Talking Lights

Talking Lights is a commercial location-signalling system that modulates ordinary fluorescent light fixtures to transmit an inaudible digital signal, which a hand-held receiver carried by a blind user decodes into spoken information about the current location (for example, a room number, a corridor name, or directions to a nearby destination). Because the signal reuses existing overhead lighting infrastructure, installations can cover large indoor spaces without additional wiring. Talking Lights is conceptually related to the infrared-based Talking Signs system, but uses visible light rather than infrared transmitters. Both approaches require the user to carry a specialised receiver — a long-standing criticism of such beacon systems, since the receiver can itself become an object of stigma and can be forgotten or lost.