VoiceVista FAQ

Microsoft discontinued the project Soundscape and made it open-source. VoiceVista is licensed under the MIT License to continue providing the service to blind and vision impaired community. VoiceVista helps you stay aware of where you are and where you're going by using unique audio guidance and by calling out roads, intersections, and places as you approach them. VoiceVista uses 3D sound to let you know what's around you. For example, if your destination is on your right,you will hear sound coming from that direction, or if a coffee shop is on your left, you will hear a callout from that direction. Place an beacon on your destination and VoiceVista will keep you informed of its location and your surroundings along the way. Use VoiceVista in conjunction with your wayfinding skills and even your favorite navigation app to find your way to your destination. Put away the phone and walk. VoiceVista will help you stay aware of where you are by calling out roads, intersections, and landmarks as you approach them. Callouts can be adjusted in the settings. Hold the phone flat in your hand, and use the buttons to locate roads and upcoming intersections, orient to familiar landmarks around you, and explore landmarks ahead of you.

VoiceVista has features and benefits that span a variety of scenarios and time scales. Furthermore, VoiceVista's value to you may evolve over time so how you use it today may differ from how you will use it in three months. People often think about apps in terms of 'what problem is this app good at solving?' VoiceVista certainly can be used on a case by case basis when you have a specific information need – such as keeping track of a destination as you make your way there, helping to orient yourself when you emerge from a metro station, getting your bearings when exiting a car, or finding the street names for, or distance to, the next intersection. However, the philosophy behind VoiceVista is one of 'lighting up your world with sound', designed to be used anytime you are out and about to provide ambient awareness of your surroundings, such as keeping you aware of the names of the streets you are on, the direction you are heading, and the names of businesses you are passing.

The Surroundings tab includes a number of options to give you information about where you are. Swipe up and down on each button to use rotor actions and obtain more specific information. When using any button within this tab, hold your phone with the screen flat (facing towards the sky) and the top of the phone pointing in the direction you are facing before you press the button. This acts like a compass telling the app which direction you are facing. Double tap the What's My Location button quickly gives you information that helps you figure out where you currently are. It tells you about your current location including things like the direction you are facing, where nearby roads or intersections are, and where nearby points of interest are. Swiping down on What's My Location button allows you to either save your current location as a marker or share your current location. Double tap the What's Around Me button tells you about one thing in each of the four quadrants around you (ahead, to the right, behind, and to the left). Swiping down on What's Around Me button will give you options to hear markers or list places which are near by. The Nearby Markers action tells you about up to four markers that are closest to you. When you are trying to get your bearings and orient yourself to your surroundings, use Nearby Places to list about the locations of places you know of. Double tap the What's Ahead of Me button tells you about four things ahead of you. Swipe down on What's Ahead of Me button will give you options to hear a list of intersections which are ahead of you.

Markers are places that you have saved. They could be places that are discoverable within the app, or they could be entirely new places you have added yourself. You can save your current location as a marker by selecting the 'Markers' tab and then tapping top right bar button. You can save other locations as a marker by selecting 'Places Nearby' item in 'Surroundings' tab, and then searching for the place you would like to save using the search bar, or finding somewhere from the nearby places. Once you have found the place you would like, selecting it will take you to the 'Location Details' page. On this page, tap the top right bar button. You can mark any place or address, but you can also mark things that might traditionally not be available in maps, for example, entrances to buildings or parks, push-to-walk buttons, pedestrian crossings or bridges, bus stops or even your dog's favourite tree and use these as references along your walk. To experience marked places, VoiceVista will automatically call out marked places as you walk by or approach them, or you can also use the Nearby markers button at the home screen to hear a spatial callout of marked places around you. In addition, you have the ability to set an beacon on any marked place. When you perform this action, you will hear the familiar VoiceVista beacon, and you can operate it as usual. You have the option to customise saved markers. If you want to, you can change the name of the marker and also add an annotation that will be called out along with the marker to provide some extra information.

Routes are a series of waypoints. You will be informed on arrival to each waypoint, and the Beacon will automatically advance to the next waypoint. You may want to create and use a route somewhere you know to make sure you keep on track, or you may want to use it as a tool to help familiarise yourself along a new journey. To create a route, first, go to 'Routes' tab, and then select the 'Add' button in the top-right corner. Give the route a name and an optional description, then add waypoints as you go or pick them from your list of Markers. You can rearrange the order of the waypoints along a route at any time by editing the route. There are advanced methods for creating a new route, such as generating them using a navigation algorithm or importing from a GPX file. The most popular method is the Breadcrumb waypoints mode. To edit a route, select your route on the 'Routes' tab and then select 'Edit Route Name' or 'Edit Waypoints' in the top right corner. From here you can add and remove waypoints, as well as editing the name and description of the route. To share a route, select your route on the 'Routes' tab and then select the option to 'Share' using all of the usual share options available to you.

