The most comprehensive review of Aira

Oct 17, 2019 | , , ,

Here’s my honest, unbiased and real account of using the Aira service.  I didn’t get any discounts or freebies before writing this so my review is unclouded.

However, I have been enthralled by the potential of Aira since I read the first review and heard the first videos on Youtube. So although I now come to this with a very level head, I opened the package with excitement and optimism when I received the Horizon kit almost a month ago.

The box is reasonably sized.  About 13 inches diagonal and about two inches thick.  Inside there are a few plastic air bags for padding, the Aira Horizon glasses case with the glasses inside, two tethering cables, a charging cable and a plug.  There’s also a print booklet that probably has quick start instructions and a few Braille pages stapled together that also include the quick start instructions.  It’s double sided Braille but it was fortunately easy to read.

The first thing I noticed was that the instructions were very clear but not dumbed down. I hate receiving a product created for people who are blind to find that the instructions are explaining what side is up, what buttons feel like and how to plug it in.  The Aira manual assumed that you knew the basics and aside from explaining what direction the micro USB cable connected didn’t go into too much detail. I appreciated this as I’m not the fastest Braille reader and I just wanted to figure out how this worked as quickly as possible.

I was dismayed, frustrated and annoyed shortly after reading the instructions and turning on the device.   I immediately found that the glasses had no audio output.  Bone conduction would have been fantastic.  Bose make a really stylish pair of sunglasses with bone conductive sound output in the arms of the glasses.  Surely Aira could have done the same.  In addition, the Bose sunglasses worked over Bluetooth where as the Aira Horizon glasses connect over a cable.  At minimum, the tether cable could have another cable attached on to it with an earphone and a microphone.  This could then connect into the 3.5mm audio port that sits right beside the micro USB port.  Having a second cable isn’t ideal of course but it’s a lot better than supplying nothing at all.  I ask you. What is the point in renting the Horizon kit that includes the glasses if by default you then need to hold the Horizon phone in your hand?  It negates the main benefit of the glasses for the user. A cheap Bluetooth earpiece doesn’t cost all that much. Also, by pre-paring it, you would remove some of the complexity of using such a device.  I’ll get to my horrific experience with Bluetooth later because although I feel very negatively about this particular part of the experience, overall, I’m very happy with Aira and I don’t want to come across as not liking what they do. Because it’s quite the opposite for the most part.

The first time I used Aira it was to look around a garden that I knew would have a lot of obstacles.  The agent gave me a fantastic description of what was around me.  There were a few toys in the garden for children, so the agent gave me descriptions of what they looked like, where they were and even how one of them worked.  There was a toy with two holes, a ramp and a ball.  I had no idea what this was for so the agent I spoke to googled it and gave me a description of the game.  When my children came outside, I was able to give them pointers based on what I knew they would like.  For example, I knew Méabh would love the game.  I knew Rían would love the playhouse.  So, although I had never been in that area before, I was able to encourage both children and join in with them when exploring the new activities without any in-person sighted assistance.  This was incredibly empowering and marked the beginning of many great experiences with Aira. Let me go through a few of these very briefly because to detail each one would require separate blog posts but there are important points that are good and bad that I would really like you to be aware of.

  • In the Arboretum in Dallas, the agent took pictures of the area and of my children, my wife and my mother in law.  The agent also described the area in clear detail.  At one point my wife and mother in law went to an area that I didn’t really want to walk through.  So I connected to Aira again and the agent enabled me to take a walk independently around the grounds of this massive arboretum.  The descriptions that were given were fantastic.  At one point the agent described a tree as being rainbow shaped.  I was guided over to it so that I could feel it.  I got some landmarks off the agent so that when I met up with my family again I could independently bring them back to this weird rainbow shaped tree.  Again, this was very empowering, but it was also quite special for my daughter in particular.  Her daddy had found a rainbow tree while they were away.  Méabh is a very caring child.  She’s 6 now and especially when I don’t have my guide dog, she looks out for me. It’s not just me she looks out for of course.  If a child falls in a playground she’s one of the first over to see if everything is okay. She just has that nature.  So to be able to show her that I can be very independent even in completely new environments meant something to her.

