If you spot someone wearing these shoes, stop what you’re doing and look around.

Computer scientists from Austria have developed a groundbreaking shoe, InnoMake, to help blind individuals avoid obstacles while walking. The innovative shoes, priced at over $3,000, are the result of a collaboration between the Austrian company Tec-Innovation and Graz University of Technology. InnoMake features a waterproof ultrasonic sensor on the toe of each shoe, capable of detecting obstacles up to 13 feet away. As the wearer approaches objects, they are alerted through vibrations and sounds, similar to the parking sensors found in vehicles. Markus Raffer, a visually impaired co-founder of Tec-Innovation, praised its effectiveness, saying, “This works very well and is already a great help to me personally.”

Each foot has a dedicated sensor, available either as part of a complete shoe or as a retrofit option. These sensors can identify the nature of obstacles, distinguishing between walls, cars, and stairs, and providing customized alerts. Tec-Innovation plans to enhance InnoMake’s design further by incorporating camera-based recognition and machine learning to improve navigation assistance. Future versions may offer a “street view navigation map” to assist other users.

Friedrich Fraundorfer at TU Graz explained, “They use camera images from the foot perspective to determine an area that is free of obstacles and thus safe to walk on, and they can recognize and distinguish objects.”

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InnoMake has the potential to transform the lives of visually impaired individuals, empowering them to navigate their surroundings more independently and safely.