The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 2024
Strap Tech's Ara replaced a blind person's cane with a haptic wearable.
Ara scans the environment with ultrasonic and lidar sensors and signals obstacles by vibration patterns, giving visually impaired users autonomy a cane cannot.
Strap Tech · Brands&People
the move
A white cane detects obstacles only where it strikes, roughly waist height and below. It misses a branch at head level or a car that is about to move, and it gives no benefit to someone who cannot hold it.
Strap Tech's Ara is a wearable that scans the environment continuously with ultrasonic and lidar sensors at head, chest and below-waist level. When it detects an obstacle it responds through a haptic, universal language of vibration patterns.
Because the feedback is felt on the body, the system is not an instrument someone must be trained to read — it behaves like a sense. This is what made it a genuine assistive device rather than a gimmick.
Ara took a Silver Design Lion at Cannes Lions 2024, and agency Brands&People went beyond branding to invest in Strap Tech for its next funding round.
why it works
- Sensing at three heights catches hazards a cane physically cannot reach
- Vibration needs no attention split, unlike reading a display or listening to audio
- A wearable frees the user's hands for a bag, a railing or a companion
- The agency invested in the company, tying brand work to the product's survival
what transfers
When a device must hand control to a user with a different way of sensing, use the richest alternative channel — here touch — rather than a small screen.
what came after
Ara won a Silver Design Lion at Cannes 2024 and gained attention at SXSW. The collaborating agency Brands&People took a stake in Strap Tech's funding round, a move that linked the brand to the product's future rather than ending with the ad.
references
- Brands&People wins Silver Design Lion at Cannes with Strap Tech's Ara
- Brands&People Invests In Strap Tech
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