April 28, 2025 • 15 mins
This week Damo shows us his recently acquired WEWalk Smart Cane 2. This includes a description of the cane, along with feature demonstrations including its object detection, favourite locations and more. This product is available from the Vision Store, shop.visionaustralia.org.
There is also a reminder to tune to next week’s program which will contain significant news about the Talking Tech program and podcast.
To access Talking Tech, presented each week by Stephen Jolley and Damo McMorrow you can go to varadio.org/talkingtech
To write to the show use damo.mcmorrow@visionaustralia.org
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:08):
Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
April the 29th, 2025. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have
you with us listening maybe through Vision Australia Radio, associated
stations of the Radio Reading Network or the Community Radio Network.
There is also the podcast. To catch that, all you
need to do is search for the two words talking tech.
(00:29):
And it can all come usually on a Tuesday afternoon
just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask
your Siri device or smart speaker to play. Vision Australia
radio talking tech podcast. Vision Australia radio talking tech podcast
with me. Vision Australia's national access technology manager. Damo McMorrow. Hey, Damo.
S2 (00:50):
G'day, Stephen.
S1 (00:51):
Damo, this week you're going to take us for a
walk with your We walk smart cane.
S2 (00:58):
Yes, I certainly am.
S1 (01:00):
The we walk smart cane too. So you took it
out on the track a few days ago?
S2 (01:06):
Yes, I did, so I'm able to sort of demonstrate
some of the buttons, the quality of the audio and
some of the features that, uh, make this a really
interesting and very useful device if you're a cane user.
S1 (01:18):
Jamie McMorrow on the road with his smart cane. Two.
S2 (01:22):
So let's start with a description of the device itself.
So for all intents and purposes, the Walk Smart Cane
two feels very like any other long cane that you
might be familiar with. We've got a rubber grip at
the top of the cane. We have a piece of
elastic which holds everything together, and at the other end
(01:44):
we have the ball type cane tip. There are a
few differences though. So the first thing that you will
notice with this is that the tip is a 360 tip.
So it can roll, but it can also pivot. So
it's designed to not uh, Uh, get stuck when you,
(02:05):
you know, encounter gravel or uneven surfaces and those sorts
of things. Now, because the cane shaft is an amber
tech shaft, you can install other tips on this cane.
You can use, for example, the marshmallow tip, that kind
of thing. However, we will do say that, uh, all
of the obstacle detection functionality is calibrated using this 360 tip.
(02:27):
I don't mind it myself, but I have heard others
say that they don't like it and that they think
it's too large. But, uh, personally, I haven't really found
it to be a problem. The other thing you'll notice
is that the handle is a little different to most
other canes. And, uh, when I say that, what I
mean is that we have a number of buttons and
(02:47):
sensors and things on the handle. So the handle is
secured to the cane with an adapter, you can unscrew
the handle from the cane, but I wouldn't recommend you
do that unless you, you know, need to send it
back for repair or you're having a problem with it
because it can be difficult to get on and off.
So normally I would leave it assembled if I was you.
(03:07):
So on the top of the handle we have the
speaker grille and it's a Harman Kardon speaker. It's actually
quite loud. And we'll, we'll take it for a little
walk in a minute, and I can show you that
we have a USB C port on one side of
the handle. And that's for obviously charging the handle, which
(03:30):
contains all of the smarts a little further down on
the same side of the handle, we have a couple
of buttons. Now, one of which doesn't do anything at
the moment, I don't think, but the other controls the
obstacle detection mode. Um, turning the handle around, we've got
a series of four buttons, and these are for controlling
(03:51):
the navigation functionality of the cane, and also the voice assistant,
which I will also demonstrate in a moment. And a
little below that we have the obstacle detection sensor. It
just feels like a small slot, almost a little bit
like a slotted screw, but wider and below that we
have a small smooth area, which is the flashlight, and
(04:16):
that's really all there is to it in terms of
the hardware on the cane. The idea of this, though,
is that while you do pair the cane with your phone,
you shouldn't need to get your phone out of your pocket.
Once that's done, you should just be able to turn
the cane on and have it connect through the walk app.
And then everything is driven from the um. The hand
(04:39):
grip on the side of the cane. You can use
it in either left or right handed mode. The trick
is to make sure that the sensor, the obstacle detection sensor,
is pointing up. So that gives you a good sort
of way to orientate yourself around the cane. Now, in
terms of the buttons, let me just tell you about
those and then we'll go and take the device for
(04:59):
a quick walk, so the row of four buttons are
the main ones that you'll use. So the top one
is our power button and that is a square shape.
