Company name Step-Hear

The product Step-Hear - Audio Sign and free App Website https://www.step-hear.com/

Step-Hear Guide

  • Voice guidance system for blind and visually impaired people for way finding and assistance, both indoors and outdoors.
  • The Base unit is an Audio-Sign, triggered when a user with the free Step-Hear App approaches – for audio guidance (from the audio-sign or app – according to the user’s choice). The accurate voice guidance is fit for the blind and visually impaired people: Where exactly is the door, how to enter the building , which direction and how many steps to the elevators, the reception, the rest-rooms and other points of interest. Outdoors: Which intersection did I reached, what is on the other side of the crosswalk, etc.
  • Other features:
    • “What’s around me?” feature: A 360-degree overview of points of interest in the user environment.
    • Receive assistance from the reception or the person in charge in the venue, by pushing a button in the app.
  • The Audio-Sign is essential: it is used as an anchor for the visually impaired within the Bluetooth range – so that the voice guidance is the most correct and accurate.
  • The system is suitable for: banks, shopping malls, academic institutions, cultural centers, theaters, parks, tourist attractions, intersections and cross-walks etc.

Step-Hear Urban

  • Smart Public Transportation system for people with disabilities: blind, visually impaired people, people using a wheelchair.
  • The audio-sign is installed at the bus stop so blind or visually impaired people can recognize that they have arrived at a bus stop, and in case of a cluster of bus stops to know where their bus-stop is exactly located.
  • Audio information of the schedule of the bus lines arriving is played, by the user’s choice, from within the app.
  • The user can send a message to the relevant driver at the touch of a button that a person with a disability is waiting at the nearest station. This is a unique feature of the system, developed after many disabled people reported they often miss their bus.
  • The user receives a voice alert from the app as the bus they selected approaches.
  • On the bus itself, the user can activate voice message about the next stations and press a button in the app to signal to the driver they want to get off at the next stop, without having to search and reach the bus button.

Smart system installed in pedestrian traffic lights, combined with the existing systems that make a different sound for green or red light  since some of the municipalities responded to requests from neighbours that complained the constant noise disturbs them, they neutralized the sound in the evening, or caused the sound to be very low at all hours of the day. The Step-Hear system enables a person with the app approaching a traffic light to activate the indicating sounds or amplify them to a level that can also be heard with noise of vehicles in the background

In Israel, there are about 4000 Step-Hear base units installed all over the country – banks (Bank Hapoalim and more), transportation centers (at Modi’in and more), arts centers (Jerusalem, Be’er Sheva), academic institutions (Hebrew University of Jerusalem and more), general health fund , Hospitals (Assaf Harofeh , Rambam), public places of entertainment (the beaches of Tel Aviv and Herzliya), tourist attractions (the Agmon Hula, the Underwater Observatory in Eilat ), and many more.
In the field of public transport, the system has been working at dozens of stations and buses in Herzliya, Kfar Saba and Raanana for over a year, in pilot with the Ministry of Transport and the Metropoline Company.
Overseas there are system installed at universities (Bucharest University in Bucharest Romania, University of Maltepe in Turkey), shopping centers (Mega Mall in Romania, Australia Queen Street Mall Brisbane), park walk in Sweden and more.