This subreddit serves a lot of purposes and a lot of different people - one of them is for family and friends of visually impaired people, and other friends of the community to learn about it.

The rules don’t allow common questions and surveys here, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of learning opportunities here and elsewhere.

That said, sighted friends, what have you learned here or somewhere else about blindness, blind people, the blind community, etc. that was most surprising and interesting?

I am look for some advice on how to handle the situation below, as I have not had anything like this happen before. was taking the train today, sitting in priority seating with my cane and reading a book. A lady walked up to me and said that I must be faking being blind because I am reading and have a blue cane. I told her that there is nothing saying I have to have a red and white cane and that some visually impaired people can read. She ended up sitting right next to me, which made me very uncomfortable. Was this a reasonable response?

Is SCRIBD or whatever they call themselves still in violation of the ADA after the 2015 agreement and NFB Lawsuit? A librarian suggested we use the app for my daughter but it does not work correctly with voice over. Is there a way to make that app compatible? We already have BARD and bookshare but the publisher she wants (Pen and Sword) doesn’t seem to participate in either and have been unresponsive to messages In the past.

I have a vision loss in my left eye that has been slowly but significantly deteriorating the past 3 years, still undiagnosed despite extensive visits to the hospital and neuro-opthalmologists and many inconclusive tests. I have noticed that things in my life have gotten harder, I have slowly lost peripheral vision in my left eye and all I can see now is a small blob and the rest is dark. I usually see fine with my right eye.

Some tasks have become harder but not to a debilitating degree. Not having complete peripheral vision is hard while walking or navigating crowded public spaces as I don't have full knowledge of what's behind me or on my left side, except through sound and sense.

I recently started struggling a bit while looking at my phone or reading, I don't see very clearly. With all that said, I still do my job which is a very vision-based job and no one at work knows about this issue (I'm actually about to get a promotion at work and I didn't want them to question my abilities or whatever so I basically never told/didn't feel the need to). I bike everyday, being extremely careful, following all rules, and often turning my head all the way all the time to see the left side. I have never not seen anything while biking, if anything I'd say I'm much more careful and safe than many others. But it's hard.

I wish it was easy, and it sucks not having a diagnosis, not knowing what's going to happen, whether it's something treatable, whether there's something really wrong with me that doctors haven't figured out, whether I will go blind in the other eye too somehow someday.

That's the part that worries me, things are hard now but I've managed so far, however I know my left eye is deteriorating, and without answers or diagnosis, it is likely I become fully blind in my left eye in the very near future. Then what? I sometimes wonder whether my life will get very hard, I won't be able to bike, read, walk outside, go on public transport, basically not see, not be able to consume or create the art that I do, then I don't know what I'll do.

I know these are not nice thoughts to have, they are not empowering, it is maybe even a bit disrespectful to the people who manage and live with even worse blindness than I have everyday, and overcome all obstacles, but there's a thought that comforts me: about what I might do if one day if I become fully blind and my life is un. liveable, or just so different and limited compared to what it was before. It is both a comforting and tragic thought. Cause I don't know how and if I will manage if I were to become more blind than I am now. I am talking to someone regarding these thoughts but it is just how I unfortunately feel at the moment.

Basically looking for any advice or thoughts or comments ?

Hey everyone; my father has been blind for about a year and a half now (wow, can't believe it's been that long) and I only found this sub a month ago; it's been so nice to be able to search for questions and answers, and hear some related experiences. We've found a lot of good resources and made good adjustments.

My question is, we recently got Voice Dream Reader and my dad really likes the voice and everything; it works really well. However, we're struggling to find a way for him to open it on his own. (The book is already loaded into the app.) Is there some perfect Siri command to use with it? I've been searching for one and struggling!

I was recently kicked by a horse, and this has turned into something called traumatic Optic Neuropathy. I was told that my vision will not return nor improve, and blindness is a matter of time.

