Hi! She’s back! Lin said some of you have been interested in trying Be My Eyes but were having trouble. Guess what. I had trouble too!
Downloading the app and registering were not bad at all. For me. Remember I still have a lot of usable vision and I have some experience with technology. If your vision is very limited and/or if you are technologically challenged, get help. It will only take them about five minutes.
Anyway, I registered and got the email confirmation. However, the link in the email did not work. Spinney, spinney, spin but no go. I finally just went back to the app I had downloaded on my iPad. It worked!
My call only rang for about less than a minute. It was answered by a very nice gentleman named Ron. Ron was able to tell me the expiration date on my ricotta cheese, and he said nothing about views of my kitchen which really needed to be cleaned up. Ron is a good guy.
Ron also had no problems with submitting to a quick interview. It turns out my first call was also his first. He had signed up a little over a month ago. He said calls sound a tone on a number of phones and we, the users, get whomever can answer first. Ron had had a few other possible calls but he was driving and wisely did not answer.
Ron is in the States. Be My Eyes seems to match calls to volunteers in the same regions. I did not ask where he was specifically, but his accent was not far off from my own.
Ron volunteered because of his grandmother. She had Macular Degeneration as well. He also works for an eye doctor (sorry, I forget which kind) and he has seen a lot of people with serious vision issues.
All told, it was a very positive experience from this end. I was very pleased with how things went. The only glitch, as I mentioned, was getting from the email back to the app itself.
If you are able, you might want to read the piece that is included with the app. It seems this “microvolunteering” project is the brainchild of a man in Denmark, Hans Jorgen Wilber who needed a way to limit his dependence upon friends and family. He felt like a burden, constantly asking for help (or at least “constantly” in his mind). Although they first thought it would be difficult to get sighted volunteers, that did not prove to be the case. There are almost a million volunteers! They speak more than 180 languages and can be found in more than 150 countries. In other words, the chances are pretty good, wherever you are, they will be able to find a “Ron” just for you. Cool.
So, there you go. If you cannot go from the email to the app after you register, just go back to the app. No biggie. It worked just fine from there for me.
Thanks, Ron!
Written November 29th, 2018