Blind Bargains

#CSUN14 Audio: I.D. Mate Quest, It's Much Smaller Than a Loaf of Bread


En-Vision America has been selling their I.D. Mate line of bar code scanners since 1997, and their latest model, the I.D. Mate Quest, looks quite a bit different in both form and function than the first version. To update us on the latest with the Quest, Chancey Fleet spoke with David Raistrick, Vice President for Envision America, who talks about the history of the I.D. Mate and some of the latest features. Blind Bargains audio coverage of CSUN 2014 is generously sponsored by the American Foundation for the Blind.

Transcript

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Direct from San Diego, it’s BlindBargains.com coverage of CSUN 2014. The biggest names, provocative interviews, and wall-to-wall exhibit hall coverage, brought to you by the American Foundation for the Blind.

VisionAware.org is a free, easy-to-use website for adults with vision problems. If you’re having trouble seeing and don’t know where to turn for answers, VisionAware provides you with expert solutions and advice. Learn about your eye condition, get practical advice for working with vision loss, discover how to keep doing all the things you love to do, find help, hope, and connection at VisionAware.org.

Now, here’s Chancey Fleet.

CF: I’m speaking with David Raistrick from En-Vision America regarding the i.d. mate Quest. The Quest is the fifth iteration of the series, right?

DR: Right, it’s the fifth generation. We started back in 1997 with the very first original i.d. mate, and we’ve come five generations on, and it’s still a great product. It keeps getting smaller, it keeps getting more features.

CF: What did the first one look like?

DR: The first one was actually the i.d. mate – the original i.d. mate was about the size of a loaf of bread, so if you can picture that.

CF: I’m picturing it scanning a loaf of bread right now.

DR: Well, in terms of the size, it was actually two pieces. It had a handle kind of scanner on a pigtail cable that connected to the device itself. So it was antiquated compared to where we are today, but it’s really neat to look back and think about how far we’ve come.

CF: And did it run on, what, just AC power at that time?

DR: No, it ran on NiCad. It ran on NiCad battery, so it was portable even then.

CF: So where are we now with the device?

DR: The device right now uses lithium ion batteries. It’s actually a Linux operating system. It actually has an OS now, so it runs great. Natural speech, it runs nuance vocalizer speech, so we’ve got a lot of different languages available for folks. We’ve got a lot of different databases available for different locales in the world.

CF: And the primary function is – and there are others – but to identify barcodes, to get product information, or to do personal image work?

DR: Yeah, exactly. That primary reason is scanning and getting that label data, that label information that’s all there. And then additionally, labeling with the voice anything that you’d like to. You can put barcodes on things and scan and label with your own voice messages.

CF: Does it support QR codes?

DR: It doesn’t support QR codes. That’s coming, but right now it doesn’t.

CF: I just think of that because of all the CSUN badges. But you don’t see them as often as you see barcodes. Let’s take a quick look at the device. It’s significantly smaller and lighter than – the Omni was the predecessor, right?

DR: Summit was a predecessor, so it’s just a little bit smaller, a little bit lighter than Summit. But yeah, it’s substantially smaller and lighter than the Omni, which was a couple generations ago.

CF: And it’s on a pretty heavy-duty lanyard. It looks, if you’ve seen a barcode scanner that’s in a supermarket, that it’s clearly a business grade, dedicated barcode scanner, and then there’s an array of…

DR: Rubber buttons.

CF: Yeah, how many?

DR: There’s six buttons there. That’s a camera.

CF: Okay, and then there’s a camera at the thinner, at the tapered end. I want to talk about the camera and why it’s there in a minute, but before I do, talk to me about why I might want to consider, and what kind of user might want to consider one of these rather than an app that’s on a phone.

DR: Apps are great for folks that really have some vision, can see the barcode, can focus in on a barcode, they know where it’s at, that sort of thing. But for folks with no real usable vision, it’s really, really hard to identify the location of the barcode, so you need a very, very aggressive scanner.

