Useful Apps – TAP05

Useful Apps to use on your mobile device.

Travel Hands (iOS & Android)

Travel Hands is a free app that you can download onto your mobile phone. It is a service designed to ease the outdoor commute of VIP (Visually Impaired People) by pairing them with sighted &verified volunteers to walk together to similar destinations ensuring a safe, convenient, and inexpensive travel experience.

A VIP can submit a trip request that is automatically sent to a volunteer near them, alerting the volunteer to their location. The accepting volunteer will then come and pick-up the VIP and walk towards the requested destination.

For more information, please contact Travel Hands directly 020 3966 1650.

Lookout (iOS & Android)

The Lookout is an app where you can get details about objects, images, and text around you.Lookout uses the camera and sensors on your Android device to recognize objects and text and tells you what it finds. For example, it can recognise food and drink items, read documents, scan barcodes, and identify money, notes and coins.

There are two versions of Lookout App: There is a free version that provides essential security features (preinstalled onAndroid; download from the App Store for iOS) A premium version that offers additional, advanced security features

Be My Eyes (iOS & Android)

Be My Eyes is a free app that connects blind and low-vision people with sighted volunteers and company representatives for visual assistance through a live video call. For example, this app can assist you to places such as a bus or train station, restaurants, or your place of work.

Calm (iOS & Android)

There is a free version of this app. Calm is one of the most well-known mental health apps in the wellness space, with over 100 million downloads. We consider Calm one of the best meditation apps because of its comprehensive offerings, including breathing techniques and calming exercises.

Speechify (iOS & Android)

Speechify is a mobile and desktop app that reads text aloud using a computer generated text to speech voice. The app also uses optical character recognition technology to turn physical books or printed text into audio. The app lets users take photos of text and then listen to it read out loud.

Speechify is also a great choice if you’re recording content in a language other than English. The app features over 14languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Hindi. Each of these languages comes with a selection of voices too.

Clear Fear (iOS & Android)

Clear Fear is the latest app from award-winning teenage mental health charity stem4. Face your fear with the free Clear Fear app and learn to reduce the physical responses to threat as well as changing thoughts and behaviours and releasing emotions.

Anxiety is a natural response to fear, threat and apprehension. However, when anxiety is extreme or goes on for a longtime, or the response to a threat is disproportionately large and affects a person negatively, it may become an anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders are the most common form of emotional disorder and respond very well to a form of treatment called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or CBT.

iBreathe – Relax & Breathe (iOS & Android)

ibreathe is a simple and easy to use app that helps you to relax, calm down and meditate. Set the breathe in, breathe out and hold time and simply start breathing. This app is completely free.

TapSOS (iOS & Android)

This highly useful app offers a way for people who are D/deaf and those who have hearing loss to communicate with emergency services without needing to speak or listen. TapSOS is very visual and works by the user tapping the screen to select which options they need.

While originally designed for people who are D/deaf, it is also useful for people with breathing difficulties or those insituations being held against their will when contacting the emergency services, such as the police. TapSOS stores the individual’s medical history and pertinent personal information on their device, delivering this directly to the selected emergency service. It also uses GPS to pinpoint the user’s exact location.

Rogervoice (iOS & Android)

Rogervoice is an app which produces live transcription during phone calls in more than 100different languages. People who are D/deaf and those who have hearing loss, or someone who has difficulty speaking can use the phone to have a conversation with someone, and receive a typed text (on their phone) of what the other person is saying.

Google Live Transcribe (Android)

Google’s recent release Live Transcribe uses ASR technology to offer real-time transcription of speech into text. The spoken text is picked up by a phone microphone and delivered to an android phone screen using wifi or another network connection. This can be useful for people who areD/deaf and attending conferences or lectures, for example. The words spoken will appear on the phone of the person who has the app. The tech works for 70 different languages.

Please Note: One Place East are not recommending these apps and are just providing information of some of the apps available.