Published October 10, 2026
What Is Be My Eyes? The Free App Connecting Blind People With Sighted Volunteers
Be My Eyes is a free app that connects blind and low-vision people with sighted volunteers through live video calls — plus an AI assistant that describes photos. Here's the full story.
Be My Eyes is a free mobile app that gives blind and low-vision people visual help on demand. It connects them with sighted volunteers around the world through live video calls — or, since 2023, with an AI assistant called Be My AI that describes photos in seconds.
The simple idea behind it
The founder, Hans Jørgen Wiberg from Denmark, started losing his own vision at 25. He noticed that video-calling apps existed, but none were designed for someone who can't see the screen. So he built one: the blind person points their phone camera at whatever they need help with, and a volunteer describes what they see.
The app launched on iPhone in 2015, came to Android in 2017, and has grown into one of the largest volunteer communities in the world — millions of sighted volunteers and hundreds of thousands of blind and low-vision users, across more than 150 countries and 185 languages.
Three ways to get help
Today's app actually has three tools inside it. Volunteer calls are the original: live one-way video (the volunteer sees your camera feed) with two-way audio, so you can talk back and forth. Be My AI is the newer option — send it a photo and get a detailed description plus follow-up answers, no human needed. Specialized Help connects you to real company representatives for product-specific support, like troubleshooting a device.
If you want the step-by-step of a volunteer call, read how Be My Eyes works. Curious about the AI side? Our Be My AI guide covers that.
What do people use it for?
Everyday things most of us do without thinking: reading the expiry date on food, telling two similar shirts apart, reading a handwritten note, checking a thermostat display, finding the right bus, setting up a new gadget. Calls are usually just a few minutes long — and they're unlimited and free.
Is it really free?
Completely. No subscriptions, no call limits, no premium tier. The company funds the service through business partnerships, so neither blind users nor volunteers ever pay. That's been the model from the start, and it's part of why the community trusts it.