Usage Notes for The vOICe for Android on Smart Glasses

The vOICe for Android runs on several types of smart glasses from  Vuzix ( Vuzix App Store). It runs on Vuzix Blade and Blade 2 smart glasses and even won the Vuzix Blade augmented reality glasses contest in the Personal category ( 2020 Vuzix press release), and also runs on the newer and more powerful Vuzix Shield smart glasses as well as on the more heat-resistant Vuzix M400 Xtreme glasses.

 
Additional notes for Vuzix Shield glasses:

You can install the Jieshuo screen reader as described above, and you need to separately grant permission to The vOICe to "Display over other apps" using "adb shell pm grant vOICe.vOICe android.permission.SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW". Beyond these few steps and granting Jieshuo all the permissions that it asks for, preliminary and limited testing suggests that blind accessibility of the Vuzix Shield glasses (using the Jieshuo screen reader) is out-of-the-box much better than with the Blade 2 glasses.

The Vuzix Blade 2 glasses come with Android 11, and you can install the Jieshuo screen reader as described above.

Some quirks include that some menu items may remain unspoken, or even that that the screen reader beeps but does not speak at all via the built-in speakers, in which case you must use a separate Bluetooth audio headset to get speech (one report suggests that the built-in speakers started to give speech after this step, which would be very weird but is mentioned here for completeness). Moreover, even with the Jieshuo screen reader speaking most menu items, it may not speak all of them, in which case you need to install and use the  Vuzix Companion app on your phone as a stopgap to have silent items spoken via the screen reader on your phone. Finally, the home screen icons of the Blade 2 glasses are still unlabeled, such that a screen reader cannot speak and identify them for blind users. This makes it hard for blind users to select a launch a desired app. Hopefully Vuzix will fix this general oversight through a firmware update, as well as bundle and support the Google TalkBack screen reader, such that activation via menus under Settings | Personal | Accessibility, or if nothing else works through the ADB command "adb shell settings put secure enabled_accessibility_services com.google.android.marvin.talkback/com.google.android.marvin.talkback.TalkBackService", will then activate the TalkBack screen reader and give speech. At the time of writing, TalkBack doesn't work on the Blade 2 glasses, even after installing the  Android Accessibility Suite for 32-bit devices from the APKMirror website with "adb install -r -g com.google.android.marvin.talkback_13.1.0.501229322-60129517_minAPI26(armeabi-v7a)(nodpi)_apkmirror.com.apk" and activating TalkBack there is only an occasional split second of speech, as if TalkBack speech is always cut off. The above-described Jieshuo screen reader works well though.

Attempts to get the 32-bit version of the  Prudence screen reader to work on the Blade 2 glasses failed in similar fashion to Google TalkBack: installing its APK file using the ADB command "adb install -r -g psr_32.apk" worked, but the switch to activate the Prudence screen reader via Settings | Personal | Accessibility remained stuck at the off position. Alternative activation through the ADB command "adb shell settings put secure enabled_accessibility_services com.prudence.reader/com.prudence.reader.TalkBackService" then worked to turn on the Prudence screen reader, but it still gave no speech. So for now only the Jieshuo screen reader can be made to work and speak on the Vuzix Blade 2 smart glasses, and hopefully Vuzix and Google can figure out why and fix the various blind accessibility issues.

Many thanks go to The Yangsi Michael Dillon, Stefan Moisei, Nimer Jaber and Jacob Kruger for help with finding the above workarounds for making the Vuzix Blade 2 glasses accessible to blind users using the Jieshuo screen reader and for suggestions for use of other screen readers.

Contrary to the original Vuzix Blade glasses running Android 5.5, the newer Vuzix Blade 2 glasses running Android 11 initially showed stability issues where the glasses suddenly and completely powered off after launching The vOICe, which ought to be impossible for an app and required a 15 second long-press on the power button to get the glasses running again. However, it appears that this problem got resolved with a later Google library update.

 
Additional notes for the older Vuzix Blade (not Blade 2) glasses:

The Vuzix Blade glasses run an older version of Android, Android 5.1.1 (API level 22), and something in recent versions of the Android development tools or their associated Google libraries broke that causes The vOICe for Android to crash at launch, but you can still install and run The vOICe for Android older version 2.68 with APK file vOICeAndroid2.68.apk on the Vuzix Blade glasses.

