VIHapp: a wearable system to support blind skiing

Many people who are blind or partially blind continue to enjoy alpine sports such as skiing and snowboarding. Because of their restricted visual perception, visually impaired (VI) skiers are usually accompanied by a ski guide. We present VIHapp, a system consisting of smart ski poles, smart armbands and an instrumented ski to enable communication between VI skiers and ski guides. Guides send commands to VI skiers by pressing a button on their ski poles. VI skiers receive commands in the form of vibrations on their armbands. The smart ski detects turns performed by VI skiers and sends notifications to the guide's smart ski poles.