Let me start at the beginning: why am I actually doing this?
Not just for others. For myself and the people around me. I have impairments in my own family and circle of friends — some visible, some not. Look closely and you notice how much of daily life is harder than it needs to be. Not for lack of willingness. Because the tools that are actually built for these specific situations don’t exist yet.
At the same time, I see every day what AI can already do. Object recognition, speech recognition, live captioning, real-time sensor analysis — things that were expensive specialist solutions three years ago now run on an ordinary smartphone. Free, offline, with no cloud company reading along.
These two observations together led to 15/15.
What 15/15 is
Several apps, some sharing a common technical core, each built for a different situation:
- Sehen (Vision) — for blind and visually impaired people
- Hören (Hearing) — for deaf people
- Verstehen (Cognition) — for people dealing with sensory overload, stress, cognitive load
- Mobilität (Mobility) — for people with motor impairments, e.g. wheelchair users
- Senioren (Seniors) — targeted against scams, with a check-in feature for family
- Sprechen (Speech) — a starting point for children’s speech development
- Wachhund (Watchdog) — a scam-check for photos and text, useful for anyone who feels unsure
- Begleiter (Companion) — a voice companion with a choosable persona, currently the only one of these already live
Five of the apps (Vision, Hearing, Cognition, Mobility, Seniors) share a technical base: on-device wherever possible — no image or audio has to leave the device —, an SOS button that’s always reachable, announcements that can be turned off when you don’t need them. Speech, Watchdog and Companion are standalone projects that grew out of the same core idea.
Where we stand
Honestly: at different stages. Vision is fully in alpha and verified on two test devices. Speech has already gone through two full test panel runs with 30 simulated user profiles. Mobility is the thinnest app right now, in early alpha. Companion is already live. Watchdog is done but currently only reachable locally. Nothing here is dressed up — what’s finished is finished. What’s open stays marked as open.
The vision behind it
Where this is all heading: navigating the world more safely and with fewer barriers, with a phone today and eventually smart glasses. Real, independent participation — and more enjoyment of everyday life, not just problem-solving. The apps today are the first step toward that, not the destination.
The next articles go through each app individually — who it’s built for, what already works, what’s on the way.
Why I’m telling you this
Because 15/15 isn’t a corporate project. It’s self-funded, driven by my own motivation, inspired by people I know — and by myself. No investor behind it, no twenty-person team. Just the conviction that it’s worth it.
And that’s exactly why I need help. More on that in the last article of this series — but here’s a preview: if you’re affected yourself, know someone who is, or work in AI and want to think this through with us — this is only the beginning.