The vOICe for Android runs on the  RayNeo X2 glasses from TCL, which has a camera in the bridge above the nose.

In preliminary testing of The vOICe for Android on RayNeo X2 glasses, a suspected firmware bug was found (CameraInfo.orientation = 0 instead of 90), causing the camera view to appear 90 degree rotated. As of The vOICe for Android version 2.69 a workaround has been included to handle this firmware bug. The RayNeo X2 glasses do not include the Google Play store.

To enable installation of APK files on the RayNeo X2 glasses, apply the ADB command "adb shell settings put global mercury_install_allowed 1". After that you should be able to install The vOICe APK file (download link given above) with "adb install -r -g vOICeAndroid.apk" and launch it from the home screen of the glasses or from the PC using the ADB command "adb shell am start -n vOICe.vOICe/.The_vOICe". Some permission dialogs automatically vanish after mere seconds, making it hard to grant permission even if sighted, notably the permission dialog for "Display over other apps" as required for automatic launch of The vOICe after reboot. This permission is not even listed by the RayNeo X2 glasses under system Settings | General | App permissions | The vOICe for Android, but can be granted using ADB with "adb shell pm grant vOICe.vOICe android.permission.SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW". The RayNeo X2 glasses come without a text-to-speech (TTS) engine, so The vOICe will initially not be self-voicing. It was found that installing the  RHVoice APK file worked (using "adb install com.github.olga_yakovleva.rhvoice.android_114000.apk", adapt APK version number as needed), but doing so is at your own risk because safety of this source is unknown. This may be OK if you treat the RayNeo X2 glasses as an insecure device for all your use cases.

Also note that access to the various options and settings of The vOICe app on RayNeo X2 glasses is currently only available if a screen reader is active and detected. Moreover, the glasses require usage of the RayNeo X2 ring for interacting with regular side-loaded Android apps, or else it refuses to launch the app or gives a split binocular view with different halves of the app screen showing to left and right eye. The ring adds the hassle of often having to reconnect to the ring to proceed, and overall degrades the user experience for stand-alone smartglasses with built-in touchpads. In addition, the ring needs to recharge at inconvenient times as it has a battery of its own. Technically there is no reason to require use of the ring with side-loaded Android apps, because the RayNeo X2 glasses already "know" that an Android app is side-loaded, or else the ring connection dialog could not pop up. The glasses just need to start up by default in the proper monocular screen mode where both eyes get the same view, without any involvement of the RayNeo X2 ring. The manufacturer seems to further discourage use of regular side-loaded Android apps through distorted display colors and lowered brightness.

The various issues and limitations are under investigation. Currently, without a screen reader, a double tap exits The vOICe, a slow forward (backward) swipe on the right leg touchpad halves (doubles) the scan rate, and a fast forward (backward) fling additionally toggles the talking color identifier (negative video mode) on and off. The touchpad on the left leg can be used to adjust audio volume through forward and backward swiping. The screen may show some artifacts resulting from mapping a monocular app view to a binocular display, such as showing some items only in one eye. This was the price to pay for not having to connect and use the RayNeo X2 ring when launching The vOICe as a dedicated X2 app in binocular screen mode.

You can install and run the Jieshuo screen reader as described above. However, there are still many blind accessibility issues with touch and swipe handling on the RayNeo X2 glasses, such that the glasses cannot be recommended to blind users for general system navigation and app use. For instance, swiping tends to generate bursts of touch events that make focus jump across many user interface items in a list of items, making it next to impossible to simply navigate to a next item. Hopefully, TCL will address the core issues through future firmware upgrades. Until then, basic use of exclusively The vOICe and no other apps, automatically launching The vOICe through autostart, works well enough on RayNeo X2 glasses. General blind accessibility looks too broken. Best results have thus far been obtained by changing the default gesture handling of Jieshuo: in Jieshuo, go to Operation settings | Gestures default settings | Default navigation gestures style, and select Default2. Then a fast quad tap (4 taps) acts as the back button for leaving dialogs and apps. Alternatively, a fast backward and forward swipe in one move does the same. In the app center, a fast forward and backward swipe in one move enters a scroll mode where you can move focus among apps with single swipes. The gestures may be a bit tricky to master. Finally, to turn the RayNeo X2 glasses off you press the power button for about 5 seconds, followed by a tap on the right touchpad to shut down (which then gives a brief confirmation sound).