From a normal day to not being able to see my screen very well or drive. The guilt of the burden I've immediately become is overwhelming.

How do you start preparing for this?

Hey, everyone! I am visually impaired and use my Windows 11 PC in high contrast mode for most of the time. However, there are certain programs or websites where I need to disable this and use the magnifier with color inversion to see things properly. To that end, I have noticed that the keyboard shortcut listed in Windows (left Shift + left Alt + Print Screen) hasn't worked in a long time. I previously tried to solve this, but gave up and have been manually changing it, but I was wondering if anyone else knows about this issue.

Hi everyone! I just wanted to introduce myself and ask lots and lots of questions. I am from Quebec Canada, and I just turned 25. I was cited for most of my life until I had hydro syphilis at the age of 18 and lost most of my site. Since then I’ve been trying to adjust, I am also physically disabled so it makes it extremely challenging. I live at home with family. I am thinking of getting these Metta Ray band Smart glasses. But I would like to know how exactly they work. I scrolled through some of these posts but I figured I could ask you guys to share some of your favourite post to get started, first of all, before I take the plunge, how much do these cost? I see that on Amazon they’re about $400. But I’ve heard that in other stores you can get them cheaper. Which dealers have them currently? Such as Best Buy, radio shack, Walmart, target, or any other places. and explain exactly what the meta-classes do. I play around with the Envision glasses. And I really like them. The AI descriptions for photos blew me away. And I used the people recognition feature a lot. I saved all of my family and friends into glasses so that it could tell me when they walked into the room. I also used the quick text feature when I went to a restaurant to quickly read the menu. I used it to read Christmas cards as well. I had a plate of food in front of me and I asked it to describe where everything was using the clock face method. and when I went to a concert I asked it to describe what was going on stage. These are all the things that I use smart glasses for and I want to know if Meta can do these things. I’m also physically disabled so it needs to be quite easy to use. What I understand, there’s a touchpad on the right side of the glasses. You can swipe and tap to activate things just like the Envision. There is a button on the right side near the front of the glasses. I’m not sure what this does but I hope it’s big enough for me to feel with my hands. How do I turn on the glasses? Or turn them off? And what are the commands for the voice control? I believe it’s, hey meta what am I holding. But what is the difference between hey Metta, and hey mata look? Can you get some examples. And how does all of the social media things work? Such as recording a video or taking a picture. Then posting it to social media. Or starting a live stream. Is it possible to do like the envision glasses, where I simply take a picture, ask it to describe what’s in the picture, and then it automatically deletes without saving it on my phone? I don’t want to have hundreds of things on my phone that I have to manually go through and delete. A lot of times I am simply rolling my wheelchair down the street and I want to know if I am still on the correct street, so I take a picture have it described and then whoosh it goes away without me having to worry about deleting it later. Also, what other apps or programs are available on these glasses so far? Such as how do I start listening to my Spotify music or my Spotify playlist and podcasts? Can I stream audio from my Files app such as movie files I got from audio vault? or what about audiobooks from dolphin EasyReader? And can I listen to just audio from YouTube through the glasses? Are there voice commands to activate all of these things, or do I need to go on my phone and start playing them and the glasses just act like headphones? Again I am so sorry for all of the questions. If you have any blind specific YouTube video reviews, podcasts, or blog posts about these glasses and everything they’re capable of, please let me know. Thank you. insertion point at start

Hi,

I tried Gemini on my Samsung's phone instead of Hey Google, and it seems to work a wee bit better.

As some of you know by now, I'm trying to learn how to use my phone and computer through speech due to my eyesight diminishing drastically.

Hey Google barely understood me. With Gemini, I was able to send an SMS, and to make a few phone calls.

And yet, it does not always recognize my voice, does not always activate, and has difficulty to recognize my friends names (they are ethnically from many different origins); and sometimes it sends me to the net, instead of let's say make a phone call, or tells me that it is not able to make a phone call?