    • Colorful picture of the gardens. Taken by an Aira agent through the Horizon glasses

  • There were two times when just getting a coffee where Aira came in particularly handy. The first time, the agent found a suitable route and guided me right to the counter.  It was very useful as the fastest route had no paths or side walks as they are called in America. So the agent found a route that would be safer.  The second time was nice as well.  The agent directed me to the counter then stayed really quiet.  When the server came near, the agent told me where he was so I could point in that direction and place the order.  When the coffee came out, the agent told me where to feel for it then offered to find a free table.
  • I had the children on my own in a house that I wasn’t familiar with and as is commonly required, they needed food. I knew where the food was and I knew where the oven was as well.  The Aira agent read out the cooking instructions on the packaging then even helped me to find the right temperature and setting on the oven.
  • Now, here’s a bad experience. I was with my son and he needed a toilet. The Aira agent showed me where the toilet door was but really started to panic when I went to walk through the door.  I understand now that this is because they are prohibited from recording but the agent handled this very badly.  We had discussed where I needed to find. If the agent told me ahead of time of the rule, I would have explained what my requirement was and I’m sure we could have come to an agreement.  I knew that the toilet that I was looking for was a single room where no one else could enter so my request was workable.  The problem I have that I had hoped Aira could help me solve is as follows:  When I bring my son to the toilet, I detest putting my hands down on anything and I cringe with dread with the thought’s of him putting his hands on anything Revolting either.  Men’s toilets can be disgusting places.  So, I spend some time before I let him do what he needs simply determining to a reasonable level that the place isn’t covered in pee.  I would have greatly appreciated it if the agent could have taken a quick look at the toilet area and given me an indication as to if the place was filthy or not.  Also, in what direction the toilet was in the room as well.  These are simple things that people take for granted and when I’m on my own, I’m not particularly bothered with but when you have a very young child along as well, it’s prudent to be more aware and careful.  The agent really didn’t handle this to the expected high standard.
  • One of my favourite experiences with Aira was again related to my children. We were at a massive Lego exhibition, an expansive city scape stretched out in front of me behind glass walls.  At intervals control panels were placed to enable interactive features.  For example, buttons in front of a stadium turned on and off lights.  Buttons at a construction site moved a crane around.  Buttons at a train station turned on and off the lights and moved the trains.  It was great to walk around this exhibit with my two children and be able to share in the excitement of this really impressive Lego city.  All while an Aira agent discreetly gave me details.  Well, reasonably discreetly, I couldn’t get the Bluetooth headset working but it was fine for that environment.   This was especially great for my son.  To bring him over and know that if he pressed particular buttons specific actions could be seen through the glass was great.   He was amazed.

    • A picture taken with the Horizon glasses by the Aira agent. It shows the Lego made city scape.Of course there are the other every day needs as well. Someone sent me an error message in an email that was included in a screen shot.  Indeed , I could have used OCR to read this but it takes time and it’s not always accurate.  Instead, I just held my phone in front of the screen, called Aira and the agent read the error.  This agent also demonstrated the usefulness of Aira by going one step beyond.  It was obvious from the error that more text in another part of the screen was necessary to make a decision so without prompting that text was provided as well.

  • At one point, an Aira agent was guiding me to a house. We took a side street that I had never walked on before when suddenly a dog came charging toward me.  The Aira agent saw and heard the dog and calmly reassured me that the dog was actually behind a gate so couldn’t get out.  This was a relief and again shows the value of this service.

There is something you should know about me before reading my next point.  I’m terrible at accepting help.  Even when I really need it.  But I am happy to pay people to help.  But when I pay people I expect high standards.  I was comfortable using Aira for both mundane and interesting tasks.  I was happy to keep the person on the line a little longer than strictly necessary to double check something or just give me a bit of extra information because I know I’m paying for this service. So I know I’m paying for the privilege of that persons time.  For this reason, I think Aira is going to be a vital tool in my independence and mobility toolkit.  But Aira has failings.