Users and developers alike can report experiences and bugs encountered with the RayNeo X2 glasses on  Discord (TCL RayNeo Developer channel) and  Facebook (RayNeo X2 True AR Glasses Launch Group). Thanks go to Mikael Holmgren for his invaluable help with investigating blind accessibility options for the RayNeo X2 glasses.

The usage notes given below are for the $200-range VISION-800 smart glasses that were the first Android smart glasses that could run The vOICe for Android app, but these glasses are now obsolete and out of stock, although you could still try the  eBay search link, sorted by price + shipping, and optionally filtered for  eBay international sellers. The VISION-800 smart glasses form a stand-alone device that independently runs Android apps inside the device. They are not a peripheral for a smartphone.

The goal of the usage notes is to minimize the need for sighted assistance. The VISION-800 smart glasses come with the Google TalkBack screen reader (part of the Android Accessibility Suite), Google text-to-speech and Google Play pre-installed. If you are blind then you probably need only one-time sighted assistance to activate the Google TalkBack screen reader, and should be able to do everything else independently. The self-contained glasses include two mono earbuds, one for each leg, that together give stereo.

• When your VISION-800 glasses first arrive, the camera lens on the front left side is likely still covered by a protective plastic film that should be carefully peeled off using your finger nail, or else you may later on get a somewhat blurry and hazy poor quality view once the plastic film starts degrading. Note that the thin protective film does not block your view and is not or barely visible even to the sighted, such that it may easily go unnoticed.

• The VISION-800 smart glasses run Android 4.4.2, and with this older version of Android there is no known way that a blind person can independently activate Google TalkBack. Therefore ask a sighted friend or relative to activate Google TalkBack for you in Settings | Accessibility. An external keyboard is needed to arrow down and press the OK button in the TalkBack activation dialog. The use of an external keyboard is further outlined in the next point.

• Connect a wired USB keyboard to the regular USB connector on the glasses, such that you will be able to navigate Android on the glasses without first having to pair a Bluetooth keyboard and face further accessibility issues in reading the pairing authorization code. Alternatively, you can use a wireless 2.4GHz (mini-)keyboard such as one of the Rii keyboards from  Riitek with the USB dongle inserted in the glasses. Note that you must disconnect the power cable in case you were charging the glasses, or else an external USB keyboard (or mouse) will not work. Moving among options and buttons is generally done with the arrow keys and activation is done with the Enter key, but sometimes only the left-right arrow keys seem to work and sometimes only the up-down arrow keys work, for no apparent reason: just try what works.

• If applicable, change the TalkBack keyboard shortcut settings from "Classic keymap" to "Default keymap", such that you have more shortcuts for navigating web pages, and specifically Google Play. Note that later versions of Google TalkBack may not have the option described here.

• Connect to your Wifi network using the password of your Wifi network.

• Log into your Google account ("Add account", which will usually mean your existing account). This may involve logging in a second time via a web page and providing a 6-digit authentication code obtained from the Google  Authenticator app on your smartphone. In many cases it is even easier than that, and the Authenticator app will only ask "Is it you trying to sign in?", and you press the "Yes" button to confirm. After that you can proceed on the glasses.

  Google Play

  Once connected to Google Play, the automatic update process will start for pre-installed apps, which may help fix regular pop-up error messages that you may have encountered up to this point e.g. with the Google or Google Play app. The automatic update process can take half an hour or so, depending on connection speed.

• Open the Google Play app, and use the Shift Alt arrow key combinations to bring focus to the search edit box in Google Play. Specifically, when on the App & games tab, press Shift Alt down arrow, Shift Alt left arrow, Shift Alt Enter to bring focus to and activate the search box, type "seeingwithsound" written as one word without spaces, and press Enter to find  The vOICe for Android app. From here on you only need the arrow keys and enter key to select and install The vOICe.