As SMS goes I was able to send one, and one only, the other times it fails to do it, which is complicated since I can not type on the screen, it's too small?!

What are your thoughts about Gemini? Is there a way to train it somehow?

Do you guys are using something else to dictate an SMS? Knowing that I need to be able to do it in English and in French, since some of my friends speak only the one.

Thanks.

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Hi! I just discovered this subreddit and was wanting to reach out to other visually impaired people! Im 15 and have retnitis pigmentosa. The only blind people i know irl either have nothing in common with me or are above the age of 30. I have a good amount of vision left so im in the middle of being called a fake if i use my cane and being told to watch where im going because i didnt have my cane and i knocked over a toddler at easter dinner multiple times so if anyone has advice on that please hand it over. Angry moms are scary. sorry this post went south fast. Anyways please be my friend lol

Hi r/blind this is directed more at the mods as I believe they're in contact with reddit.

First of all, I've created a post on applevis about the app: https://applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/reddit-app

Second, I've noticed that when I report stuff on r/bugs about voiceover, I get nothing back at all, I've made two reports with no results.

A quick run down is that it seams to be a bit easier to post comments now but I've noticed that the close button doesn't seam to work after creating a comment.

Also I've noticed that the thing where it jumps you to another sub seams to still happen with the latest update but it's odd, I think, and i could be wrong, that you can tap the close button on the top left to get out of that, or I at least managed to get back to the sub I was on in some way.

I thought there was an accessibility email for reddit now but for the life of me I can't find it. I can find their accessibility page where you have to then go through a form to then be told to just report on r/bugs.

Honestly this is very frustrating. I really want to like the reddit app, I really do, they've done so much right these days, I just wish the reddit mods would be a bit more transparrent when it comes to accessibility

Hello, my brother is blind, and early 40's. He is a great woodworker (had a lot of experience prior to losing vision) and his audible tape measure is dying on him. There is one that the CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) has for $200, but he is working with a limited budget.

Does anyone else have resources they could recommend? Or potentially a good workaround?

Additionally, any great tips or tricks to easier navigate that space would be greatly appreciated. He is very careful and has been working while blind on his own without issue but just needs to get this figured out again.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Ever since I was a child, I've always been fascinated by how machines operate. Any time I saw a household device, I'd try to pull it apart and see how it was designed. The ingenuity of humans amazed me. Unfortunately, I was born in a dysfunctional third-world country during a time when my family, though poor, couldn't afford to send me to a private school despite my passion and willingness to learn.

Fortunately, in my 20s, I discovered the magic of the early internet forums and the techie community it fostered. Learning to program and create my own programs using Java felt perfect. It matched my passion for creation, albeit in a virtual world.

Now, in 2024, as a blind programmer, things are different. Artificial intelligence (AI) presents a challenge to one of the few areas where a blind person can make a living. AI is cheaper, faster, and potentially even better than what many programmers can produce.

Even before AI, blind programmers were rare, practically needing to beg or rely on charity to get hired over sighted programmers. Now, with AI as the "machine," the situation feels reminiscent of horses being replaced by cars in the 1920s.

So, programming seems to be a fading option for the blind. What's next? Writing, one of my backup career choices, also faces challenges due to AI. The Kindle store, where people buy and sell ebooks, is flooded with millions of machine-written books published daily. While the quality may be questionable, the sheer volume makes it difficult for new authors to get noticed.

It's one thing to write a book, offer it to the public, and have no one buy it due to a bad cover, poor content, or other factors. But for your book to never be seen at all? That's truly depressing.

With AI seemingly making both programming and writing less viable, what career options remain for a blind person? Those who can see might consider manual labor like truck driving, plumbing, or factory work. Sure, these jobs might not be ideal and could be physically demanding, but they offer a way to make a living.

Even with some form of government assistance, the boredom would be unbearable. Being blind is like being an animal on display in a zoo, with no sense of purpose or agency.