We've then got a an arrow that sort of points
upwards towards the top of the cane. So it's a
triangular button. We then have a circular button which is
used to trigger the voice assistant, and then we have
(05:21):
a downward pointing arrow at the bottom of that row
of buttons. The buttons that control the obstacle detection functionality
are just two small round buttons. So I'm going to
power the cane on now, and I've got the walk
app running on my phone as well. And I'm going
to do that by holding down the square button. So
(05:42):
that's the top one closest to the speaker. And we
hear that little tune that tells us it's powered up, connected,
and there's our sound to indicate that the cane is connected.
So from here I shouldn't really need to touch my
phone at all. So there are a few things we
(06:03):
can do here so we can save locations and navigate
to them. And we can also use the voice assistant.
And we do that by holding the circular button down
and speaking. So for example I could do something like this.
Where is the nearest cafe?
S3 (06:23):
I found five addresses. I will sort it based on distance,
starting with the nearest location address one by an e cafe.
Address two three tiers. Cafe. Address three cafe Ava.
S2 (06:40):
And so on. So we can go through the different
search results because it's using ChatGPT, you know, you can
also ask it random things. I don't quite know why
you would ask your cane, for example, for a chocolate
chip cookie recipe, but in theory you could. What we'll
do now is we'll pop outside and I will show
you the obstacle detection functionality. Okay, so we're now outside.
(07:02):
Apologies for the wind noise, but not too much I
can do about it today. I'm holding the cane in
my left hand because I'm a left handed cane user,
and I'm going to turn on the obstacle detection mode.
Now there are three settings. There's short, mid and far.
(07:24):
This is obviously to alter, you know how how sensitive
the obstacle detection functionality is. And then if I press
it again it turns it off. The other thing we
can do is by pressing and holding this button.
S4 (07:39):
Obstacle detection. Sound off.
S2 (07:41):
We can turn the sound off so that the cane
vibrates instead, which you may want, because the audio is
kind of a little bit makes you feel a little
bit conspicuous, I would say. But for the moment, let's
turn it on.
S4 (07:56):
Obstacle detection sound on.
S2 (07:58):
And I'm going to select the short mode. And you'll
hear the the beeping. And the closer I get or
the further away I get the softer the sound. Now
it doesn't detect things that the the cane tip will
(08:20):
pick up. It's designed to detect between things, between your
waist and your head height. So as I approach this obstacle.
You'll hear that it gets faster if I back away
from it. It'll it'll the sound will will slow down
(08:43):
if I set it to mid as an example. Now
I haven't moved but it's picking it up where it
wasn't on short mode. Okay. So it really depends on
how you use the device as to, you know, how
you might want that set up. Uh, as I said,
I can also turn that off. So I've now turned
(09:07):
it off and the cane is now just vibrating in
my hand. The closer I get to the obstacle, the
stronger the vibration. And as I back away, that vibration
becomes less. So that's. That's the obstacle detection mode. Um,
so as I said, you would use that. I'll just
(09:28):
stop that for a moment. You would use that as
a means of detecting things like overhanging branches. Um, perhaps
a parked car or like a utility vehicle where the
cane tip might go under the back of the tray,
but you're likely to hit the tray. Um, you know,
at stomach height or head height, that kind of thing. Um,
(09:50):
so it does give you a little bit extra Protection
than you would have using a conventional long cane. So
that's that's the obstacle detection function to turn on the flashlight.
If we're using the cane at night, we can press
and hold the up arrow key flashlight on. And the
flashlight is now on. And I'm told it's quite bright
(10:13):
and quite visible. And if you've got a little bit
of usable vision, you may also find it quite helpful.
S4 (10:21):
Flashlight.
S2 (10:22):
The other thing we can do is to press and
hold the circular button, and that'll get us into our
My Places menu. And that's where you can save your, um,
your favorite locations and those sorts of things. So I'll
just quickly show you that my places. So there it
said my places. And if we press the circular button again.
(10:46):
So that's obviously my home address. And if I use
the arrow keys.
S3 (10:50):
373 Old Cleveland.
S4 (10:52):
Road.
S2 (10:53):
So that's how my work address, which is the Vision
Australia office at Cooper, who I can then if I
want to select that. We can select go there.
S4 (11:06):
373 Old Cleveland Road, Rota one transport 54 minutes walking
then then walking.