You can set an beacon on any business, place, point of interest, address, or intersection. There are a few ways you can add a location as a marker. First, view the details for a location by either using the search bar to search for a place, or tapping one of the 'Places Nearby', or 'Markers', and selecting a location. From the location details screen you can select the 'Start Beacon' button. Tapping this will return you to the home screen and turn on a beacon coming from the direction of the place you selected. The name of the place you have selected along with its distance and physical address, if available, will now be displayed on the main app screen. Setting a beacon on a nearby location allows VoiceVista to keep you informed by playing a beacon sound coming from the direction of that location. This beacon can be muted or unmuted on the home screen. Additionally, VoiceVista displays information about the location on the home screen including the distance to it and its street address if it is known. Setting a beacon is useful when you want to keep track of a familiar landmark as you explore a new area or when you are going somewhere and want to be informed about your surroundings along the way. The beacon feature gives you a continuous audible sound that tells you the direction to the beacon, relative to where you are currently located. Using the beacon, your existing wayfinding skills, and even your favourite navigation app, you can choose how you want to get to nearby locations yourself. To remove the current beacon, simply press the 'Remove Beacon' button on the home screen. To mute the beacon, tap the 'Mute Beacon' button underneath the 'Remove Beacon' button on the home screen.

You can think of the beacon as a 'lighthouse for the ears', notifying you of where your destination is relative to your location, as the crow flies. Like a lighthouse, it does not tell you how to get there – you may need to make many navigation choices along the way, just as a sailboat will have to make many strategic 'tacks' to get closer to the lighthouse. The continuous rhythmic sound of the beacon is spatialised from the direction of the destination, and helps you stay aware of the location of the destination relative to you as you walk. When you are walking directly toward the destination, or you point the phone toward the destination, a higher pitched 'ring' sound will be heard. This feature allows you to pinpoint the direction of the destination since the direction of the rhythmic sound can sometimes be difficult to perceive in loud environments. When searching for the higher pitched 'ring', hold the phone flat and sweep the phone slowly; turning your head to point in the same direction of the phone will ensure that you have the best spatial audio experience. The lighthouse metaphor for the beacon's design has several natural implications: 1. There is no 'correct' direction to travel when using the beacon, instead, with VoiceVista you choose how to get there; 2. The higher pitched 'ring' helps you pinpoint the direction of the destination only – it is not an indication of how you should get there; 3. If you generally know how to get to your destination, you may wish to mute the beacon for the majority of your trip and turn it on only as you get closer to your destination.

VoiceVista's beacon is fundamentally a directional cue, telling you where your destination is relative to the direction you are facing. When VoiceVista is uncertain about what direction you are facing, it lowers the volume of the beacon. Most often this occurs if you have been walking with the phone stored in a pocket or bag, and you stop moving, such as to cross a street. The beacon will get louder once you start moving again, or if you hold the phone flat and point it in the direction you are facing.

Yes you can. After you found the address using the search field, You can add it as a marker by selecting the 'Save' button, or using 'Start beacon' to set it as a beacon immediately.

VoiceVista supports setting beacons on addresses. To set a beacon on your home, or any other address, search for a location from the main VoiceVista screen. On the 'Location Details' screen, tap the 'Start Beacon' button.

VoiceVista can determine the location of your destination to within several metres, but not less. When VoiceVista determines that you are close to your destination, you will hear a final callout that your destination is nearby, and the beacon will turn off.

Yes, you can turn the beacon back on once VoiceVista turns it off by selecting the 'unmute beacon button'; however, since Location Services is only accurate to about 10 metres, we cannot guarantee the behaviour of the beacon when you are within a few metres of your destination.

To accommodate a variety of intersection configurations, VoiceVista describes intersections as segments of roadways that depart from a common point. VoiceVista uses spatial audio to indicate the name of the road that goes to the left, the name of the road that continues straight ahead, and the name of the road that goes to the right, in that order. If the description of the intersection begins with the road you are on rather than one to the left, then the intersection is a T with the road you are on continuing ahead and a road intersecting from the right. Similarly, if the description only includes a road to the left and to the right, you will know that the road you are on ends at a T ahead of you. This method of describing intersections also supports the case when a road changes name at an intersection.

