INDUSTRIAL DESIGN - MECHANICAL ENGINEERING - PROTOTYPES - PRODUCTION LIAISON

Eye-Pal scans text and reads it to you, making everyday life easier for individuals who are blind or have low vision. It reads aloud any printed material, from books to labels on curved prescription bottles. ABiSee chose Stream PD to redesign their existing sheet metal product to be more user friendly, elegant, and add innovative features. 

EyePal is easy to use and no computer skills are required. We moved the camera pole from the rear face to the corner in order to move large media such as a newspaper past the scanner without having to readjust. There are just two buttons to operate the device which are easily seen or felt on the front. Other secondary controls are underneath a door used by a caregiver. The gentle curves of the form guide your fingers around the device with no sharp edges, and also give Eye-Pal a contemporary style. We were able to achieve this by injection molding the top cover which attaches to the sheet metal base. The camera head assembly is a combination of injection molded and extruded parts. It attaches to the base with mechanical features and USB connection. We refined the engineering through multiple iterations of in-house prototypes, and also created the first short production run in-house. We sourced all production parts with our network of US vendors, created a production drawing package, and examined first articles to maintain design intent.

BUSINESS IMPACT

After Eye Pal Vision was introduced, ABiSee was acquired by Freedom Scientific, the global market leader in vision impairment products, for an undisclosed sum.