S2 (11:16):
Okay, so that's given me a direction to walk to
the local train station and catch the Cleveland line to
Shorncliffe and then walk again.
S4 (11:26):
And that transport one hour ten minutes walking then then walking, okay, 150,
then walking, then 209, then walking.
S2 (11:37):
So if I wanted to take a really convoluted route
there instead, I could, uh, you know, I could have
selected that option, which is a train, some walking and
a couple of buses. So there's a couple of different
ways of doing this, but there's a couple of things
I suppose to note, from me, showing you that one
is obviously that it is public transport aware, which is nice. Um,
(11:58):
and that it does try to give you a few
different options to get to your destination, and you can
cycle through those using the arrow keys. So there we go, folks.
Hopefully that gives you a little bit of an overview
of the walk. Smart cane two. Um, I've certainly enjoyed
using it. As I've mentioned on the program before, I
am predominantly a dog user, but, um, I did take
(12:21):
this over to the United States recently because I couldn't
take my dog with me, and I did find it
extremely helpful. I hope you've enjoyed this review. As always,
if you have any questions, feel free to send me
an email.
S1 (12:34):
Good on you, Damo. Damo McMorrow out on the track.
They're putting the We Walk Smart Cane two through its paces.
And if you'd like to find out more about the
We Walk, you could check it out by going to
the vision store of Vision Australia. That's shop.australia.shop.org. Whenever I
(12:56):
want to find out something about a vision store product,
I just go to the search button which is on
the top of the home page, and from there you
can enter the name of the product. In this case
you just type. We walk w e w k. It's
not case sensitive. And then the we walk references will
(13:19):
come up and you can look at information about their
48 inch, 54 inch or 59 inch products. So that's
the We Walk available from the shop at Vision Australia.
There's some very interesting info there about the product, the
specifications and other details and links to a video as
(13:40):
well that will explain more about it. And I believe
it sells for $1,495. Now, before we go, a little
note about this program. Talking tech has been going for
around 13 years. If you're a regular listener to the show,
you won't want to miss next week's Significant Edition, a
(14:01):
very special presentation of talking tech. Now, a reminder that
for details of what you can find in this and
previous editions of the program, just go to VA. VA. Radio.com.
And to right to the program.
S2 (14:21):
You can email me.
S1 (14:29):
At. This has been talking tech with me has been
Vision Australia's national access technology manager Damien McMorrow. I'm Stephen Jolley.
Take care. We'll talk more tech next week. Don't forget
to tune in for it. See you.
Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
April the 29th, 2025. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have
you with us listening maybe through Vision Australia Radio, associated
stations of the Radio Reading Network or the Community Radio Network.
There is also the podcast. To catch that, all you
need to do is search for the two words talking tech.
(00:29):
And it can all come usually on a Tuesday afternoon
just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask
your Siri device or smart speaker to play. Vision Australia
radio talking tech podcast. Vision Australia radio talking tech podcast
with me. Vision Australia's national access technology manager. Damo McMorrow. Hey, Damo.
S2 (00:50):
G'day, Stephen.
S1 (00:51):
Damo, this week you're going to take us for a
walk with your We walk smart cane.
S2 (00:58):
Yes, I certainly am.
S1 (01:00):
The we walk smart cane too. So you took it
out on the track a few days ago?
S2 (01:06):
Yes, I did, so I'm able to sort of demonstrate
some of the buttons, the quality of the audio and
some of the features that, uh, make this a really
interesting and very useful device if you're a cane user.
S1 (01:18):
Jamie McMorrow on the road with his smart cane. Two.
S2 (01:22):
So let's start with a description of the device itself.
So for all intents and purposes, the Walk Smart Cane
two feels very like any other long cane that you
might be familiar with. We've got a rubber grip at
the top of the cane. We have a piece of
elastic which holds everything together, and at the other end
(01:44):
we have the ball type cane tip. There are a
few differences though. So the first thing that you will
notice with this is that the tip is a 360 tip.
So it can roll, but it can also pivot. So
it's designed to not uh, Uh, get stuck when you,
(02:05):
you know, encounter gravel or uneven surfaces and those sorts
of things. Now, because the cane shaft is an amber
tech shaft, you can install other tips on this cane.
You can use, for example, the marshmallow tip, that kind
of thing. However, we will do say that, uh, all
of the obstacle detection functionality is calibrated using this 360 tip.
