Technology has the power to drastically improve the quality of life for individuals who are blind or visually impaired. Smart glasses have emerged as a revolutionary tool that can provide independence, enhance mobility, and increase the overall well-being of these individuals. Unfortunately, despite the clear benefits and advancements in this technology, smart glasses are not currently recognised as an approved assistive technology for National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participants in Australia, and participants are faced with significant barriers to access this assistive technology.

Please sign this petition to advocate for the inclusion of smart glasses as a recognised assistive technology for blind and visually impaired NDIS participants. Empower them to live life with dignity and independence.

By signing this petition, you are becoming a signatory to the letter below that will be sent to the Minister for Disability and the NDIS, the Hon Mark Butler MP.

Dear Mr Butler,

RE: Petition to include Smart Glasses as an approved Assistive Technology within the NDIS

We write to you as a group of blind and visually impaired persons to bring to your attention a matter of great importance to us. We have also enclosed further signatories from members of the Australian community who also support our initiative.

Life as a blind or visually impaired person is challenging. To say this disability significantly affects all areas of a person’s life would be an understatement. Despite the challenges, we still strive to live our lives as fully and independently as we can - and thankfully advances in assistive technology and supports like the NDIS are helping us to achieve our goals.

Nevertheless, as you would be aware, sometimes the policies of the NDIS or how they are implemented can lead to undesirable outcomes.

In the last 12 months or so, Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled 'smart glasses' have been rapidly maturing and coming onto the general consumer market. These are electronic devices that have a camera, microphones and speakers within a glasses frame that connects to smart phones. Smart glasses work by using AI to visually interpret the environment and converting into auditory descriptions. This provides blind users with real-time information about their surroundings and enables them to perform daily tasks with greater ease and independence, such as reading a letter or menu and describing or finding objects. This is a transformational technology for the blind and visually impaired community that continues to rapidly develop. With more competing products slated for release in the next 12-24 months, and the rapid progress of AI, smart glasses are destined to become a virtual, personalised and always available support worker for blind and visually impaired persons. This technology, to many, is as significant as the walking cane or the guide dog.

Stunningly, a pair of the latest mainstream smart glasses (Meta Raybans) cost less than $500, due to the economies of scale of being a general consumer device.  

Unfortunately, many NDIS participants face significant barriers to obtain this low cost, low risk assistive technology. There is a general trend for the Plan Managers to deny the request, citing NDIA directions that this falls under the category of a general electronic product, similar to smart phones and tablets, which cannot be funded by NDIS plans. On other occasions, participants have been asked to provide assessments and recommendations by allied health professionals. This has been a significant point of frustration and is leading to perverse and cost ineffective outcomes.

Due to these barriers, many participants simply “give up” or seek an alternative path of lesser resistance. For example, participants may pursue similar but specialised accessibility products that are less likely to be rejected. These products are made by more niche accessibility companies and can cost five to 10 times more, with less functionality. Others find an Occupational Therapist to conduct an assessment and write a report to justify the purchase. At the current rate of approximately $200 per hour, this can again cost two or three times more than the actual smart glasses. 

In some cases, some participants just seek to use additional support worker hours, which again after a few times easily accumulate to a sum greater than the cost of the smart glasses.

Not only are these poor outcomes for the participants, but also incongruent with the Government’s goals to ease the budgetary pressures from the NDIS, given alternative “approved” solutions cost more. We want to be part of the continuous improvement journey that the NDIS is on.

To resolve this matter, we respectfully ask you to consider a specific inclusion of smart glasses and other like wearables on the allowable supports list for blind and visually impaired participants, or other policy changes to achieve the same effect. The goal of this change is to remove unnecessary barriers, justification costs and inconsistent interpretations of NDIS policy by Plan Managers to what is evidently a key assistive technology for our community.

It is estimated by Vision Australia that there are over 450,000 Australians who are blind or visually  impaired. We want to go out, parent our children, live life and contribute to society. This low cost technology will help us to achieve our goals, and we urge you to take immediate action on this matter of great importance. Please help to empower us to live life with dignity and independence.

We are more than happy to demonstrate this technology, discuss policy implementation or otherwise explore this further with you. Our point of contact in this matter  is XXXX, who can be reached on XXX.

We look forward to hearing from you. 

Yours Sincerely,