DotLumen founder Cornel Amari describes his product as an “unmanned” system that allows blind and visually impaired people to move around. Essentially, it is the electronic equivalent of a guide dog, helping users avoid obstacles while walking. Romanian company appeared at CES 2025 in Las Vegas armed with prototypes of her headset, which she hopes will make life much easier for blind people.
The headset looks like a massive virtual reality device: the front unit is located on the forehead, directly above the eyes. On the back is a massive power and processing unit that keeps the bulky device's weight balanced while you walk. Up front are six computer vision cameras—three for near-field and three for far—which Amaria says were inspired by Tesla's setup.
The main priority here is collision avoidance: you can't collide with other pedestrians or street obstacles. In front of the headset are a series of small handles that touch your forehead, each tied to a vibration motor. When the vibrations are in the center of your forehead, you can safely move forward, but when the vibrations are moving in both directions, you should turn to refocus.
There's also a voice prompt that will let you know when the view in front of you becomes crowded. Amaria told me that the headset's battery life is about 2.5 hours, which is more than enough for a normal walk. But if you need a little extra juice, you can plug in a USB-C battery and carry it with you.
Testing the headset in the less-than-ideal environment of CES was a great way to see how serious the company is. After all, the ceilings are low, the passages are narrow, and there are always hundreds of people coming towards you, expecting you to give way to them. That's why I wore a blindfold and strapped the prototype to my head to wander around Eureka Park.
Obviously, it is quite difficult to describe the sensation of navigating in space using only light taps on the forehead. I was of course very hesitant, taking baby steps and slowly moving forward, letting the headset guide me on my journey. As the crowd passed me in a tight formation, the audio guide of the equipment said “narrow,” telling me that there was not enough space around me.
What impressed me was that I was able to get through the fight without running into anyone and managed to get through the gym fairly. Naturally, I can't speak to the long-term effectiveness of the headset, especially as a sighted person, but the technology can certainly be very useful.
Amaria said DotLumen will begin selling its headset in Europe in the near future at an expected price of less than 10,000 euros. As cool as that sounds, he added that the cost of training a guide dog is significantly higher. IN USA, Guide Dog Foundation says it costs $50,000 to breed, raise, train and house an assistance dog.