Some of the things that really annoy me about Aira and in my opinions are show stoppers for buying the Horizon kit include:

  • Lack of integrated headset in the glasses. I’ve written about this earlier.
  • Frequent signal drops. This doesn’t just happen when in large buildings.  This made me not even bother trying to use Aira sometimes.
  • Bugs in the Aira Horizon software. Sometimes if a connection is weak and you get cut off, it tries to reconnect you.  But if that too fails, the software can get stuck in a loop where it says the user with this ID is already on a call. Therefore it doesn’t connect.  Also, at times, I needed to bring the device to someone who could see as there was an error on the screen that asked to refresh or reload the Aira app. These alerts were not spoken.
  • Bluetooth again. Aira is developed in a way to make it incredibly easy to use but with this ease of use you have some trade offs.  This requires that Aira works absolutely perfectly as it is sometimes taking over from the default functionalities of the Android platform that it has been built on top of. Take this example. You try to connect a Bluetooth headset.  You hold down the button on the Aira Horizon handset and say “Turn on Bluetooth” Then you say “Connect to Bluetooth device”.  It tells you what device has been found / previously used and you say “Connect to it”. Every single time at this point I had a problem. The Bluetooth headset would be correctly connected but Aira still didn’t use it.  I know it was connected because if I press and hold the call button on the headset, the Android assistant would start talking in my ears and I could access some basic https://www.android.com functionality.  But Aira would continue talking through the phone speaker. This was absolutely infuriating. I gave up one day and threw the headset in my pocket.  Then suddenly Aira just started speaking through the headset!  But that only worked once.  And I have no idea why.  Every other time, Aira just would or could not work through Bluetooth.   Unless they fix this problem, I would strongly discourage anyone from paying for Horizon.  Because without a reliable Bluetooth headset, it’s really pointless.
  • The earlier issue where the agent panicked when I was about to walk into a toilet. That made me feel bad for the agent that I put the person in that position but then I got mad at

Aira for making me feel bad.  I don’t pay $99 per month to feel bad for someone.  That agent should have made this rule known to me before I reached that door so that I could have explained my very reasonable request.

But I must stress again, the benefits far outweigh the problems.  I will continue to use Aira.  Now that I have returned from holiday, my use case will be different but I know that it will be useful and you can be assured that I will write about my day to day use of Aira in the coming weeks.  I have sent the Horizon Horizon kit back and I am now just using my iPhone.   At least with the iPhone I can use a Bluetooth headset and if I need to carry something in my hands anyway, it may as well be the iPhone with it’s better camera. It’s also one less thing to carry around.

There’s a rumour that Apple are going to make AR Augmented Reality glasses.  I wonder if this will enable Aira to work as an app on the iPhone.

There’s one more thing I want to say.  The value in Aira isn’t it’s technology although that is certainly an impressive part.  It’s the human at the end of the line acting as your eyes.  They take this responsibility seriously and the strong training they have received is very obvious.  Their directions, respect and awareness is very clear to see.

Maintenance late on a Sunday night. It’s like rushing to get your homework done before school.

Sep 22, 2019 | , ,

So, what did you do tonight? watch something on the dodgy box? Read a book? Go for a walk?  As the dark nights role in, I’m a bit at a loss as to what to get up to when I get back from work and put the children to bed. But I’ll leave all that for another post.  Tonight I decided that it was way past time that I go looking around the various servers I run outside of work to make sure everything was running properly.  Some of these servers hadn’t been touched in 200+ days.  That’s not to say that they aren’t getting updates and that I don’t check in on them, I have a great system called Pulseway that I use for all that kind of thing but there are tasks that you should really check in from time to time and with 2019 being a very busy year, I haven’t really been keeping on top of everything. I’ve been trusting that the scripts and tasks I put in place were running as expected and if there was a failure, something would have notified me by now.

Right, let’s get to it. What did I check.  For the one or two people who might read this and be in any way interested.