  By default The vOICe will launch automatically after a reboot (except when a screen reader is running) for blind accessibility out-of-the-box, but you can readily change this default behavior in The vOICe's own Options menu, via the entry Other settings. There you can also toggle the built-in cataract simulator on and off, a feature that is meant to let normally sighted users experience blindness in combination with The vOICe sensory substitution, whereas blind or low vision users may prefer the more detailed high contrast view that closely matches the soundscape content.

  APK file

  Beware: the last version of The vOICe for Android supported by the VISION-800 glasses is 2.72b with APK file vOICeAndroid2.72b.apk, because the Android development tools stopped supporting Android 4.4 (API level 19) as used by the VISION-800 glasses. So installing The vOICe for Android on VISION-800 can no longer be done via Google Play nor using vOICeAndroid.apk but must be done with this last compatible APK file.

• Storage space on the VISION-800 glasses is limited, so you may wish to uninstall Chinese apps that come pre-installed on the device. With TalkBack you can typically identify these as apps that seem to have no name, only a size, because Chinese app names are not spoken by the English text-to-speech engine.

• When fully charged, the built-in 720 mAh 3.7V battery of the VISION-800 glasses lets you run The vOICe for over an hour. However, if you connect an external, say, 15000 mAh battery pack (power bank) then you can run The vOICe all day on a single charge. Start with the internal battery fully charged and it will remain at 100% until the external battery begins to yield.

  Congenitally blind user of The vOICe wearing VISION-800 smart glasses

• On the top side of the left leg of the glasses is a 3-way switch. This switch acts as a forward and backward navigation button when pushed forward or pulled backward, and as a mouse click or enter key when briefly pressed. A backward pull also doubles as the Android Back button, and a long backward pull will finally exit The vOICe if it was running. Now while The vOICe is running, forward (push) and backward (pull) moves let you navigate between software buttons for giving voice commands (when pressed) and for entering the Options menu (when pressed). When applying a quick "double-pull" or "double-push" (analogous to a double-tap or double-click), the soundscape scan time will halve or double along with the above navigation action, but you can subsequently compensate for the unintended navigation action by moving the 3-way switch in the opposite direction. This double action "interference" between scan rate selection and navigation serves to make best use of the very limited button set of the VISION-800 glasses. You will soon get used to it. For access to more specialized features you can always use an external keyboard.

• The power button of the VISION-800 glasses is located underneath the glasses body just to the left of your nose, and next to the SD card slot. The power button is really tiny and does not protrude much, such that initially you may have a hard time locating it even when scanning the surface with your finger nail.

• The head strap that comes with the VISION-800 glasses can help reduce the weight of the glasses on your nose (although the glasses weigh only 100 gram), or be used to hang the glasses around your neck when not in use. You can pull out the rear sections of the legs of the glasses by pressing the buttons that are located midway underneath the legs, and then plug in the strap connectors. Note that the orientation of these connectors matters: each connector has two protruding little pins with tiny "hooks", and those hooks should be pointing away from the detachment button, i.e., upward with respect to the glasses. Then the connector will snap in place with a sharp click that you do not get when inserting the connector with the wrong orientation.

• The VISION-800 glasses assume to be one-size-fits-all, but if you have a small head, or if The vOICe is used with young children, you may have to be a little creative with foam spacers to make the glasses fit well. The same applies to many other smart glasses.

• The VISION-800 glasses are not designed to be fashionable, and they do not even look like ordinary glasses with lenses. They are like a thick bar in front of your eyes. As tastes vary, the "glasses" may give you a nerdy look that may or may not bother you in public places, or the glasses may actually make you look cool.

• The VISION-800 glasses do not support GPS, compass or accelerometer for location and orientation, and they do not contain a flashlight.

• During periods that other apps are updating in the background, The vOICe may be skipping soundscapes or otherwise show poor performance due to the extra CPU load of other processes. This should not be a problem when you are outside Wifi range, when Wifi is disabled, or when apps are done updating.