VoiceVista is designed not to be too chatty. In addition, it uses Open Street Map as its back-end data source. Open Street Map is a community-developed and edited map of the world, relying on individuals, to enter and curate the data. If a business or point of interest is not announced by VoiceVista, the most probable reason is that the business has not been added, or in some cases updated, by a member of the OSM community yet.

In order to stop the number of callouts becoming overwhelming, some categories, such as shops and restaurants, are not announced automatically when you're travelling in a vehicle.

VoiceVista has a list of your recent callouts so that you can revisit callouts that you might have missed. To find this, tap on the search field on the surrounding screen. At the bottom of this page, there is a section for 'Recent Callouts' where the callout you missed will be listed.

VoiceVista is currently available for Apple iOS, running on iPhone SE, iPhone 6S and later.

VoiceVista supports spatial audio with dynamic head tracking when using compatible AirPods. When connected to VoiceVista, sensors in the AirPods tell VoiceVista the direction your head is facing. This helps VoiceVista to improve your audio experience making it more natural as you move around in the world. When you use VoiceVista with AirPods connected, you do not need to hold your phone for VoiceVista to work correctly. You can use AirPods with VoiceVista anytime you would normally use VoiceVista. Using AirPods provides you with high quality audio and allows you to have a more hands-free experience with VoiceVista. To connect a Device, go to the 'Head Tracking Headphones' item in the General Settings page to connect your AirPods and follow the instructions on screen. Note that you will need to pair your AirPods to your phone in the Bluetooth settings before connecting them in VoiceVista. When media controls are enabled in the VoiceVista settings, you can use the media controls on your AirPods to mute or unmute the beacon, call out your location or to repeat the last callout.

You can access certain features in VoiceVista with the help of the media control buttons on your headphones. This functionality works with any wired or Bluetooth headphones that have media control buttons like Play, Pause, Next, Previous and others. Different headphones may include different buttons so please refer to the list of actions below to determine which ones are available to you. Also note that this feature only works with headphones that support Apple's media controls (such as play and pause). Headphone media controls can be used while VoiceVista is running. This is true whether you are currently in VoiceVista or while VoiceVista is in the background and even while your device is locked. Note however that headphone media control buttons will not work with VoiceVista if you are playing audio like music, podcasts or videos with another app. You can access the following features in VoiceVista using your the media control buttons on your headphones: Play/Pause: Mute any current callouts and if the beacon is set, toggle the beacon audio. Next: Callout 'What's My Location'. Previous: Repeat last callout. Skip Forward: Toggle callouts On and Off. Skip Backward: Callout 'What's Around Me'.

Battery life varies significantly depending on which iPhone you own and how old it is. The biggest drain on your battery is having the screen on, so to maximise the battery life of your phone you should keep the screen locked whenever possible. To help minimise the impact on your iPhone battery VoiceVista now has a Sleep Mode and a Snooze Mode. To further reduce the amount of battery you use, when you aren't using VoiceVista, you should force close it via your iPhone's App Switcher.

To put VoiceVista in to Sleep Mode, select the 'Sleep' button in the top right hand corner of the screen. When you select this VoiceVista will stop using Location Services and mobile data until you choose to wake it up again.

To put VoiceVista in to Snooze Mode, select the 'Sleep' button in the top right hand corner of the screen. Once VoiceVista's in Sleep mode, select the 'Wake up when I leave' button and VoiceVista will go in to a low power state until you leave your current location.

In history tests, the battery consumption of Bluetooth headphones is comparable to wired headphones and should not be a significant factor to consider when selecting headphones. That said, both earbud and bone-conducting headphones have wired and wireless model options.

VoiceVista is a location-based app and uses Location Services to determine your location. In our tests, VoiceVista does not consume any more battery than the average map application; but if you are concerned about battery consumption when using your phone, the following are a few tips which will help lower usage: 1. Turn the screen display off as much as possible when you are not interacting with the app. 2. When not using the app, close it down. VoiceVista uses location services continually when it is running so that it always knows your location, even when you are not moving. Don't forget to restart the app when you resume your journey. 3. In cold weather, keep your phone warm as batteries perform more poorly in colder temperatures.

