Any experience with WeWALK?

Greetings. I tested the WeWalk smart cane 2 and for me, it was a waste of time. Tried it on different routes but for me personally, it does nothing more than the classic cane. It is true that if you check the product, you will see obstacle detection sensor, navigation turn by turn and Chat GPT support, but here is the thing. First, the obstacle detection sensor does not work properly. It beeps even if there are no obstacles around you or sometimes it does nothing so you will smash the obstacle while walking. Second, turn by turn navigation. I didn't find it relyable so if you don't know already the route where are you walking, it will cause more stress than helping you. It is not precise. Third, CHAT GPT support. I can agree that this is not a bad idea but if you buy an 800 dollars cane only for this thing, you must be insane. The good thing about this cane in comparison with the first gen, is the ergonomic handle, better water proof and replacing the handle touch screen with distinguishable buttons.

I got this as a Christmas present after it had a Black Friday discount. My main use case was using it whilst walking my dog so it would alert me of brambles and branches that would otherwise go in my face.

This year the weather has been absolutely terrible in the UK. The walks I mostly go on at the moment aren't that overgrown so I've not been out many times with the WeWalk.

So bear in mind that I've not really spent enough time trying to master this - think of it more like first impressions.

The obstacle detection seems pretty useless as has been said before. I used this a few times on a walk that always has brambles and branches at head head and I was just walking down this path and it kept beeping away at me seemingly for no reason as there didn't seem to be anything overhead at at that point. After a while you just ignore it because it doesn't seem to be saying anything useful. Then out of the blue a bramble goes in my face and I wonder why I am bothering.

The other issue I've had is that when walking my dog she tends to zigzag in front of me a bit and this also sets the sensor off. While trying to master the cane I've ended up giving the dog to mrs grieves to lead so I don't have this problem but it still gives false alarms all the time.

I'd like to think that with a bit of effort and training it might be possible to make sense of the beeps and get some use of it. However, I am concerned that how well it works will depend entirely on where you are going and that it is maybe not going to work for me in the environments I was intending to use it in. When the weather improves we will be a bit more adventurous with our walking so maybe I will find a niche for it, but so far I am really regretting the purchase.

Regarding the other features. I've got to say I don't really see them as a selling point of the cane. If you have a phone and a pair of bluetooth headphones you can wear outside, then you already have the navigation tools you need. The advantage of the ones in the cane are that you can control it through the cane. It is pretty handy, and the sound still will play through your headphones if you are wearing some. I've only tried this in one place, which was in a shopping mall, and it only found a small number of shops there, so I'm not convinced it has the best mapping data around. I've not tried turn by turn because it didn't find any of the places I wanted to go to.

You can also hold down a button and talk to it. This is probably good if you can use it with the directions but not sure I need a voice assistant here otherwise given I'm already wearing my Meta Ray-bans.

Also if there is a problem with the app - maybe it gives an error message - then the cane buttons become unusable and you will need to fish the app out to fix it. This is hopefully something they will fix but it just means the cane suddenly goes quiet and doesn't work until you figure out what to do.

There are a couple of training videos. They didn't really explain how best to use the obstacle detection at all. But they did give a demo of someone asking their cane how to bake cookies. I can't imagine any of us have ever thought of this as a use case for a cane. But the fact they took time to demo it compared to showing the obstacle detection doesn't fill you with a lot of confidence. Again it's just a case of shoving AI in everywhere.

I'm also not impressed with the battery. Again remember I'm not using this cane that often yet. But I will charge it up in the weekend, then put it in the car. A few days later I might try it and the battery has run out even though it's been off the whole time. They basically say that they expect you to charge it up every day even if you aren't using it. This is probably fine if you really are using it every day but not good for me. I've not really been able to test it but my guess if you might get about 4 hours on the battery but please don't take my word for that as I've not really put it to the test.

The app is also fairly poor. It has a habit of starting up without the resource labels in so you just get placeholder text where the labels should be. Also if you don't use it for a few days you need to sign in again. This is painful because you need to enter your email address in and there's no autocomplete. Then you need to find the email, copy the code in it and go back to the app to paste it. If you are standing in a car park when you realise you need to do this, it's not ideal. They have said that this might be fixed or improved now but I've not tried since.

The other thing that was a tad disappointing - they say it comes with an AmbuTech graphite cane. but I guess it's the cheapest one. The last time I bought an AmbuTech graphite it had anti-jab and a mechanism that helped you change the tips - the hook kinda locks into place. Well the WeWalk one doesn't have this. Also I got a cheap ball cane, not the durable version. I ended up swapping it pretty much straight away.

