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The English-language part of our bilingual exhibition podcast with specialist presentations, interviews and innovations for more inclusion.

Since 08/2025 9 episodes

SightCity Exhibitor Presentation 2026: WeWALK Smart Cane 2 (O032152)

2026-06-25 14 min

Episode Video

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Description & Show Notes

Joe Alfonso of WeWALK will present the WeWALK Smart Cane 2 at the SightCity Forum 2026: a smart white cane that combines upper-body-level obstacle detection, GPS navigation, and an AI assistant based on Google Gemini. The presentation will also include a look at the AIM monitoring system for orientation and mobility specialists.

Exhibitor: WeWALK Limited
Presenter: Joe Alfonso, Growth Manager
Event: SightCity 2026, May 28, 2026
Event ID: O032152
Contact: info@wewalk.io
Further information: https://sightcity.net/O032152

About WeWALK

WeWALK's mission is to leverage cutting-edge technology and AI to create revolutionary mobility tools for visually impaired people, driven by lived experiences. Multiple team members at WeWALK are visually impaired themselves, and the organisation works closely with the blind and low vision community to shape its products. WeWALK works with partner organisations worldwide, including RNIB (UK), CNIB (Canada), VLRC (Canada), and Vision Australia.

The Smart Cane 2 was released in 2025 and has since received the King's Award for Enterprise, Times Best Invention, and the Edison Gold Award. The WeWALK team was invited to Windsor Castle, where King Charles III tried the obstacle detection feature firsthand.

The Smart Cane 2 – Three Layers of Technology

WeWALK describes the Smart Cane 2 as a pyramid of features, from basic to advanced:

Layer 1 – Traditional Cane The Smart Cane 2 can be used as a standard white cane. It is lightweight, weather-resistant, and suitable for ground-level detection — no phone connection required. The bottom section contains no electronics, making it feel and function like a traditional cane.

Layer 2 – Safety Features (no phone required) An obstacle detection sensor in the cane's handle detects upper body obstacles such as tree branches, signs, and overhanging structures. When an obstacle is detected, users receive vibration feedback on the handle, an audio alert, or both — adjustable in the settings. A built-in flashlight allows users to illuminate dark pathways and increase their visibility to pedestrians and traffic.

Layer 3 – Navigation via the WeWALK App By pairing the Smart Cane 2 with the free WeWALK app (iOS and Android) via Bluetooth, users gain access to:

Turn-by-turn navigation to shops, restaurants, landmarks, and transport stops
Live public transit information and stop tracking alerts (so users are notified when it's time to get off their bus or train)
Exploration mode: points of interest announced by clock direction and distance, either while walking or browsed from a stationary location

Layer 4 – AI Assistant (powered by Google Gemini) By pressing a button on the cane's handle, users can ask voice questions and receive answers directly through the cane's built-in speaker — without taking out their phone. Questions can include directions to nearby places, battery status, current location, or general queries. Audio output can also be routed through Bluetooth headsets or glasses such as Meta Ray-Ban.

AIM: AI Mobility Monitoring

For orientation and mobility (O&M) specialists, WeWALK offers AIM (AI Mobility Monitoring). Specialists can issue a Smart Cane 2 to students and — if the student consents to sharing data — receive metrics including cane angle, cane swipes, walking speed, and self-reported confidence levels. This helps instructors verify that students are using correct cane technique outside of a classroom setting, and that cane height and swing pattern meet best practices.

Availability and Contact

The WeWALK Smart Cane 2 is available through WeWALK's global distributor network. To find the nearest distributor or to request a trial, contact WeWALK directly.

Contact: info@wewalk.io Website: https://wewalk.io Further information and talk page: https://sightcity.net/O032152

About SightCity
SightCity is Europe's largest trade fair for aids and services for the blind and visually impaired. The annual event brings together exhibitors, professionals, and community members to showcase the latest innovations in accessibility technology and services.

SightCity:

Website: www.sightcity.net
Email: info@sightcity.net
Social Media: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Threads, TikTok, WhatsApp

Legal Disclaimer

This recording was created during SightCity 2025 from the online exhibitor presentations. The copyright of the recordings belongs to SightCity GmbH. Any use, reproduction, or distribution by third parties is prohibited without express written permission. The processing of personal data is carried out in accordance with the provisions of the GDPR.

