Customer is not your average dog. This four-legged friend from Houston lost his sight to advanced glaucoma, but his story inspired one of the most heartwarming innovations in assistive technology. His owners, Grant Belton e AJ Price, they turned to engineers at Rice University with a simple request: help our dog get back to life. The answer came in the form of a haptic vest that will change the lives of blind dogs around the world by turning vibrations into safe directions.
A new approach to the problem of canine blindness
Traditional devices for blind dogs are often bulky and uncomfortable. The popular rigid “halos” and Elizabethan cones, while offering some protection, severely limit the animals’ ability to socialize and play freely. “Existing devices tend to be bulky or uncomfortable, and rely on the dog bumping into things for tactile feedback, which is not ideal,” explains Adam Vuong, one of the students involved in the project.
The team Customer's Friends, composed by Vuong himself and Christian DeSousa, Issy Tsai e Santiago Brent, decided to revolutionize this approach. Their vest uses a completely different technology: instead of waiting for the animal to hit obstacles, it detects them in advance and guides the dog through specific vibrations.
How Future Blind Dog Technology Works
The heart of the system consists of stereoscopic cameras mounted near the dog's head, which capture real-time depth information. This data is processed by a custom computer module and transmitted to haptic motors built into the vest.
“It's like giving Kunde a second pair of eyes: the cameras create a depth map,” he explains Issy Tsai, an electrical engineering student who designed the motor control circuit. “The closer an obstacle is, the stronger the vibration on that side of the vest.”
The device can detect obstacles up to 8 meters away and guarantees an autonomy of about two hours on a single charge. The vibrations are distributed strategically on the vest: different intensities and positions communicate to the dog the safe direction to follow.
Engineering challenges overcome with creativity
Development has not been without obstaclesThe team faced numerous technical challenges, from creating flexible yet protective casings for the electronics to distributing the weight so as not to impede the animal's natural movements.
“We had to figure out how to integrate electronics into a wearable vest that was breathable, soft and durable enough for a dog that loves to play,” he says. Christian DeSousa.
The interdisciplinary nature of the team proved crucial: while Santiago Brent worked on stereo imaging and data processing development, Vuong and De Sousa worked on systems integration and physical design.
A promising future for blind dogs
Parallel research conducted at Ben-Gurion University has already shown that dogs respond to haptic feedback “as well or even better than vocal commands,” as highlighted by Professor Amir Shapiro. This confirms the potential of haptic technology in human-animal communication.
The device is still being tested with Kunde, but the preliminary results are encouraging. The goal is to achieve a significant reduction in collisions, giving blind dogs back the freedom of movement they had lost.
Come we have already underlined, assistive technology is making great strides. While there are already innovative solutions for humans such as smart glasses, now our four-legged friends can also benefit from these advances.
Beyond Kunde: A Scalable Model for All Blind Dogs
The project represents much more than a one-man solution. Using open-source machine learning and low-cost electronics, the team created a scalable model that could be applied to humans, paving the way for future applications in rehabilitation and therapeutic devices.
Kunde's story teaches us that innovation often comes from love and the determination to never give up. In a world where technology can seem cold and distant, this haptic jacket reminds us that the most beautiful progress is that which comes from the heart.