Things I like about it? Well it's good that it is a regular cane so you don't have to use the smart things. And it's nice you can transfer the handle (apparently) if you need to. I like that you can use obstacle detection without the app. The navigation system requires the app, and it's nice that it plays well with the Meta Ray-bans. The buttons are nice and chunky and easy to use.

The handle is a lot thicker than what I am used to. It doesn't seem to add a huge amount of weight though. But I think the tip makes the biggest difference with how heavy a cane feels anyway.

Steven from Double Tap was very impressed with the WeWalk but never got round to doing the Q&A episode he promised which was a shame. I'm guessing it's possible to have a better time with it than me but so far I'm very disappointed. I'm sure your mileage might vary depending on your use cases.

But the main selling point feels extremely basic to me.

Two weeks ago I upgraded my phone & decided to have a go with the WeWalk app before splashing out on one of their £800 smart-canes. I'm so disappointed! Firstly it got its cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) wrong by 180º. More significantly it doesn't seem to cope with buses. For me this was the main use case. If I give it a destination that implies a bus journey it does two things well ... it guides me to the nearest bus stop & tells me when the bus is due. The problem comes when I get on the bus. The app refuses to believe I'm on the bus. It continues telling me when the next bus is due, in 29, 28, 27 minutes or whatever. From inside the bus I've tried in vane, numerous times, to tell it I'm on the bus. But I can't. For this reason the rest of its navigation efforts are no use.
I feel I must be missing something. It can't be this bad, surely?
In the company's defence I sent them a msg thru their app 'contact us' page; I only did that last night so maybe they'll send me a helpful reply.
It there a user-guide anywhere?

All the best everyone.

There is a calibration process with the cane. I think I read somewhere that it affects how it figures out the directions but don't quote me on that. It is possible that the cane would be better at figuring out the directions than the app on its own. I know apps like Voice Vista often get things a little wrong - like saying something is on the left when it's on the right. I usually put that down to the phone being in my pocket and the inaccuracy of GPS.

I must try the calibration again. I found the instructions a little vague, and also it doesn't seem possible to read them again once you've done it the first time. (I told them to put this in the manual which maybe they've done since then). It didn't sound like this would affects object detection but support said it might do. I really hope this might make a difference.

I tried it again yesterday. I was walking about and just getting random beeps every couple of seconds with seemingly nothing about. I did get one bramble or something in my face and mrs grieves exclaimed "see - it did warn you!" but if it's beeping all the tie, what is the point? Then ater it was silent and I got a branch in my face followed a second later by "beep!".

Anyway I will try to recalibrate and give it another go. I hate technology like this because it makes me feel like an idiot for not getting the hang of it, and I keep feeling that it must be my fault that it is so bad. But I am beginning to think that maybe th sensor is just not up to the task.

Again I keep thinking back to that cookie recipe demo and it does make me wonder if WeWalk really know what it's like to be blind and using a cane.

I think WeWalk is an incredibly poor product.
I don't own one myself, but the only person who I've heard say a positive word on the thing is Steven from double tap, and the cynic in me wonders if that's tactical so they don't stop coming on the show. Do bear in mind that I have no evidence for this and think double tap overall is a great podcast. The reason I wonder this is because there are so many people who have awful experiences of WeWalk.
I will also remind people and keep banging this drum that this is the company who made an outdoor product not weather proof. I know that was years ago but I think it gives a good indication of the thought that goes into products from the company.
The app, every time I have used it has been awful. Every time I try to activate the 14 days free trial, it always says purchase was unsuccessful. The sign up process is clunky at best too.
Last, the price. Taking into account all these issues is just insane. I'm not one to pile on blindness companies, I'm really not, I try to give everything a fair shot. WeWalk, from all the issues mentioned above though really does seem like one of those designed to make money with very little thought given to functionality, use ability , or usefulness.

There was at least one positive comment on these forums a while back about it, so I don't think Steven is the only one. But now I have one it is hard to understand what's good about it. I am really hoping that someone else will come on here and report their own positive experiences.

I do like the idea of having something built into a cane that can tell me about things the cane can't. The form factor is perfect really and the fact you can move the handle to another one is also very appealing as the thought of having expensive tech crashed into by a cyclist or something does make me anxious.

I had very high hopes for this because I thought the premise was simple. If it could just do the one and only thing I wanted well then it would have been money well spent. Compared to Glide which is far, far more ambitious and therefore has a lot more things that could go wrong with it. (I should say I pre-ordered the Glide but I am worried that it is going to be too good to be true - but let's not go off on a tangent here)

I think this product would have been better without any of the navigation or AI things or any of the nonsense. If it could just detect objects reliably without false positives then it would have been enough for me. Everything else just feels like "how can we justify the price?"