• If The vOICe's talking OCR feature does not work despite being enabled under Options | Other settings, try connecting the VISION-800 glasses to the Internet via Wifi, such that possibly outdated or missing Android libraries from Google, including Google Play Services, can be automatically updated in the background by the Android system. This might take up to a few hours. In case this still does not suffice then you may need to uninstall any apps that you do not really need in order to free up internal memory for those additional Android libraries from Google. Next, uninstall and reinstall The vOICe to reactivate any download triggers for Google's Android libraries. Note that these background downloads are not initiated by or under control of The vOICe app, but under control of the Android system.

• The VISION-800 glasses do not have a super-fast CPU, and especially at double speed scanning this can give small but noticeable hiccups between soundscapes. For smoothest results with soundscapes you can disable face detection, text recognition and barcode recognition under Options | Other settings. Face detection is already by default off on smart glasses, but text recognition and barcode recognition are by default on, despite the added CPU load, in a trade-off between functionality and overall performance.

• Text recognition by OCR will occasionally give false positive detection of text that is not really there, because shapes and textures in complex environmental images sometimes resemble print characters. If you wish you can disable OCR under Options | Other settings. Face detection may similarly sometimes report a face where there is none, and you can disable face detection in the same Other settings menu.

• The VISION-800 glasses give significant motion blur under low light conditions, due to longer exposure times and limited light sensitivity of the camera. It helps if you keep your head steady and move slowly. However, even when moving fast you can minimize motion blur by active tracking of visual items in your view: you slowly turn your head as needed to keep an item or pattern at a more or less fixed position in the camera view, and once that item is getting behind you you quickly turn your head back to another item that is more in front of you. You keep alternating these "head saccades" with the gradual and smooth visual tracking.

• With large changes in ambient light level it takes the camera driver a few frames to adjust its light amplification. This causes an apparent lag of a few seconds, but it is unrelated to The vOICe: it is a camera property. It is similar to the adjustment of a few seconds that sighted people need when walking from a sunny place into a dark room.

• Although the built-in battery should last over an hour on a single charge (at least when the glasses are relatively new), this can be less if you do not regularly fully discharge the battery, or if you keep charging the battery for too long (long-term over-charging). This is often referred to under the general term  memory effect. The best you can do in this case to regain lost battery capacity is to perform one or more deep charge/discharge cycles and avoid long-term trickle-charging of the glasses.

• The camera of the VISION-800 glasses is on the front side of the left leg. A position at the center would feel more natural, i.e. between the eyes or right above the nose. The slight offset to the left of the center can initially cause a bias in reaching and grasping. However, your brain should adapt to the offset after a few days. Moreover, it only affects accurate camera-hand coordination at close range. At distances beyond a few meters the offset is negligible and imperceptible (e.g. at a distance of 10 meters it gives a directional error of only 0.2 degrees).

• The VISION-800 glasses are rather fragile, so they must be treated with care to ensure a decent device lifetime. Sometimes, when pulling out a USB connector from the leg of the glasses, part of the electronics unit may also get pulled loose along with that USB plug. When carefully maneuvering and pushing the electronics back in place without breaking any of the internal wiring, all should be fine without damage or loss of function. Another weak spot is the nose piece. Although the rubber material is soft and flexible, it is held up by a thin hard plastic pin inside which easily breaks if the glasses are pushed down on the nose. So be careful not to do that. Once one of the two pins breaks, you will have to improvise a replacement soft part using for instance a piece of foam or cotton.

• Occasionally a full screen ad may pop up, e.g. when launching The vOICe. These ads are unrelated to The vOICe and block normal operation of The vOICe when they occur. You can readily exit the ads via a Back button press (backward pull of the 3-way switch). The origin of the ads appears be an app named "Shell" that is among VISION-800's pre-installed regular apps. You can uninstall "Shell" via device Settings | Apps | Shell. There will still remain a system component named "Shell" under the "All" tab that cannot (and probably should not even if it could) be uninstalled, but the full screen ads should no longer show up.

• The VISION-800 glasses run an old version of Android that no longer receives security patches. However, with Google 2-factor authentication, a router firewall for Wifi, and not browsing the web or reading e-mail with the glasses, the security risk is probably extremely small and limited in scope. However, absolute guarantees can never be given.