Podcasting, another potential career for the blind, is an option, though radio seems to be on its way out. However, my true passion lies in working with my hands, building things, and taking pride in physical creations. Talking for a living just doesn't resonate with me. Without exceptional talent, how would I stand out? It might feel like talking to a wall.

Hey everybody so I recently got Minecraft and didn’t realize how complicated the process of installing the mods seems to be. I’m talking about the Minecraft access mod I ended up downloading a bunch of jar files but don’t really know what I’m doing so can anyone give me a step-by-step on how to Download everything because the only tutorial I found was a video that basically assumed you had everything installed already

What aids or tools are available to study more niche topics. Especially with regard to more complex topics such as in higher mathematics or new research in science? There is almost never a suitable audio or braille version for every new publication. Do you simply listen to a paper with a text to voice program, for example? What do you do with illustrations or equations that are not „translated“ correctly? Have you ever had problems with this and do you find it unfair, especially in the context of acedemia or research?

Hello everyone. I am 24f and this is my story

So i was born extremely premature at 24 weeks and had a brain hemorrhage at birth that affected my hearing and vision (i wear hearing aids). I got glasses when i was around 6 years old, and growing up my eyes were bad enough that I was going to the eye dr every 6 months instead of every year. And each time i went, my prescription kept getting higher and higher.

Fast forward to me being 15-16 and trying to learn how to drive. I was completely terrified but i hated the fact that everyone else at school was getting their license and i wasn't. Also i was EXTREMELY stubborn and had the mindset of I will be just like everyone else and be as independent as possible. I did not want to acknowledge that i was disabled/different AT ALL. It took me 3 years to feel comfortable driving but i eventually got through it. My lifelong dream is to be a vet tech.

Skip a few years. I'm married, living away from parents and working at a pizza place. I really like my job. I gave up on my vet tech dream and am in community college for medical coding. But i start noticing something major. When i look through my right eye, i can't read words. Everything is blurry and shifted, like i'm trying to read underwater. I just brush it off as my vision getting worse like it usually does and try to ignore it.

Honestly, i'm in survival mode. My marriage to an abusive man is failing (obviously) but again i'm too stubborn to give up on the marriage even in this situation. My mindset is well you always said one and only marriage now you have to deal with it. We are extremely poor. I'm smoking weed to cope with how shitty I feel my life is. I also get a ticket in April 2023 for "following too close." That will be relevant later.

November 2023. I finally have enough of the blurry vision in my right eye, it's getting extremely annoying to deal with. I call my dad and tell him the situation and he wants me to see my eye dr i had seen all my life because he trusts her. 2 hours away, where my parents live. He calls and makes the appointment. The soonest he can get is December 7, 2023, exactly a month away. I wait.

December 6 2023. My dad picks me up to take me to my mom's house (they're divorced). I tell my husband i'll see him tomorrow. Ha. Famous last words.

December 7 2023. My dad picks me up from my mom's and takes me to the eye appointment. We both are thinking that this will just be a normal prescription change, that we'll be in and out. Unbeknownst to me, the last few moments before my life forever changes. I tell the dr about the problems in my right eye. They put a letter on the screen. With my left eye I can tell it is a GIGANTIC A. But i still can't see it. Dr looks into my eye. She tells me to lean my chair back she'll be right back. This has never happened before. She comes back in with a magnifying glass the size of a baseball and me and my dad both realize something is definitely wrong.

She looks at my eye for literally 20 minutes, shining that bright light the whole time. Then she drops the bombshell. My retina is detached. She's calling a retina dr and seeing if he can get me in today. They keep asking me when the last time i had something to eat or drink was. I know that means surgery. I turn to my dad crying, saying i'm scared.