So these commercial grade scanners, kind of like you mentioned, takes you to that level where it’s an omni-directional scan pattern. It’s very aggressive. When you move over a product and when you move over that barcode, you get a hit. You’re not worried whether or not you go over it and it doesn’t work. Apps are great, again, for folks that can see a barcode and can focus in on it.

CF: Aim for it.

DR: Yeah, aim for it. And even then, you get a situation where you have to dwell for a good period of time to allow for it to focus, and that focus aspect on a camera is critical for an app to actually work.

CF: How quickly does that detection usually occur?

DR: In milliseconds. When it goes over a barcode – now, even with the Quest and i.d. mate, you still have to go over that barcode, so you still have to move over the product and think about –barcodes are kind of in consistent locations on boxes. They’re usually on a bottom edge or top edge of a box. Lower half, near a seam on a can. There’s just a lot of different consistent locations for barcodes on products.

But as soon as you go over that barcode, you get a hit, you get the information you need. Again, you’re moving then. You’re not wasting your time and your day looking for barcodes.

CF: Because there comes a time, if it takes more than a certain amount of time, I’ll just not do it.

DR: Yeah, it’s frustrating.

CF: This is fast enough and responsive enough, you feel, to be something that’s in daily use by someone that heavily needs to use barcodes?

DR: A lot of folks do, whether it’s with work, whether it’s at home.

CF: What kind of occupations do you think?

DR: There’s just all types of people, whether it’s in the vending program in Randolph Sheppard Vendors. Many, many use that and use the inventory mode that’s actually built in. You can do actual inventory and keep track of inventory on your i.d. mate. There are a lot of folks that use it in stocking situations in stores. Folks use it in shipping, shipping and receiving.

Because you can really tailor that database to whatever you want, you really can use it in just a lot of different occupations. I just talking the other day to a woman that puts it on her file folders for her job, so she scans all her clients in and she knows which file folder she’s dealing with, and even identifies documents that way.

CF: I know at my job, we have to be very careful about client privacy, and we couldn’t do that if it were reliant upon a server connection. When you label something for yourself using this device, it resides on the device, and so it’s not cloud-based. When it sources information from something you’ve just scanned in, like a product, does it automatically go and check the online database, or does it check locally first?

DR: It checks always locally first. The big database is local on the device; it’s three and a half million items, and when it’s exhausted that, and only then will it go out and check online sources. It’ll obviously first look for any recordings, too, so you’ve got all the data that’s stored there, whether it’s in the database or recordings, and then you’ve got the online database.

CF: We talk a lot about workplace technology at CSUN, but I’ve also noticed an increasing amount of attention being paid to older adults that want to maintain independence, maintain quality of life, but may also want some level of support. I noticed the camera, and the camera is there to enable Skype, right?

DR: It’s there right now for two primary reasons. First would be currency identification. With currency identification, one of the most important things about the Quest is it’s Wi-Fi enabled now, so you connect it to your home Wi-Fi and/or your work Wi-Fi, and you can do all those things we talked about, about searching online databases.

But in addition, when you are connected to the network, you can do currency identification. Take a snapshot of currency, and a couple seconds later, it’ll just identify it for you.

CF: Wait, so currency identification needs the network?

DR: It does. It uses cloud-based recognition, image recognition.

CF: Can you tell me what the challenge is that makes it necessary to use a network connection for currency identification? Because I’ve never actually heard of any currency identification that uses that before.

DR: Primarily for us, it was a way to get currency identification into the product quickly and easily, primarily. There’s a lot of ways to do image recognition, inaccurate image recognition, we felt. Like we could do a better job of doing it cloud-based. So a lot of folks do use that; some folks don’t use it at all. A lot of the apps or a lot of the features that we have on i.d. mate, you kind of tailor to your own needs.

But with the camera now, the camera has also the functionality with Skype too. There’s a Skype app on the device, so you can connect with Skype. You can make your regular own Skype calls, but you can also turn the camera on and do what we call remote sighted assistance. If you need to, in a pinch, if you’ve got somebody on the other end of the Skype call or you can make a call to someone, you can turn that camera on; you can show someone mail, documents, anything that you want, and get that assistance.

For folks that are rural or folks that are living alone, it’s invaluable. It still provides a level of independence such that an individual doesn’t have to trek over to your house to do something and help you out. They can do it right from their own home.

