[Athen] Opinion: is Aira killing or improving independence

[Deborah Armstrong]

I've noticed that many colleges are now supplementing help for blind students using Aira. Aira is a service that enables one to use either their phone's camera or special glasses to show a sighted agent what they are having difficulty with and the agent assists. The agent can help the user navigate, read signs, understand study materials such as charts and graphs, and do anything else that "requires" sight.

Aira is also popular with newly-blinded folk, because it's an easy way to get instant help.

Their website is here

https://aira.io/

And a  an edited description of the new plans is here:
"AIRA Killing Unlimited Plan, Raising Prices for Others, Adding $29 Intro Plan"
Reported by  Blind Bargains
                https://www.blindbargains.com/bargains.php?m=19611

Copying from that page's pricing info:

New Plans
* Intro: 30 minutes for $29 a month. 97 cents per minute.
* Standard: 120 minutes for $99 a month. 83 cents per minute.
* Advanced: 300 minutes for $199 a month. 66 cents per minute.
* Premium (not advertised on website): 700 minutes for $329 a month. 47 cents per minute.

Former Legacy Plans
* Basic: 100 minutes for $89 a month. 89 cents per minute.
* Plus: 200 minutes for $129 a month. 65 cents per minute.
* Pro: 400 minutes for $199 a month. 50 cents per minute.
* Unlimited: unlimited minutes for $329 a month. 47 cents per minute.

Other Notes
* Additional minutes can be purchased for $50 for 50 minutes, or a dollar per minute, which is higher than the cost of minutes on any of the current plans.
* All plans except Intro can be shared with up to 2 other users.
* Those wishing to use the Horizon glasses also will need to pay an additional $25 a month for 24 months or $600 one-time. Horizon is also not available
on the Intro plan.
* The plan for NFB members also remains, which is 140 minutes for $99 a month, so essentially 20 additional minutes.

What bothers me about Aira is that it's tempting to use it to simply save time, which works great if you already know how to do something on your own. If you need to make sure you put tuna in the sandwich and not cat food, or you need to understand the anatomy textbook to prepare for an exam, Aira can be a lifesaver. I have friends who know how to use their phone to identify packages, and they know how to ask for directions to navigate an unfamiliar area. But they use Aira because it's more convenient than struggling. It's nice to have an Aira agent tell you if your colors match or you really are at the right restaurant.

However, what happens when using Aira becomes a substitute for learning to do things on your own?  Nobody's talking about this, but just as notetakers are often used when a student would do better with notetaking technologies like Sonocent, my concern is that Aira will become the easy but pricey fix. Technology does this too - the modern taxi driver seems unable to cope when his GPS goes down. So maybe I'm just a luddite. Still, when I FaceTime my girlfriend in Walmart to check the color of a garment before purchasing it, I'm glad I don't need Aira to function.

--Debee



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