• Wired and wireless external keyboards stop functioning while charging the glasses, including when charging them from an external battery for prolonged usage. This can be a reason to use a Bluetooth keyboard such as the Rii RT-MWK02+ Bluetooth mini keyboard. Keep in mind that although you can first use a USB keyboard up to the point of pairing the Bluetooth keyboard, the 6-digit PIN number must be entered on the Bluetooth keyboard and not on the USB keyboard, or else you get an error message like (for the Rii RT-MWK02+) "Couldn't pair with Bluetooth 3.0 Macro Keyboard because of an incorrect PIN or passkey". However, TalkBack cannot speak the keystrokes on the Bluetooth keyboard before it is paired, so you either have to type the PIN "blind", or get one-time sighted assistance with pairing.

  

• The included pair of mono earbuds with 2.5 mm mono audio connectors block the ears for environmental sounds and echolocation, and are not easily replaced by other more suitable wired stereo headsets (which usually have 3.5 mm stereo audio connectors). This may limit use of the smart glasses to a familiar and safe home environment, which is strongly advisable anyway while mastering The vOICe. However, the VISION-800 glasses support Bluetooth, so it is possible to pair them with Bluetooth bone conduction stereo headphones such as the Shokz Bluez and thereby avoid blocking of environmental sounds by earbuds. If you want both your smartphone and the VISION-800 smart glasses to sound through the same headset, you may consider so-called multipoint Bluetooth headsets that can pair with more than one device at the same time (e.g. Aftershokz Trekz Air). This has not yet been tested though.

  In order to pair Shokz Bluetooth bone conduction headphones without sighted assistance, apply the following steps:

  1. Disconnect the VISION-800 glasses from any charger, and connect a keyboard.
  2. On the glasses go to Settings, and enable Bluetooth.
  3. On the headphones press and hold the power button for 5 seconds to enter pairing mode (discovery mode).
  4. On the glasses you should find the headphones listed in the Bluetooth dialog. Hit Alt+Shift+Enter on the name of your headphones.
  5. Follow the prompts. In case you are asked for a code, it is "0000".

  If the pairing does not work the first time, you can reset the headphones via the following steps:

  1. Start with the headphones turned off and cleared from your glasses' Bluetooth settings.
  2. Press the volume plus button for 5-7 seconds. This is also your power on/off button.
  3. Press both volume keys while you hold the multifunction function button down, so you hold 3 keys down at the same time, for 3-5 seconds. You'll hear beeps and/or feel vibrations.
  4. Turn the headphones off.
  5. Turn the headphones on again.

  Your headphones are now reset and can be re-paired to your glasses. If it still did not work then reboot your glasses.

• If the VISION-800 glasses start to spontaneously and repeatedly reboot, this need not mean that the glasses are broken. Chances are that its battery charge detector is confused about the battery state, for instance after many days of continuous trickle charging. The remedy is then to let the device run for as long as possible (including the spontaneous rebooting) in order to fully discharge its built-in battery. If the device appears turned off, turn it on a number of times to further discharge the battery. This procedure should reset the battery charge detector, after which the device may start working normally again after recharging the fully discharged battery.

  The VISION-800 glasses have a tiny reset hole on the inner side of the glasses, between the left hinge and the left eye piece. The reset button can be pressed by gently pushing a needle in the reset hole, which will turn off the device in case it was stuck in some way. However, it is not known if this helps with any of the problems discussed on this page.

• [Older versions of TalkBack only? The following problem has not been observed on more recent setups.] It seems that the 3D display mode toggled by a long-press on the 3-way switch on the left leg of the VISION-800 glasses generates an infinite series of screen mode change events that gets spoken by TalkBack as an alternating "portrait", "landscape", "portrait", "landscape", "portrait", "landscape", and so on and so forth. The events also seem to pile up faster than TalkBack can speak them, and only a reboot of the glasses gets rid of the stack of events. TalkBack speaking these repeating screen mode switches may even be a reason to disable TalkBack and rely on The vOICe launching automatically after a reboot. Most options within The vOICe can be reached and changed without TalkBack because The vOICe is self-voicing.

Copyright © 1996 - 2026 Peter B.L. Meijer