(02:27):
I don't mind it myself, but I have heard others
say that they don't like it and that they think
it's too large. But, uh, personally, I haven't really found
it to be a problem. The other thing you'll notice
is that the handle is a little different to most
other canes. And, uh, when I say that, what I
mean is that we have a number of buttons and
(02:47):
sensors and things on the handle. So the handle is
secured to the cane with an adapter, you can unscrew
the handle from the cane, but I wouldn't recommend you
do that unless you, you know, need to send it
back for repair or you're having a problem with it
because it can be difficult to get on and off.
So normally I would leave it assembled if I was you.
(03:07):
So on the top of the handle we have the
speaker grille and it's a Harman Kardon speaker. It's actually
quite loud. And we'll, we'll take it for a little
walk in a minute, and I can show you that
we have a USB C port on one side of
the handle. And that's for obviously charging the handle, which
(03:30):
contains all of the smarts a little further down on
the same side of the handle, we have a couple
of buttons. Now, one of which doesn't do anything at
the moment, I don't think, but the other controls the
obstacle detection mode. Um, turning the handle around, we've got
a series of four buttons, and these are for controlling
(03:51):
the navigation functionality of the cane, and also the voice assistant,
which I will also demonstrate in a moment. And a
little below that we have the obstacle detection sensor. It
just feels like a small slot, almost a little bit
like a slotted screw, but wider and below that we
have a small smooth area, which is the flashlight, and
(04:16):
that's really all there is to it in terms of
the hardware on the cane. The idea of this, though,
is that while you do pair the cane with your phone,
you shouldn't need to get your phone out of your pocket.
Once that's done, you should just be able to turn
the cane on and have it connect through the walk app.
And then everything is driven from the um. The hand
(04:39):
grip on the side of the cane. You can use
it in either left or right handed mode. The trick
is to make sure that the sensor, the obstacle detection sensor,
is pointing up. So that gives you a good sort
of way to orientate yourself around the cane. Now, in
terms of the buttons, let me just tell you about
those and then we'll go and take the device for
(04:59):
a quick walk, so the row of four buttons are
the main ones that you'll use. So the top one
is our power button and that is a square shape.
We've then got a an arrow that sort of points
upwards towards the top of the cane. So it's a
triangular button. We then have a circular button which is
used to trigger the voice assistant, and then we have
(05:21):
a downward pointing arrow at the bottom of that row
of buttons. The buttons that control the obstacle detection functionality
are just two small round buttons. So I'm going to
power the cane on now, and I've got the walk
app running on my phone as well. And I'm going
to do that by holding down the square button. So
(05:42):
that's the top one closest to the speaker. And we
hear that little tune that tells us it's powered up, connected,
and there's our sound to indicate that the cane is connected.
So from here I shouldn't really need to touch my
phone at all. So there are a few things we
(06:03):
can do here so we can save locations and navigate
to them. And we can also use the voice assistant.
And we do that by holding the circular button down
and speaking. So for example I could do something like this.
Where is the nearest cafe?
S3 (06:23):
I found five addresses. I will sort it based on distance,
starting with the nearest location address one by an e cafe.
Address two three tiers. Cafe. Address three cafe Ava.
S2 (06:40):
And so on. So we can go through the different
search results because it's using ChatGPT, you know, you can
also ask it random things. I don't quite know why
you would ask your cane, for example, for a chocolate
chip cookie recipe, but in theory you could. What we'll
do now is we'll pop outside and I will show
you the obstacle detection functionality. Okay, so we're now outside.
(07:02):
Apologies for the wind noise, but not too much I
can do about it today. I'm holding the cane in
my left hand because I'm a left handed cane user,
and I'm going to turn on the obstacle detection mode.
Now there are three settings. There's short, mid and far.
(07:24):
This is obviously to alter, you know how how sensitive
the obstacle detection functionality is. And then if I press
it again it turns it off. The other thing we
can do is by pressing and holding this button.
S4 (07:39):
Obstacle detection. Sound off.
S2 (07:41):
We can turn the sound off so that the cane
vibrates instead, which you may want, because the audio is
kind of a little bit makes you feel a little
bit conspicuous, I would say. But for the moment, let's
turn it on.
S4 (07:56):
Obstacle detection sound on.
S2 (07:58):
And I'm going to select the short mode. And you'll
hear the the beeping. And the closer I get or
the further away I get the softer the sound. Now
it doesn't detect things that the the cane tip will
(08:20):
pick up. It's designed to detect between things, between your
waist and your head height. So as I approach this obstacle.