The amount of mobile data used depends on how you use VoiceVista. We have designed VoiceVista to use only a small amount of data when you're out and about by doing things like saving points as you walk around so you don't need to download them again every time you go back to somewhere you've already been. To reduce the amount of mobile data you use, make sure you are connected to Wi-Fi whenever possible, particularly to download the app. When you are not using VoiceVista, you should use the 'Sleep' button to put VoiceVista to sleep or force close the app.

VoiceVista provides an ambient description of your surroundings in aid of exploration and way-finding. Using spatial audio, VoiceVista will call out points of interest, parks, roads, and intersections from the direction they physically are in your immediate environment as you walk. For example, if you pass a shop on your right, you will hear the name of the shop sounding from your right. As you approach an intersection, you will hear each road name sounding from the direction it goes in, beginning to your left, ahead and to the right. VoiceVista play a beacon in the direction of your destination, empowering you to make your way there on your terms using your increased awareness of your surroundings and the location of your destination. And VoiceVista provides turn-by-turn directions to the next destination for your convenience if you have enabled this option.

VoiceVista is designed as an awareness app to help fill in details about your environment that you may not be aware of otherwise. While it has the ability to provide turn-by-turn directions to the next beacon, it can be used alongside other navigation apps to provide complementary information. To use VoiceVista with these apps, start your navigation app first. Then, move over to VoiceVista and set a beacon on the same destination as in the navigation app. At this point, both apps will be running and you will hear walking directions from your navigation app, while getting updates on points of interest, intersections, and your distance to your destination from VoiceVista.

VoiceVista provides several ways to control what you hear and when: 1. Immediately stop all audio: Double tap the screen with two fingers to immediately turn off all audio, including any callout that is currently playing and the beacon if it is on. Callouts will resume automatically when you approach the next intersection or point of interest, but the beacon will not. Select the 'unmute beacon button' on the main screen to resume hearing the beacon. 2. Stop automatic callouts: When you are not travelling or have reached a destination, you probably will not need VoiceVista to continue to notify you of things around you. Instead of exiting the app, you can put VoiceVista in to Snooze mode and it will wake up again when you leave, or you can put VoiceVista into Sleep mode and it will stay off until you choose to turn it back on. Alternatively, you can select 'Settings' from the tabs and choose to turn all callouts off in the `Callouts Setting'. 3. Stop the beacon: There are several scenarios for which you might set a destination, but not need the beacon on. For example, you may know exactly how to get to your destination but want to get automatic updates about how far away you are from your destination. Or, you may know roughly how to get to your destination, and only need the beacon as you near your destination. Whatever the case, you can choose when to hear the beacon by toggling the 'mute beacon'/'unmute beacon' button on the main screen.

No! While walking you can put the phone away in a bag or pocket or wherever is convenient. VoiceVista will use the direction you are walking to figure out which callouts to announce to your left and to your right. When you stop moving, VoiceVista does not know which direction you are facing. If the beacon is on, you will notice it get quiet until you start moving again. You can pull the phone out to press the location and exploration buttons at the bottom of the screen at any time but make sure to hold the phone with the top of the phone pointing in the direction you are facing and with the screen to the sky. In this 'flat' position, VoiceVista will use the phone's compass to determine which way you are facing and provide accurate spatial callouts. If the beacon is on, you will also notice that it returns to full volume.

