By David Redmond
I’m not good at directions. Have you ever been somewhere totally new, got directions from a sighted person to a bathroom for example, and then wondered how the hell to get back? It’s one of those tasks that can quickly become a big challenge if you don’t have people around to assist or ask for help.
I was recently at a hospital and needed to get from one side to another. The problem was I’d no idea how to do that. A kind porter helped me in the end, but if I had to redo that again I’d have absolutely no chance. I’m just not going to remember every left and right. That’s where clew comes in.
Clew is an indoor navigation app that memorizes routes, so you don’t have to. It then lets you retrace them in either direction, from beginning to end or from your end point back to the start. It uses your phones camera to know where you are, and guide you as required.
Setting Clew Up
The first thing you’ll get opening the app is a safety message. Standard stuff really, it’s after this you get the fun stuff. There are three large buttons that let you create a single use route, save a route, or access the saved routs list.
Let’s take the hospital for example. I might want to do this again later, so I’m going to save a route. It goes without saying that the app is highly accessible, so I’ll simply describe the process. First, I set an anchor. You do this by moving the camera left and right for a few seconds. Then recording starts. Walk the route with your sighted guide as normal, the porter in my case, keeping your phone camera facing forward as you go. When the route is complete, stop recording and create an end anchor. You literally just take a photo here. Give your route a name, and your ready to go.
The setup is nice and simple, and I did it successfully on my first attempt here at the NCBI office.
Using a route
Using a route is also a nice experience. Let’s say I want to go do my hospital route again, without the porter this time. I open clew and select the “Saved Routes List“, select my route, and then I’m asked if I want to go start to end, or end to start.
Once you pick your option, your given helpful Left, Right, straight directions as you retrace your route. You also get a little beeping sound to let you know your moving the right way. It’s a nice experience and one I found really well designed.
David, this sounds familiar
Yep, it sure does. Seeing AI recently introduced a feature a bit like this on the world channel. It begs the question which is better.
Ultimately it comes down to personal preference, but for me Clew takes the crown. Seeing AI is good at what it does but it’s also a Jack of all trades. Clew on the other hand is a master of one. By the very nature of it being a dedicated app it’s got a simpler interface, can handle doing routes in reverse, and has one time use options. It’s a dedicated app compared to a slightly hidden feature in seeing AI.
Conclusion
Clew is another great tool in the toolbox. It’s got route sharing just like seeing AI, but I’d still like to see the Clew app trial a public database from its users. Outside of that though, I’m really happy with the app.
Clew has focused on doing indoor navigation really well, and I think it’s got it. How much I’ll end up using it in the real world is hard to say, but I’m glad it exists.