OrCamMyEye Pro - The Most Advanced Wearable Assistive Device for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Featuring Smart Reading, Face Recognition, Color & Product Identification

We purchased the OrCam MyEye 2, through Amazon, for our 28 year old son who is Visually Impaired, a cane user, Braille reader with light and dark perception. When he lived in England, he found out about the previous OrCam MyEye and scheduled a demonstration with a representative which, went well. Now, back in the U.S., he just received his OrCam MyEye 2. The device is wonderful, it has touch control and also uses verbal commands. This MyEye 2 holds a primary and a secondary language, (additional languages may be added for an additional fee). It is programmable for face recognition. Right now our son is trying to use another recognition feature to identify our cats. It reads text; newspapers, magazines, books, mail, menus, items on poster boards... you get the picture. Also, it can read currency, products, labels, bar codes, street signs, store signs, etc. The device is cordless connecting to the side of a pair of glasses (provided, or you can use your own), a tiny speaker positioned upon the back of the small device, speaks privately, as it sits just out from the ear, and a tiny camera lense at the front. Currently, our son is learning how to use the various features. It tells him if a person (or persons) is within it’s visual acuity, and identifies said person(s), if their faces are preprogrammed in. He looks forward to trying it in the grocery store, reading and choosing products. Additionally, he has an allergy and would like to read the product ingredients himself and not depend on an assigned grocery store assistant.This device offers so much more, including another confidence in independence. Our son strives for and struggles with independent living and working in this world. He earned a BA and then, lived in England to attain a dual Master’s degree. He is a writer, a published author, a certified Professional Voice Talent, and a volunteer tutor for immigrant students. With all of his skills, knowledge, and technologies, he lives with a frustrating reality requiring urgent and sometimes unexpected visual assistance at times to complete a simple task. This OrCam MyEye 2 is a huge step as a tool for the Visually Impaired toward furthering their independence.Though OrCam company now, provides purchasing through Amazon, which we took advantage of, they still provided their excellent service. Brice, from the OrCam Customer Success Team has been wonderful from the beginning. He contacted us immediately following our Amazon purchase and he still checks in on us as the purchasers, and separately to our son as the user. In the past (and hopefully, again, in the future) we understood they would schedule a home visit with a customer for instruction (or perspective customer for a demo, as our son had done before). Now, they have a full array of online video tutorials. So far, Brice and OrCam have gone over and above for us. For more information, I would suggest you visit their website, see OrCam or OrCam MyEye2. They have other advantageous products, as well.

Normally I don't write reviews on all the products I purchase but this product i felt a very warm special need to do so. By the way this review is about not only the product but the Orcam company as well. Also just a quick note I am legally blind.I am sure I will get criticism for giving this a bad review being where there have been a lot of great reviews for this product. But understand this is my own personal experience with this product and company. This all started when someone close to me was calling the company to purchase this product as a Christmas gift for me. The company phone number turns out to be an answering service. In order to buy the product she was told someone would call back in two to three days. Since it was to be a Christmas gift she wanted to insure it would be here in time. Due to Christmas being in a little over two weeks. This part is not a deal breaker but seems odd that it would so long to make a sell. She then finds it on amazon and purchases it that way. This product came a day early so everything was peachy there. I get this product for Christmas and I am super stoked about it as I have heard about the product on Dr. Phil. Who doesn't love Dr. Phil? Especially the episodes where people get ripped off? Hint, hint, hintI do not start trying my item out until 2 days ago. The instructions state you have to charge for two hours before use. Problem is that the eye part didn't charge. I thought maybe it was my outlets so I changed outlets and I get the same results.... nada. Turns out to be there is supposed to be charging lights on the eyepiece. I guess I might have been able to see that if I wasn't blind. I tried to troubleshoot it in every way possible nothing seemed to work. This issue makes me really doubt this product because wouldn't you think something this expensive would work right out of the box? But maybe I was doing something wrong.Called the tech service line in hopes to get it resolved. Turns out to be an answering service again. I figure I would give them some time to call back. But they called back about fifty hours later. If you haven't figured it out by now I sent this back to amazon shortly after the forty eight hour mark. I got tired of waiting for help especially knowing how much it costs.But it doesn't end there as the rep that called back wanted to argue with me about it, and was very rude. I won't go into details about that combo but I think its safe to say that I didn't keep that eyeturd.In the meantime I will stick with my service eye cat.

The only problem I had that made this a 4 star review, was its page on Amazon which didn't match the model I received. I worked with the supplier and did get the equipment that was missing. For a pricey item like this you would expect things to go as smoothly as buying everyday items usually is on Amazon.I gave this about a month ago to my American grand niece who was born with very limited vision, she is almost 16, and lives with her family in Mexico. English is her first language, and she's fluent in Spanish. I'm pasting what she wrote to me for the rest of this review. As expected from the initial information on the Amazon web site and information that was included with the unit, there is a definite learning curve initially, for which they provide YouTube tutorials to help. Here's what she wrote:"I've had the Orcam for a little while, and I just wanted to say thank you again."I watched a lot of videos on how to use it, and I think l got the hang of everything. I just finished reading my first book with it. It took some level of effort, (as learning something new always does,) but l got through the whole book, and I understood the story, and it was fun."I don't use it every moment of every day, but when I need it, (and that's quite often,) I have it there. It's interesting to be able to read all the little fine print on things that I was never able to read before."Thank you so much!! Orcam has helped me a lot already, and I'm looking forward to using it in the future. "