Meaningful solutions to allow partially sighted individuals to enjoy live mass spectator experiences such as sporting events and concerts has long been an area of significant unmet need.
Though provisions such as earpieces providing audio commentary have been an accessibility staple for many years now, they tend to be more suitable for individuals who would be classed as severely sight impaired or blind. For those with some useful remaining vision, who may be able to enjoy their favorite sports sitting up close to a TV but who lack the acuity to cope with long-distance stadia sight lines, appropriate and personalized assistive technology has proved sorely lacking.
This may now be about to change thanks to an innovative pilot being run at this summer’s Wimbledon Tennis Championships involving a collaboration between Europe-based low-vision headset provider GiveVision and U.K. telecommunications giant Vodafone.
Seeing is believing
Founded in 2014, GiveVision develops virtual reality-style visors which deploy a smartphone camera to display high-resolution images of the outside world on screens inside the device mirroring where the wearer is directing their gaze. Wearers with low vision can then further magnify or adjust the contrast of the rich immersive video feed to suit their needs – making detailed visual tasks, that would otherwise be impossible, achievable once more.
However, what is novel about the current Wimbledon pilot, is that, in addition to using the headsets to directly follow the action from the stands, users will be able to switch to a live feed from the television cameras around the court.
This has been made possible from any seat on Court One or Centre Court at the All-England Tennis Club through a collaboration with Vodafone which harnesses its 5G connectivity to stream the action directly into the headsets at superfast speeds. Importantly, the 5G connection, eliminates the time lag between what the viewer can see live on-court and the television broadcast. This precise synchronization avoids the frustration the wearer would otherwise experience of hearing a point being applauded around them in the stands a split second before witnessing the play themselves.
Another bonus of 5G is that it works from any vantage point in the arena. Previous trials tethering low-vision headsets to broadcast feeds inside venues have used WIFI. This necessitates the wearer having to sit next to a transmitter box in a designated accessibility area segregated from other spectators. WIFI connectivity also limits the number of users of the service at any one time whereas there are no such limits with 5G.
In a media release announcing the Wimbledon pilot which involved three tennis fans with a variety of sight loss conditions, Vodafone’s Chief Commercial Officer Max Taylor said: “At Vodafone, we are committed to using our technology to bring fans closer to the action. Wimbledon is one of the most iconic moments in the British Summer calendar, and we are proud to be able to showcase how the power of our 5G network can help make the sport more accessible to people.”
One of the participants is seventeen-year-old Ivan Rodriguez Deb from Watford near London. He lives with Marfan syndrome – a connective tissue disorder which affects the lens in his eyes.
An avid tennis enthusiast, Ivan says that Wimbledon has always held a special place in his heart.
“I’ve always considered coming to Wimbledon as a big tennis fan because it’s one of the most prestigious tournaments of the year. But I’ve always concluded that it’s not worth it. Because all I get to see is essentially two blobs moving up and down on the tennis court hitting an invisible ball,” explains Ivan.
Addressing what it’s like to view the action with immersive video magnification, Ivan says enthusiastically, “I could see the tennis players on the court in an absolutely incredible level of detail. I could see how the ball traveled across the court, the types of spins that the players were putting on it and exactly how close to the line the ball was being hit. I could even see the expressions on the player’s faces after a point had been played and how they were celebrating!”
Explaining the difference between the standard user-controlled mode and the synchronized TV feed, Ivan says, “Everything is being controlled by the camera operator so you see these great views of the whole court. You get to see all the slow-motion replays of the rallies too while being liberated from having to constantly look for the ideal view for yourself. The best thing about it though is that you can make all the same enhancements as you would in standard viewing mode like changing the contrast.”
Making events inclusive
Over the past year or so, GiveVision has noticeably pivoted its attention away from simply having a standalone immersive wearable for everyday use such as was the case with its original SightPlus headset and has looked increasingly to the live spectator events space.
This is a sharp and apposite business move for a variety of reasons. Firstly, though immersive VR-style headsets offer one of the richest visual enhancement experiences out there, their downside is that they can be obtrusive, bulky and unsafe to move around in. They are arguably best suited to intense but time-limited viewing experiences enabling one to feel part of the crowd whilst safe in the knowledge that everyone else’s attention is diverted toward the action.
Equally, such hardware, costing many thousands of dollars in some cases, can prove unaffordable to the average consumer particularly if the sole requirement is for live events. GiveVision’s business model has the potential to push this cost out to the event operator so headsets can be rented on a one-off basis.
The company has already explored trials and partnerships with English Premier League football clubs Everton and Crystal Palace as well as Paris Basketball and has its sights firmly set on enhancing in-stadium accessibility for partially sighted visitors to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
“We’ve been working for many years to improve the conditions and experiences of people living with sight loss but, unfortunately, it’s been a while since we’ve seen some genuine innovation in this intersection with the live entertainment space,” says GiveVision Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Stan Karpenko. “So, we see this as a great opportunity to improve access to sports for everyone.”
The good news for visually impaired sports fans is that the technology to achieve this through both on-device cameras and now, broadcast feeds, already exists and so the challenge lies more in evolving the appropriate contractual partnerships with rights holders. Successful pilots like that of Wimbledon 2023 should help pave the way for this.
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