Transcript

welcome to the recording of the exhibitor presentation from May 28 WeWALK Smart Cane 2 WeWALK limited enjoy the presentation well welcome everyone to the WeWALK presentation here at SightCity it's a pleasure to be joining you my name is Joe Alfonso I'm the Growth Manager at WeWALK as a growth manager I'm responsible for overseeing various regions but I've been with the organization for a little over five and a half years now and I'm excited to be sharing information about our technology with all of you so let me start off by giving a little bit of background about our organization so our mission here in WeWALK is to leverage cutting edge tech and AI to create revolutionary mobility tools for society for visually impaired people driven by lived experiences I'm going to try to make this as accessible as possible so on the left hand side there is someone holding the WeWALK Smart Cane 2 and on the right hand side it shows text explaining our mission here at WeWALK now we like to emphasize the lived experiences aspect because multiple team members on WeWALK are visually impaired and we also reach out very closely to the community in order to help shape the products and experiences whenever they are using our products and our device that we currently are exhibiting at SightCity is called the Smart Cane 2 it was released last year and its features consist of various features being displayed on the left hand side of the screen as well as on the right hand side so first and foremost the Smart Cane 2 can be used as a traditional cane so it's very lightweight it's weather resistant and it can be used for ground level detection even when you're not connected to your phone so if you just want to use it as your everyday white cane you can certainly do that just because of the size and the similarity to a traditional cane however if you want to be able to benefit from upper body obstacle detection it contains an obstacle detection sensor located on the handle of the cane and it also has an inbuilt flashlight that allows you to be able to illuminate darkly lit areas so for example let's say you're walking around late at night you want to illuminate pathways to make sure that you are walking on the road correctly or perhaps you want to be more visible for pedestrians or traffic you can leave that flashlight on and simply enable it by using the text for any of you that want to make sure that you're not running into tree branches or stop signs you'll get audio as well as vibrational feedback to let you know when you're approaching an upper body obstacle such as a tree branch you'll feel either a vibration on the cane or you'll hear an audio alert or if you wanna hear if you wanna have both you can also adjust that in the settings to be able to get both audio as well as vibrational alert so that vibration comes on the cane's handle and then when you feel that vibration at that point you know that there is an obstacle that you can avoid and what's nice is with these safety features you don't need to be connected to your phone you simply power on the device using the inbuilt button once it's on you can adjust the obstacle detection sensor based on your needs and you can also enable the flashlight if you need it whenever you want so those two features again are very easy to use it's just a matter of finding the right buttons located on the cane handle I mentioned earlier you can use it as a traditional cane there's no technology built into the bottom section of the cane so I want all of you to imagine a traditional white cane except we've chopped off the handle and replaced it with technology now the third level of the pyramid is the navigation feature what you can do is you can pair up your Smart Cane 2 with your iPhone or Android device so you simply have to download the WeWALK app and once you have it downloaded you simply create an account inside the application you pair it up with the Smart Cane through Bluetooth and once it's paired up you'll get access to navigate to shops restaurants landmarks transport stops as well you can even view live public transit information as well as get stop tracking alerts which means for example if you are boarding a bus or a train you want to make sure you don't miss your stop you can enable stop alerts inside the application so that you can get notified when it's time for you to get off your stop we also have an exploration mode to discover nearby places so for example let's say you're vacationing somewhere you wanna walk around and find out what's around you you can enable our exploration mode and it will announce any points of interest such as restaurants cafes museum it'll announce its clock direction as well as its distance so you know the places that you're passing by however let's say you don't want to leave your hotel room for example you can simply tap on the explore button on the page and you can find nearby restaurants cafes simply select on the category and you can find the closest restaurants or cafes around you and you can get turn by turn navigation to that specific address so the way the turn by turn navigation works it'll tell you to take a right on First Street for example in 10 meters and then once you complete that set of directions it'll say in 20 meters you're going to take a left on Second Street so it's walking you every step of the way to make sure that you get to your destination and last but not least we have the AI Assistant feature so this feature is very easy to use you can use voice commands in order to be able to get real time information from your smart cane so the benefit of this is not having to take your phone out in order to ask questions to your phone there might be places for example where you're walking around late at night where you don't wanna have an expensive phone out in the open easy for people to grab or perhaps you're somewhere where it's very icy outside you wanna have your other hand free the WeWALK Smart Cane 2 allows you to place your phone in your pocket in a bag wherever it's convenient for you so that you're only using your