  •  Database backups.  I use a tool that does exactly what it says in the name.  It’s called SQL Backup and FTP.  I love this tool. It’s simple, fast, reliable and just does what I need without any fuss. It cost me about €36 to subscribe for the year and in my opinion, it’s money well spent.  I keep database backups indefinitly for most databases.  Yes, this uses a lot of space, but some of the data changes regularly in the applications that I’m hosting so having the ability to go back and restore data from a year ago is very useful.  Of course, there are systems that can’t have backup retention for this long because of GDPR rules so their backups get tipically kept for a week or two at most.  I logged in tonight to make sure all the schedules and retention rules were working as expected.
  • File system backups.  I’m hosting around 4tb of data.  Every night I do a full backup.  I would only normally keep most of these backups for about a week. But I ship every weekly backup off to another server outside Ireland.  I’ve scripted all of this using powershell for the most part.  My bash scripts for backups that I wrote a good few years ago are still working with a few improvements here and there. But again, although I have monitoring and alerting uilt in, to reassure myself that everything was working as it should, I logged in to be absolutely certain.
  • It might seem absolutely crazy, but I also logged into the virtual machine hosts to make sure all their volumes, all the RAM and all the CPU’s were still present and accounted for.  I also checked the system, security and application logs for any weirdness.  Pulseway and other monitoring tools are fantastic but sometimes they can be a bit weird.  For example, in Nagios, you can lose an entire disk and not know about it unless you explicitly add that check in.  So, I always sleep a little better when I’ve checked the basics myself just to be absolutely certain.

So there you have it. I really am a complete and utter bore with nothing better to do on a Sunday night but check the health of my servers. In work, nearly 20,000 students are coming back to university tomorrow so when I’m in my 9 to 5 job, I really can’t afford to have something go bump in the night in my non 9 to 5 activities.  In saying that, all the checks in the world can’t account for someone allocating the same IP address as I’m already using to another customer. Yes. this happened twice to me in the past month and once before in the past year. Someone has also done an A and a B test on the main core switch in the datacentre and forgot that the switch is a temporary replacement and only has an A feed.   Oh, and because it was a temporary replacement, the brilliant system administrator working for the hosting company forgot to commit his changes when he configured the switch so I was off line for two hours while they fixed their silly mistake.  Sorry. I’ll stop ranting.

So, what did you do this evening? walk the dog, watch television, start a new series on Netflix, get the children’s lunches ready? Tell me in the comments. Or don’t. Because most sane people by now would have stopped reading this absolutely mind numming rubbish. 🙂

Appearing on the RTE Fleadh program.

Apr 14, 2019 | ,

So between you me and the wall, I’ve appeared on national television in Italy which would have many times more viewers than in Ireland, I’ve played on massive stages and I’ve entertained some very important people over the years. But nothing compared to the honor of featuring in the Fleadh program on Friday 12th April. To say it is probably going to be the highlight of my year is not even coming close.

My grand father is 90. I went over to visit him today and he put it better than I could. Unfortunately I forget exactly what he said but he knows the real reason that I play music. It’s the effect it has on people. Especially with the pipes, they can make you sit back and think when you’re sad but put them with a driving beat on a guitar and they can make you want to get up and dance. But it is the same for me as the player. When I’m performing something sad, I can sit back and just listen and enjoy the sound of the notes and the harmony with the regulators and the drones.

It could be considered that I’m really pushing self promotion here. I can certainly see how anyone and everyone would think that. I’ve started Music at the Gate, ceol FM and a few sessions in Drogheda. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say I’ve grabbed the animal by the horns when I heard the Fleadh was coming to Drogheda and I’ve done a lot to get music going in my town. But believe it or not, it’s actually not for direct personal gain. A friend of mine has a daughter who’s about 17 now. I’m envious of the social circles she has been involved with from a very young age. Not envious for me right here and now, but envious because if we don’t do something in Drogheda, my own children won’t get the opertunities that children have had in Dundalk, only a few miles away. There’s a potential legacy of the Fleadh but it’s not going to happen without musicians in the area putting in the work to make it happen. That legacy could be to bring a return to Drogheda of traditional Irish music. My name is out there a lot. But it’s mainly because outside the hard working people of the Fleadh committee, I’m the only person getting out there getting music back into the pubs and out onto the streets of this town. I don’t want to be. It’s a lot of pressure but I gladly take it on because I want nothing more than to let my children have the chance to enjoy playing music as much as I do. Of course, if they don’t play, that’s entirely up to them, but I want to give them that choice. Even if they don’t play, other children in the next 10 to 20 years could benefit so that’s enough for me. Jasus. That sounds like I have an offel big head and that I’m not enjoying every second of this. That’s not what I mean. Maybe I’m just lucky. I have amazing supports around me. Annie McGinley, Anne McVey, Aine Walsh, Graine Berril, Eoghan Darcey, Karen Devine, Maria Clarke, Eimer King, Eimear O’Cane, the Order of Malta, the Design gallery, the Highlanes Gallery, North East Marquees, The Grey Goose, Sarsfields, Barney Macs and of course, my wife, father and my entire family. I have had support from day one when I started gathering speed in preparation for the Fleadh in 2018. I also love every minute of playing music so I’m incredibly fortunate.