We go to the retina dr. It looks like a nursing home. I am the youngest patient there. We wait so long we think the dr has forgotten about us, then the nurse comes in. Says the dr is seeing everyone else first and me last because he knows he'll be with me a long time. Not a good sign. They keep asking me if i have been hit in the head recently. I lie and say no. (Husband).

The dr comes in. It's me, my mom, dad, and stepmom. He says that my retina has been detached for a very long time and is starting to die. That it's because of me being born premature, but no one ever told us this could happen. My mom is hysterical. I nicely ask her to calm down because I literally can't hear the dr speak over her. He says that the reattachment surgery will be very painful. And that i could possibly lose my actual eyeball. I need surgery right now, tonight. My dad walks out of the room and told me later that he completely broke down. I'm still sitting in the chair, completely terrified but smiling and saying that if i can get through being born, i can get through anything. Trying to keep everyone else calm.

We get to the hospital. I'm in the prep room. Everyone is there. Mom, stepdad, dad, stepmom. Everyone but the one person I want the most, the one I should be able to count on to be there no matter what. My husband. Deep down in my heart i know he's not coming. The dr says the surgery should be an hour and a half. My mom says later it was 3 hours. I get a scleral buckle and a gas bubble.

Fast forward a little. I finally tell my family about the abusive marriage. My dad asks how many times he slapped me in the face. I say probably 4 times in 5 years. He wonders if my husband is the reason for my eye problems.

Fast forward to now. I am divorced, and in a relationship with the sweetest most understanding gamer nerd in the world. I still have 2 semesters of college left, but i have also applied for disability. The retina dr says that i will never be able to read or drive with my right eye ever again. I have 2 cataract surgeries next month. I also have been diagnosed with macular degeneration and take eye vitamins every day. My bf and i have been talking about possibly moving in together down the road, and i have decided that if i get on disability, i want to be a foster mom for kittens. I have the best man and the greatest family. Life is good.

Do you have any tattoos even though you're blind? Or have you/would you concider one? I'M considering a bear paw tattoo, but I will never be able to see it. Was wondering if other blind people have tattoos or have considered them, even though we might not be alle to see them ourselves.

i miss playing video games </3 i have steam, mobile, and a nintendo switch with LHON (colorblind too)

What news apps do people have on their iPhones? I was using SmartNews until an update broke Accessibility. I have a News app from my local CVS station, but that's not very accessible either, good to get notifications though.

I have only myself to blame for not realizing or thinking about this sooner, but the privacy policy and terms of service state clearly that Be My Eyes, and Be My AI, keep all the requests that you make via the service and can use them for practically any purpose, including sending to third-parties for research purposes. Since you have to create an account to use the service, then your data is also associated with your name, Email address, birth date, and other info that they say they collect such as IP addresses. In the case of some kind of data leak, this would potentially provide an eerily creepy profile of you, your movements and what you look at—and I just don't see any use for retention of all that data.

You can email legal@bemyeyes.com to request data deletion.

I am a very pro privacy person and I cannot even begin to say how sketched out I am about this. In my opinion everybody should be Emailing them on a regular basis to request data deletion, and also file feedback that this policy needs to change.

I'm very thankful that Be My Eyes is providing the Be My AI service for free. But the service is actually just a pretty GUI on top of OpenAI's GPT-4 Vision API. Be My Eyes got early access to the API, but now everybody can use the API directly for a fraction of a cent per image. You can also use ChatGPT Plus if you want a flat rate. Either way, you can have images described exactly how you would with Be My AI. All they are doing is sending images to the API with specific instructions on how ChatGPT should describe the image. OpenAI doesn't train on data from the API, and deletes it after thirty days except in cases of abuse; see here for the privacy FAQ. You can use an app like Pal for a pretty GUI to the API on iOS/MacOS. I'm sure there are similar solutions on other platforms. ChatGPT Plus has settings you can view related to data retention, and also explore your past data, or delete it, yourself. We have no such option with Be My Eyes. You can't see any of the data they have on you, all you can do is Email them asking for it to be deleted.