one hand to navigate to places but with the AI assistant if you press a button you can ask questions like closest cafe closest restaurant and then when you let go of that button it'll actually announce the results directly through the inbuilt speakers on the Cane's handle so it's located at the very top of the handle however if you're walking around outside and you wanna use a Bluetooth earpiece wired headset or even meta glasses for example and you wanna get audio output through that you can certainly do that by just pairing it up via Bluetooth and instead of outputting through the cane speakers it'll output through the headset of your choosing and you're not limited to just asking for directions for places you can ask your AI assistant other questions such as what's the battery life on my smart cane you can say where am I at the moment and it'll announce your address you can even have it tell you knock knock jokes or teach you how to bake chocolate chip cookies for example the possibilities are endless and again it's simply pressing a button to be able to activate your AI assistant so really we've combined all of these features in the Smart Cane just to summarize you can use it as a classic cane because the size and feel is very similar to a traditional cane but if you want to benefit from that upper body obstacle detection and built in flashlight to make sure you're not hitting tree branches and high level obstacles that's where you can use the safety mode that doesn't require the use of your phone if you're someone that wants to start moving to places on your own and start traveling you can go ahead and use our navigation feature by downloading the WeWALK app pairing it up via Bluetooth and you have everything at your disposal including transit information restaurants cafes shops all directly from the WeWALK app and last but not least we have that AI assistant feature that I mentioned earlier where you can simply ask questions to your cane with a push of a button including directions to restaurants or anything that you want to ask your cane it's powered by Google Gemini so technically anything that you want to ask Google Gemini you can ask your smart cane as well and we can't do this alone we work with various organizations worldwide including RNIB CNIB VLRC in Canada as well as Vision Australia in addition to that we've won various awards globally including the King's Award for Enterprise Times Best Invention and the Edison Gold Awards as well this slide actually has a photo of our team members being invited to Windsor Castle and the king himself was actually able to try the Smart Cane 2 and he was quite impressed in terms of the features that we managed to include in such a small and lightweight device he was able to try out the obstacle detection feature as well and was quite impressed in terms of its accuracy the one thing I wanted to mention as well for any O&Ms that are joining we have something called AI mobility monitoring we're always looking to push the envelope and innovate with our technology so for anyone that works with visually impaired people we have something called AIM (AI Mobility Monitoring) for short and with the Smart Cane you can issue one of these to your students and it can collect metrics from your student if they choose to share their data with you so it can collect data such as cane angle cane swipes walking speed self reported confidence levels to make sure that your student is using correct cane technique so it benefits both the students as well as the instructors because it makes sure that a the students are using their canes outside of a classroom setting and b it also makes sure that they're not holding their cane too high or too low and that they're using correct cane best practices whenever they're outside on their own and this just has a couple of photos from some of the events we've attended we are quite global so we've attended various events in the US this week we are at SightCity here's a couple of photos as well from our Australia visit as well including Japan so we travel quite often to make sure that everyone is able to experience the cane firsthand as well if it is something that you wanna try out you can always reach out to us at info at wewalk.io again, that's info@wewalk.io and we're happy to answer any questions that you might have regarding its features if you have any distributors nearby where you might want to try it out we can always refer you to one of our close distributors so that you can try it first hand I will say the learning curve is quite low it's one of those pieces of technology that you can pick up quite easily as with any new piece of technology it will have a slight learning curve to it but overall you'll be able to understand its features with a little bit of practice so I hope that gives everyone a better understanding in terms of the features built into the Smart Cane 2 it's been getting great feedback so far globally just because it again it's one of those things where it has it's like a Swiss Army knife where you can use it according to you how you would use it in your day to day so if you want to use it for the obstacle detection if you want to use it to get a cup of coffee it has all of those features at your disposal so I'm going to stop it there are there any questions alright well it doesn't look like there are any questions if you happen to be in the Germany Frankfurt area we will be exhibiting at SightCity until Friday afternoon so please feel free to stop by and as I mentioned earlier if you do have any questions please feel free to email us at info at wewalk.io and we're happy to answer any questions you might have if you want to try it in person we're happy to refer you to your closest blind organizational partner or distributor as well to be able to try it out first hand thank you everyone for joining I really do appreciate your time and I wish all of you a wonderful rest of the week goodbye we hope you enjoyed this presentation for more information visit sightcity.net/O032152 thank you and see you at the next SightCity