A white cane for blind people with a small motor inside. Instead of just warning about obstacles, it gently pulls the user toward the safest open path, the way a guide dog would, and it costs about 20 times less than products in stores.

1.7 million Americans are legally blind. While canes tell you something is there, they don't tell you where to go. Smart canes actively steer you around obstacles, but they’re prohibitively expensive and inaccessible. We wanted to create a cheaper, intelligent alternative. Shepherd is a motorized smart cane that uses iPhone LiDAR and computer vision to detect obstacles and physically guide the user away from them in real time, and is also able to navigate users using GPS with an interactive voice interface. A small motor on the cane applies lateral force, nudging the cane left or right, so the user feels which direction is clear without needing audio cues or screen interaction.