Dubai Municipality brings in NaviLens audio guidance for blind visitors
Dubai Municipality is introducing NaviLens, coloured codes that a phone camera reads aloud to guide people with visual impairments, and is showing it at AccessAbilities Expo until 21 October.
Dubai Municipality is introducing NaviLens, a navigation system that helps blind and partially sighted people find their way around public places on their own. It says it is the first government body in the UAE to use it.
The system works with coloured square codes placed on signs. A smartphone camera picks them up from a distance and the phone reads out where the person is and what is nearby, in audio and on screen, in more than 35 languages. The municipality has not yet said which parks, beaches or buildings will get the codes first.
It is one of the services the municipality is showing at the eighth AccessAbilities Expo, alongside its accessible beaches. At Jumeirah Beach 2 and Khor Al Mamzar there are 10 step-free sea entrances and pathways, 16 accessible toilets and two sea swimming platforms, and the Braille handrail at Dubai Frame is 319 metres long.
AccessAbilities Expo is open at Dubai World Trade Centre until Wednesday 21 October, where visitors can see the system at the municipality's stand. The list of places that will carry NaviLens codes, and the date they go up, have not been announced yet.