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See in complete darkness with touch

5 videos recommended on HN
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1 HN user recommended this demo1 month2020–2023 score 1.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN admires the maker's engineering and cites it in accessibility discussions, especially for the limits of sensory resolution versus perception.

Stuff Made Here builds a device that lets a blind person perceive their surroundings by touch, using an iPad's lidar and a mechanical tactile display driven by motors. The video walks through the build and the limits he hit.

“'Stuff Made Here' made a 12-point display using two motors.” (HN, 2023)

1 strong recommendations · 2 citations · Demos

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@sambroner Jul 2020 Strongly recommends
on HN thread I made a robot to cut my hair with scissors [video]
This guy is a legend. Awesome videos. A few of them seem productizable in a way most DIY-er videos don't, albeit in a limited run capacity. He made a iPad lidar to "braille" converter that was really impressive, and I'm hopeful someone picks up the work. [this video]
iPad lidar to braille converter that was really impressive.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@open-paren Apr 2022 Cites it
on HN thread A naked skydive inspired a way to keep pilots oriented in flight
There was a Youtuber that made a device like this with the lidar from an iPad and a 3x3 grid of dots to detect obstacles. The problem he ran into was sensory resolution vs. ability to perceive that resolution. (Unsurpisingly) your eyes are unparalleled for picking up visual resolution. [this video]
Device hit limits of sensory resolution versus ability to perceive it.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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