions about lasting hazards, and fixed rules decide what gets reported.

    03 Ask

  4. Step 4 of 4

    A fix-first list for the city

    With consent, anonymous reports rounded to about 100 m land in Tiger Data. Continuous aggregates rank the spots worth fixing first around Ottawa's O-Train stations.

    04 City

Two speeds

Fast where it keeps you safe

Warnings never wait for the network. The slower parts, Ask and reports, only run when you ask for them.

On the phone, no network, 10 times a second

  1. Camera
  2. Depth
  3. Hazard
  4. Sound
  5. Earbuds

Ask, when you want to know more

One tap sends one camera frame. beluga never stores it, and the agent's conversation is deleted right after the answer.

  1. Ask, then
  2. ElevenLabs agent, sees with Gemini, then
  3. Spoken from the object's side

Reports, when you turn them on

The hazard type, its distance, a rough location and the time. The city sees the spots worth fixing first.

  1. Report, then
  2. Tiger Data, then
  3. City dashboard

Features

Built for the cane & the guide dog

  • 01

    Bone conduction

    Sounds go through your cheekbones, so your ears stay open to traffic, voices and your cane.

  • 02

    Drop-offs and head height

    A step down, a curb edge or a sign at head height each have their own sound, since a cane can miss them.

  • 03

    Ask

    One tap sends one camera frame. The answer is spoken from the object's side.

  • 04

    Works with no signal

    Warnings come from the phone alone. Once installed, beluga opens and warns you offline, and Ask tells you when it can't reach the network.

  • 05

    Made for TalkBack

    Big buttons, spoken prompts, and a Stop button you hold down, so a bump in your pocket can't end a walk.

  • 06

    Private by design

    No image ever reaches the database. Reports stay off until you turn them on.

Privacy

What leaves your phone

Reporting is off until you turn it on. Even then, only these few facts go to the city's database.

Sent

With reporting on

  • The hazard type
  • Its distance
  • A rough location, within about 100 metres
  • The time

Never sent

Not ever

  • Images
  • Audio
  • Your exact location
  • Who you are

Ask is separate: a tap sends one camera frame to an ElevenLabs agent that sees with Gemini. beluga never stores the frame, and the conversation is deleted right after the answer.

For the city

A fix-first list, ranked in SQL

Anonymous reports land in Tiger Data. Continuous aggregates keep the ranking fast, so the city sees which spots to fix first around the O-Train stations.

429,000labelled simulated events
47 msfor a 7-day question on the raw table
14 msfor the same question from the continuous aggregate
10×smaller once compressed

The same 7-day question

Raw table
47 ms
Continuous aggregate
14 ms

Simulated dataMeasured locally, the live numbers didn't load

Open the city dashboard