You'll hear that it gets faster if I back away
from it. It'll it'll the sound will will slow down
(08:43):
if I set it to mid as an example. Now
I haven't moved but it's picking it up where it
wasn't on short mode. Okay. So it really depends on
how you use the device as to, you know, how
you might want that set up. Uh, as I said,
I can also turn that off. So I've now turned
(09:07):
it off and the cane is now just vibrating in
my hand. The closer I get to the obstacle, the
stronger the vibration. And as I back away, that vibration
becomes less. So that's. That's the obstacle detection mode. Um,
so as I said, you would use that. I'll just
(09:28):
stop that for a moment. You would use that as
a means of detecting things like overhanging branches. Um, perhaps
a parked car or like a utility vehicle where the
cane tip might go under the back of the tray,
but you're likely to hit the tray. Um, you know,
at stomach height or head height, that kind of thing. Um,
(09:50):
so it does give you a little bit extra Protection
than you would have using a conventional long cane. So
that's that's the obstacle detection function to turn on the flashlight.
If we're using the cane at night, we can press
and hold the up arrow key flashlight on. And the
flashlight is now on. And I'm told it's quite bright
(10:13):
and quite visible. And if you've got a little bit
of usable vision, you may also find it quite helpful.
S4 (10:21):
Flashlight.
S2 (10:22):
The other thing we can do is to press and
hold the circular button, and that'll get us into our
My Places menu. And that's where you can save your, um,
your favorite locations and those sorts of things. So I'll
just quickly show you that my places. So there it
said my places. And if we press the circular button again.
(10:46):
So that's obviously my home address. And if I use
the arrow keys.
S3 (10:50):
373 Old Cleveland.
S4 (10:52):
Road.
S2 (10:53):
So that's how my work address, which is the Vision
Australia office at Cooper, who I can then if I
want to select that. We can select go there.
S4 (11:06):
373 Old Cleveland Road, Rota one transport 54 minutes walking
then then walking.
S2 (11:16):
Okay, so that's given me a direction to walk to
the local train station and catch the Cleveland line to
Shorncliffe and then walk again.
S4 (11:26):
And that transport one hour ten minutes walking then then walking, okay, 150,
then walking, then 209, then walking.
S2 (11:37):
So if I wanted to take a really convoluted route
there instead, I could, uh, you know, I could have
selected that option, which is a train, some walking and
a couple of buses. So there's a couple of different
ways of doing this, but there's a couple of things
I suppose to note, from me, showing you that one
is obviously that it is public transport aware, which is nice. Um,
(11:58):
and that it does try to give you a few
different options to get to your destination, and you can
cycle through those using the arrow keys. So there we go, folks.
Hopefully that gives you a little bit of an overview
of the walk. Smart cane two. Um, I've certainly enjoyed
using it. As I've mentioned on the program before, I
am predominantly a dog user, but, um, I did take
(12:21):
this over to the United States recently because I couldn't
take my dog with me, and I did find it
extremely helpful. I hope you've enjoyed this review. As always,
if you have any questions, feel free to send me
an email.
S1 (12:34):
Good on you, Damo. Damo McMorrow out on the track.
They're putting the We Walk Smart Cane two through its paces.
And if you'd like to find out more about the
We Walk, you could check it out by going to
the vision store of Vision Australia. That's shop.australia.shop.org. Whenever I
(12:56):
want to find out something about a vision store product,
I just go to the search button which is on
the top of the home page, and from there you
can enter the name of the product. In this case
you just type. We walk w e w k. It's
not case sensitive. And then the we walk references will
(13:19):
come up and you can look at information about their
48 inch, 54 inch or 59 inch products. So that's
the We Walk available from the shop at Vision Australia.
There's some very interesting info there about the product, the
specifications and other details and links to a video as
(13:40):
well that will explain more about it. And I believe
it sells for $1,495. Now, before we go, a little
note about this program. Talking tech has been going for
around 13 years. If you're a regular listener to the show,
you won't want to miss next week's Significant Edition, a
(14:01):
very special presentation of talking tech. Now, a reminder that
for details of what you can find in this and
previous editions of the program, just go to VA. VA. Radio.com.
And to right to the program.
S2 (14:21):
You can email me.
S1 (14:29):
At. This has been talking tech with me has been
Vision Australia's national access technology manager Damien McMorrow. I'm Stephen Jolley.
Take care. We'll talk more tech next week. Don't forget
to tune in for it. See you.
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