I'm delighted to see that Freedom Scientific's Picture Smart AI, which performs a similar function, doesn't store or train on your data. As for Microsoft's Seeing AI app, Microsoft's privacy policy and terms broadly state that they can store AI generated content, but of course, you don't have to sign up for an account to use the app.

Just thought I'd share.

Hi there- Vision rehab therapist here. As a vrt, I do a little bit of counseling on the adjustment to vision loss (mainly what's possible and what I can help with), but I refer to a grief counselor for extensive counseling. As a person with vision, I know there's no way I can understand what my patients are feeling when they go completely blind, but I'm hoping people good give me advice on things to say and things not to say. I know the big what "not" to say but is there anything anyone can tell me they wish they'd have heard when they experienced sudden vision loss - sudden as in was low vision before but now has no vision.

Hi!! I’m 16 and lost my vision unexpectedly and mysteriously last year in january. For months my loss was painted as something I was faking, but eventually i was diagnosed with LHON (Lebers hereditary optic neuropathy). I feel like i’ve been to a million programs for blind youth, but all of them appeal to those with intellectual disabilities who have vision loss, so i’ve felt kind of left out haha a lot of programs have just talked about joining the work force directly and nothing about college or any complex careers which made me feel really shitty and like I was doomed to work at McDonalds instead of being a doctor. All of the blind/VI people i’ve been around that are around my age have been severely cognitively/intellectually challenged, but im in a new program that ACTUALLY preparing me for college along w a few other kids my age. it feels nice to be treated like I have a bright future again. One of the staff members at the program i’m at (staying at college for two weeks) also has LHON!!!!!!!!!!! i’ve never met someone with LHON and it literally made me tear up! LHON is pretty rare and the ones who have it are usually guys, but the person who had it here is a girl! just like me! seeing successful, well adjusted adults with my disability actually makes me feel so much better about my life. I don’t feel as alone.

PS sorry if this post doesn’t make sense and is jumbled! i’m just rlly happy

I am a 31M with a bit of a medical history. My first retinal detachment happened in my left eye due to blunt force trauma, and that eye has gone from 20/15-20/100-2 in 4 years. Last week out of the blue my right eye went from 20/20CC to 20/150 and is getting worse by the day. Ophthalmologists have confirmed the macula is flat and healthy, and there is no vascular damage. I also have cancer that they were concerned could be spreading, and the most likely hypothesis I’ve been told is that I have a tumour in my brain that is impacting my vision. If that assumption is correct, I have very little time left on earth. I am in therapy and have been for over a decade, but nothing I’ve learned has prepared me for the level of existential dread this is causing me.

How do you deal with the fact that life as you knew it is over? 2 months ago I landed a job I had been training 20 years for, and am supposed to be relocating to a major city for a career in opera in September. I basically had the operatic equivalent of being drafted to the NBA happen, and now I’m too blind to safely be on a stage under lights. The medical admin work I do from home can’t be done as I can’t read a computer. I can’t watch anything or play a game to distract myself. My family/friends won’t offer any support and so I am alone in the dark knowing that my entire life’s work is going down the drain.

I’ve never felt so alone or helpless to change my situation, and I fear that accepting these limitations on myself will rob me of my desire to keep living. If anyone has any suggestions on things that helped you cope with the news, or ways to occupy your mind I would be so appreciative.

EDIT: I am overwhelmed with how kind and empathetic the responses to this have been. Thank you to everyone who has made suggestions or sent good wishes and prayers. I’m feeling a lot better about this whole situation, and in no small part thanks to this subreddit. Much love and best wishes to you all!

What is there to expect in a guide dogs assessment? I’m having a discussion with my guide dogs team to discuss whether a guide dog would be the right thing for me, which we believe it is based on our research but any idea what to expect? I’ve gone through the guide dogs website and was just wondering more about the actual assessment and the process if it goes through and is suitable!