There are musicians in Drogheda and the surrounding areas that I couldn’t do this without. Noreen McManus, Malachy McArdle, Roisin Ward Morrow, Sean Conway, Bríd Dunne, Mick Dunne, Feargal Barnes, Brefney Hoolahan, Maria Clarke, Daithi Carney, Gerry Breen, John O’Reilly, Brendan Matthews and many many more.

I really can’t do this without the support of local musicians and I know they all have their own lives and their own responsibilities. Hopefully they will be able to join me for Music at the Gate again this year or all of this will fall very flat very quickly.

All quiet. On the tech front anyway.

Apr 8, 2019 | ,

It’s brilliant. Nothing has gone terribly wrong lately so I haven’t had much to write about here. The servers hosting the various website including this site, Ceol FM, Music at the Gate, Computer Support Services and others has been up and running now for a few days short of two months with no major problems. I hope I’m not going to publish this to find that the whole thing has just fallen on it’s face but so far the new system is running really well. All the work to get it into production has payed off.
The most recent and major undertaking that has been completed is the launch of the brand new Ceol FM streaming service. This entirely new version of Ceol FM is built from the ground up to bring features that are specific to people who want to listen to traditional Irish music such as:

  • Browse by album or artist
  • Search by track, album and artist
  • Filter by instrument, tune or song, genre or mood
  • Create custom playlists and save them for future use
  • There are thousands of tracks to choose from

The old streaming service is still available too but now it’s encrypted! IF you’re in to that kind of thing. I don’t suspect many people will care about having their music encrypted as it’s in transport but hey. Who am I to guess such a thing.

March weekends – Podcast

Apr 2, 2019 | , ,

It’s been ages since I’ve gotten stuck into creating a nice long detailed podcast. We had a few nice weekends during March. In this podcast you’ll hear anything from cooking, to a mad session, to children playing to children trying to swing out of me. You’ll also hear the dogs, and Nama walking me through a street in Ennis. It might be entertaining. It might not. If your into audio, you might enjoy how it all hangs together. Or you might find it a complete waste of your time. But in any case, please leave a comment so I know what you think of this.

VSCode setup for accessibility.

Mar 5, 2019 | ,

I quite like the stand alone Visual Code Editor.
Here are the steps to follow to set it up for optimal accessibility.

Installing Visual Studio code and configuring Jaws for best accessibility.

Download and install VS Code

  1. Download VSCode from the official site.
  2. Run the downloaded installer.
  3. Step through the various screens of the installation wizzard. Check the box labeled Add “Open with Code” action to Windows Explorer file context menu to have the code editor available in the windows explorer context menu.
  4. Click Install when ready to proceed.

Configure Visual Studio Code to enable screen reader support

  1. Press alt plus f to move to the file menu.
  2. Press p for preferences.
  3. Expand this menu.
  4. Press enter on Settings.
  5. Press the letter e to jump to the settings search edit field.
  6. Type screen.
  7. Tab over until you hear Editor Accessibility support.
  8. Expand this with alt and down.
  9. Arrow down to enabled.
  10. Tab off the field then close the settings screen with control + F4.

Accessibility support would generally have been enabled for you by default with the auto setting but there is currently a limitation in the built in console. accessibility support must explicitly be set to Enabled for the console to be accessible.

Jaws settings.

It is useful to have Jaws turn off the virtual cursor when you set focus to vSCode by default.