VoiceVista allows you to customise some key aspects of the callouts you hear as you are walking: 1. Voice: You can choose which of the available voices on iOS you would like VoiceVista to use, as well as the speed at which callouts are spoken. Select Settings tab, then Voice to adjust the Speaking Rate and Voice settings. Additional voices and enhanced voices with a higher quality can be downloaded in the iOS Settings app at Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content > Voices. 2. Distance Metric: VoiceVista allows you to hear all distances in either feet or metres. Open settings tab, change the option of 'Unit of Measure' in 'General Settings' page. 3. Markers: You can mark your world with anything you care about. You can mark things that are personal and relevant to you like your home, your office and your preferred grocery store. Then VoiceVista will automatically call out marked places as you walk by or approach them, or you can also use the Nearby Markers button at the VoiceVista home screen to hear a spatial callout of marked places around you. These markers will remain personal to you and will not be available to anyone else. 4. Callouts: VoiceVista can tell you about things around you as you approach them by calling out their name from the direction they are located in. The app will do this automatically for all sorts of things like businesses, bus stops, and even intersections. You can configure what the app automatically calls out in the 'Callouts Settings' page of the 'Settings' screen, and you can turn all callouts off when you want the app to be silent. In addition to the above, the following VoiceOver settings can influence how VoiceVista behaves: 1. VoiceOver Tips: When VoiceOver tips are turned ON, you will hear more information about all the buttons on the primary VoiceVista screen. You can turn on VoiceOver tips by navigating to the iOS Settings app and going to Accessibility > VoiceOver > Verbosity, and turning the Speak Hints setting on. 2. Audio Ducking: VoiceVista is designed to work with Audio Ducking turned OFF. When Audio Ducking is on, automatic callouts can be difficult to hear if VoiceOver is used simultaneously. We recommend turning Audio Ducking off to make it easier to hear all automatic callouts that occur as you are interacting with the phone. Audio ducking can be turned off in VoiceOver settings or via the VoiceOver rotor. 3. Touch ID or Face ID to Unlock: Setting your phone to unlock using Touch ID or Face ID will make unlocking the phone fast and easy, and in turn, allow you to access the My Location, Around Me, and Ahead of Me buttons as quickly as possible when you are on the go. Set up Touch ID or Face ID unlocking in the iOS Settings app.

VoiceVista draws on geographic map data to provide the information callouts in the app. The primary map source we use is Open Street Map which is a rich community generated mapping platform, that enables organisations and individuals to improve the quality and granularity of the information provided and the accessibility of their spaces using Open Street Map map authoring tools.

When there is no internet connection or an outage in the VoiceVista services, VoiceVista transitions into an offline mode. Nevertheless, VoiceVista will continue to work, but some functions may be limited. Callouts will continue to work if you are in an area that you have walked by before and that has been stored in your callout history. Similarly, you can place an beacon or create a marker on places that have been stored in your callout history. VoiceVista will try to resume normal operation when your phone is connected to Wi-Fi or mobile data is enabled and you are in an area with good signal. If your phone does have a good internet connection, but VoiceVista does not resume normal operation, then there may be an outage in the VoiceVista services.

Yes, you can create a BlindSquare backup of your places and import it into VoiceVista. 1. Open BlindSquare and go to the “My Places” screen. 2. Tap the action button in the top right corner of the screen. 3. Either email the exported file to yourself or save it in the Files app. * If you have emailed the export, open your Mail app, open the email to yourself, and tap the attached JSON file to open it. Tap the 'Share' button at the bottom of the screen and select VoiceVista. * If you have saved the export to the Files app, open VoiceVista and select the Markers tab. Tap the button at the top right of the screen to add new markers and select the option to import markers from BlindSquare. Please note that only the names and the coordinates of the BlindSquare markers will be imported into VoiceVista. Additional information for example “Alert Distance” or the accuracy a marker has been saved with cannot be imported.

It may be because you have disabled Motion & Fitness for all apps. To remedy this, launch the Settings app and find Privacy & Security, locate Motion & Fitness, turn on Fitness Tracking.

If you put your phone in your pocket and stop moving, the beacon sound will get quieter because VoiceVista can't tell which way you are facing. Solve this by starting to walk again, or pulling your phone out and holding it flat. You can set a beacon on any address. From the main VoiceVista screen, search for the address. After selecting the address in the search results, a 'Location Details' screen will be shown and it has an option to 'Start Beacon' on the address. In this way, you can set a beacon on businesses, places, points of interest, and residences that are not in Open Street Maps. You can find nearby bus stops by selecting the 'Public Transport' filter in the Nearby Places list. You can turn on and off the rhythmic sound of the beacon using the mute button on the home screen. If the beacon is muted you will still get updates about your distance to your destination every 50 metres or so. If you still want to interact with VoiceVista but don't want to hear automatic callouts you can turn callouts off by going to the 'Callouts Settings' page of the 'Settings' tab. Or, if you aren't going to be using VoiceVista you can put it in either Sleep or Snooze mode using the 'Sleep' button on the home screen. VoiceVista works best when you hold the phone flat with the screen facing the sky and the top of the phone pointing away from you. If there is a bus route you take regularly, set your pick-up and exit stops as Markers. This way they will be saved so you can find them again easily, just go to 'Markers' tab and find them in the list. You can set a beacon on them and you will get periodic updates on how close you are to your exit stop. Note: you can turn off the rhythmic sound and you will still get distance updates along the way. Tapping the screen twice with two fingers will silence any active callouts.