CF: I imagine that families probably use it quite a bit. Can you talk to me a little bit about the technical specifications of the camera?

DR: It’s a 5 megapixel camera, so you can actually take 5 megapixel snapshots and send those too, remotely. Over Skype, it uses 640 x 480 video that it transfers to the other end of the remote connection.

CF: And does it have a light source, or does it need to be used in pretty even light conditions?

DR: It has a light source. In Skype, you can turn the light source on and off, so if it is a dark environment, you can turn it on or turn it off. You can also with Skype mute your microphone if you need to. It’s got all the functions of true Skype calling, just with that added little camera there that you can utilize for that remote video link.

CF: And lastly, I understand that there have been some improvements to the battery life.

DR: Yeah, battery life is getting better all the time. Because we have an operating system, battery life on Quest isn’t as great as we’d like it to be, but it’s always getting better, and so we’re actually making strides and we’ve increased battery life about 20% with the Quest. Just using software techniques.

So those little software features are important for folks that have Quest. Because it is updatable, you can always get the new updates, and as we’re adding these updates, whether they’re features, whether they’re simple little battery utility updates, those are all available to everybody. We’re at Version 1.6 right now, and you just use your Wi-Fi link and you go and download the new firmware and software, and you’re off and running. Same with the databases. You download those databases right on your Wi-Fi.

CF: Coming back for a moment to the battery life, what is approximately the use time and the standby time?

DR: It’s about three and a half hours of constant use. That’s constant use where you’re scanning, scanning, scanning, scanning, scanning.

CF: For example, if you’re in an inventory environment.

DR: Right.

CF: And the standby?

DR: Standby, it’ll actually do some power management, and it’ll shut down if you haven’t been using it, for example, in about 30 minutes. If you set it down, it’ll shut itself off. So it’ll manage that power. But if you leave it plugged in, it’ll stay on for you.

CF: And if you don’t, how long do you have standby? Let’s say it’s being stored somewhere.

DR: It’s absolutely off, so your battery will last about probably two to three weeks, because it’s really drawing microamps at that point.

CF: Fantastic. Should we talk about your contact information, where the Facebook and the Twitter and all the things are?

DR: Yep. We’re EnvisionAmerica.com. Call us up at (800) 890-1180. We are on Twitter and we are on Facebook. I don’t have the account names right off the top, but we love – we’re really getting involved with Twitter quite extensively. We’re really enjoying it.

CF: One last question that I perhaps should have asked before: what’s the price point?

DR: It’s $1299. $1300. It’s one of those products that is expensive. We do have payment programs. That’s one important thing. If you qualify, then you can be part of a payment program. We have trade-ins from the old Summit, for example, to the Quest. We try and make it easy on folks to get and start using barcode scanning as a part of their life.

CF: It’s not really what some state agencies might consider a traditional assistive technology product in the way that a lot of state agencies are used to buying them. Have you found that state agencies are pretty receptive to purchasing from consumers that have good justifications?

DR: Yeah, yeah. Every state’s different, and what they do is different. But yeah, a lot of state agencies, especially for vending and/or vocational rehabilitation, don’t hesitate whatsoever to purchase barcode scanners to get jobs. We try and help give folks ideas on – you can go to our website, on ways to get jobs with an i.d. mate and with a tool like this.

CF: Thank you very much. Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

DR: Thank you very much, Chancey. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you.

For more exclusive CSUN coverage, visit www.blindbargains.com, or download the Blind Bargains app for your iOS or Android device. Blind Bargains CSUN coverage is presented by the A T Guys, www.atguys.com.

This has been another Blind Bargains audio podcast. Visit BlindBargains.com for the latest deals, news, and exclusive content. This podcast may not be retransmitted, sold, or reproduced without the express written permission of A T Guys. © 2014.

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J.J. Meddaugh is an experienced technology writer and computer enthusiast. He is a graduate of Western Michigan University with a major in telecommunications management and a minor in business. When not writing for Blind Bargains, he enjoys travel, playing the keyboard, and meeting new people.


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