Clarke Reynolds has been going blind since his 30s. He was told at a hospital appointment to hand over his driver’s license on the spot, and that was how he found out. Today his vision is roughly 5 percent, enough to see shapes and shadows, and he just ran 26.2 miles through city streets. Reynolds, a 45-year-old artist from Portsmouth known online as Mr. Dot, lined up at the Brighton Marathon wearing Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses connected to the Be My Eyes app, becoming the first blind person in history to run a full marathon guided entirely by remote sighted volunteers. Hundreds of people from around the world took turns watching the course through his glasses in real time, seeing exactly what he saw and talking him through every turn, obstacle and parked car. His first training volunteer was a woman in Virginia. Others included a Scottish woman on holiday in Thailand and a retired naval officer in Canada.
Reynolds previously ran the London Marathon with a physical guide tethered to his side, but found the arrangement difficult because it relied on matching another person’s stride through months of training. The smart glasses opened new territory. Volunteers rotate in and out every 10 to 15 minutes, and Reynolds said the sessions almost always become real conversations before the miles pass. He ran for the Fight for Sight charity, which funds research into sight loss. He described the technology as liberating, and said his purpose with the challenge was never to be seen as extraordinary. He wanted to show what a workaround looks like, to say that he loves who he is, and to prove to the next generation of visually impaired children that there is a world ready to welcome them.
Source: https://people.com/blind-runner-to-use-smart-glasses-during-marathon-in-world-first-11941347
