THIRD EYE KIT · VERSION ZERO
The room, on your skin.
TEK is a belt, a collar strip, and two ankle bands carrying small vibration motors. Distance sensors read the space around you and press it onto your skin. Where it buzzes is where the world is. No camera in the safety loop.
Try it. Drag the obstacle around the wearer, or focus the map and steer it with the arrow keys. The motors answer the way the real kit does.
Steady buzz at the right belt zone, something a few steps out on your right.
THE MISSION
Technology that gives the natural move back to a blind person.
THIRD EYE WORLDWIDE · BUILT FROM INSIDE THE EXPERIENCE
HOW IT FEELS
Three laws carry the whole language.
Version zero speaks six signals: obstacle left, center, and right at the belt, head height at the collar, stairs up and stairs down at the feet. You can learn them in an hour.
LAW 01
Where it buzzes is where it would hit you.
Collar means duck. Belt means step aside. Feet mean watch the ground.
LAW 02
How strong is how close.
A faint buzz is a wall across the room. A strong buzz is a doorframe at your nose.
LAW 03
If it moves, follow the motion.
Motors fire in sequence and the skin reads one stroke. A sweep rising at the ankle means stairs up. Falling means stairs down.
HOW IT SENSES
Four ways a machine can feel space.
Before picking parts we put verified numbers on every option. Here they are.
Ultrasonic sonar
ECHO RANGING
- COST
- $2
- DRAW
- 0.075 W
- SPEED
- 264 ms, 8 pings
One blurry number per ping, and a soft winter coat swallows the echo. But glass bounces sound back hard, so glass doors cannot hide.
KEEPS THE GLASS DOORS HONEST
Laser grid ToF
VL53L8CX
- COST
- $8
- DRAW
- 0.215 W
- SPEED
- 64 zones, 15 per s
A tiny 8 by 8 depth map, 15 times a second, in full dark. The most spatial truth per dollar we found.
LEADS THE KIT
mmWave radar
MOTION AND SPEED
- COST
- $12
- DRAW
- not benched yet
- SPEED
- 3 targets, live
It tracks three moving targets and reads their speed directly. Rain does not blind it.
WATCHES WHAT MOVES
Depth camera + AI
LINUX COMPUTER REQUIRED
- COST
- $520
- DRAW
- 10 to 20 W
- SPEED
- 100 to 500 ms
It sees the most and reacts the slowest, with a full computer to carry and feed. That job belongs to the phone.
RICH SCENE READING, LATER TIER
Cost, one sensor
Power draw
Time to a full reading
Bars sit on a square root scale so the small numbers stay visible.
The laser grid leads. Radar watches what moves. Sonar keeps the glass doors honest. And the camera waits in the phone, where it belongs.
WORLD TO SKIN
72ms
About 72 ms from an edge in the world to a buzz on your skin, no AI in the path. The camera pipeline alone spends 100 to 500 ms deciding what it saw.
THE KIT
Three pieces, worn over your own things.
Modular wearables with adjustable motor spacing, built to strap on and come off in seconds.
8 MOTORS · WAIST
The belt
Eight motors across the waist. Left, center, right, and every step between. Most of the world talks here.
4 MOTORS · COLLARBONE
The collar strip
Four motors along the collarbone. It speaks rarely, so you listen fast. Collar means duck.
3 + 3 MOTORS · SHINS
The ankle bands
Three motors up each shin, strapped over any shoe. Stairs announce themselves here with the sweep.
Over any clothes. Over any shoes. Nobody's style gets decided by us.
What getting around costs
Linear scale, on purpose. The green sliver is the point.
PAPERS
Read the research.
The numbers on this page come from written work you can read. Check our math.