  1. Modify your ConfigNames.ini file.
    1. From within VSCode, press Jaws key plus 0.
    2. Close the default Chrome script file.
    3. Open the open window by pressing control + o.
    4. type the following full path and press enter.
      “C:\ProgramData\Freedom Scientific\JAWS\2019\Settings\enu\ConfigNames.ini”
    5. Press page down and create a new line.
    6. paste the following into the new line.
      Code=VSCode
  2. close the script editor then restart Jaws to be certain.
  3. Press Jaws key + 6 to open the configuration settings.
  4. Tyep virtual into the search field and press enter.
  5. Press tab then press end.
  6. Uncheck the box that you have landed on “Use virtual PC cursor”. THen tab to OK and press enter.

You are now ready to start efficiently using the Microsoft visual studio stand alone code editor.

Jaws scripts for Audacity.

Mar 4, 2019 | , ,

I like using audacity. I would probably do something in it at least once a week. So I’m quite happy to stumble across these scripts on Git hub.

I haven’t tested them yet but they look great.

https://github.com/campg2j003/JAWS-Script-for-Audacity

DIY Smart Kitchen Planner

Feb 26, 2019 | , , , , ,

Emma was quite rightly pointing out to me that it’s impossible for her to keep track of where I am from one day to the next. Between work and gigging, I have a busy life! She wanted to put a horible paper calender onto the fridge but the geek in me just thought that was far too retro. Lol. I hate that word.

So I built this. It takes my Office365 calender and a family to do list and it displays them along with the time and the local weather on a tiny 7 inch screen that sits nice and tidy on a shelf in the kitchen. Here’s a quick demonstration.

Error in IOS: Unhandled Promise Rejection.

Feb 24, 2019 | , ,

This is less of a solution blog post and more of a rant against the fucken stupidness of Apple and how they are driving me absolutely crazy. The problem is, developers put up with their shit because let’s face it, their app store is incredible, they give reasonably good shares of proffits and people think their devices are sexy. But for a developer working outside the Apple Ecosystem, I.E. outside the app store, Apple is a thunderous pain in the ass. Excluse my colourful language but this is the second time in six months that Apple’s deliberate curtailment of web applications running in IOS browsers has caused me serious problems and massive time investments.

The first problem was a few months ago. I found that the .play Javascript event wouldn’t trigger when the screen was locked. This problem isn’t in Android. But on IOS, when a screen is locked, Javascript no longer runs. It’s a simple solution to a complex problem with the aim of improving battery life. It’s not so bad. I’ve been able to get around it.

The second problem though is more complicated.
Here’s the main problem. I’m creating a complex application where thousands of valuable audio tracks will be available for people to listen to using a web interface. Without decent security, it would be possible for someone with some basic scripting skills to download every single track. So therefore several layers of authentication are required. Here’s what happens in summary. I’m leaving a lot of information out because of course, I don’t want to give away my secrets and I also don’t want to tell would-be thieves how to get around what I’ve done.

  • A user clicks play or play all.
  • The browser asks the server for permission and sends on a password that’s unique to that session along with some other identifiable information.
  • The server responds with the required authentication that will enable that track to be streamed.
  • the browser then uses that information to request the track.
  • The server receives a correct request with all of the security information so it sends the track to the browser for streaming.
  • The browser streams the track.

The problem is, technically, the user hasn’t directly made the request to listen to that track by clicking or tapping something. Technically for IOS, the user made the request to validate the security information. But as there’s a conversation going on in the background between the server and the browser, the browser made that request without the intervention of the user. Therefore, the browser stupidly considers the audio streaming step as an automated action so doesn’t actually play the audio.

How am I going to get around this?

I’m not completely sure. I have ideas. Some involve reducing the security which isn’t an acceptable course of action. But instead of authenticating eaach streaming request, I could authenticate the page then use that authentication for the streaming requests on that page. It’s not as nice or as solid as the other method but for damned IOS, it will likely have to do.

I use IOS every day. The iPhone is my primary mobile device. I like the interface and the Voiceover screen reader is just brilliant. But from the perspective of a developer, I have developed deap and justifiable frustration toward Apple. They are trying to fource me into developing a native app for Ceol FM. It’s definitly in the plans to do this but there’s only so much time I can spend on this.

There have been others who have had this problem. Here are a few related forum and blog posts: