Inside the .lumen Roadshow in Romania: 27 Cities, 400+ demonstrations

Some journeys are measured in kilometers. Others are measured in people.

Over the past five weeks, the first half of the .lumen national testing roadshow across Romania has taken us through 27 cities and more than 400 live demonstrations. We met children, young adults, working-age adults, and seniors, people between 8 and 91 years old, each with their own pace, their own reservations, their own humor, and their own relationship with the idea of independence.

On paper, these are numbers. In reality, they are lives.

We began this journey to show people the technology behind the .lumen Glasses. But after the first few days, it became clear that the real subject was larger than technology.

Because when you talk about mobility, you are also talking about courage. About the fatigue of having to constantly scan for curbs, poles, holes in the pavement, parked scooters, uneven ground, or sudden obstacles. About how much energy continuous vigilance requires. And about how often independence ends up being negotiated, postponed, or reduced.

Across Romania, people came to test in very different states of mind. Some were curious. Some emotional. Some immediately open. Others skeptical, and rightly so. When the topic is safety, movement, and a device that claims it can guide you, nobody should be asked to believe blindly.

That may be one of the clearest lessons of this first half of the roadshow: the .lumen Roadshow is not about asking people to take our word for it. It is about giving them the space to form a real opinion.

They experience the product. They understand how it works. They feel the vibrations. They walk with it. They ask questions. They discover what they like, what they do not, where they see promise, and where they feel hesitation. Only after that do they decide: yes, no, or maybe later.

This is what we witnessed again and again. People who came to test what is real for themselves. And people who gave us the kind of feedback we value most: direct, honest, and unfiltered.

Some spoke about freedom.

“I felt very free,” Gabriela Badea, 22, from Constanța, told us.

“I felt in control of myself… for the first time in 9 years, I walked on my own like this, without depending on anyone,” said Leonid Puha from Suceava.

Andrei George described the experience in a way we will not soon forget: “It felt like I had a kind of pair of eyes, much more than two, all around my head.”

Others described it with wonder, or humor.

“It vibrates on your forehead like a fly landing there. And instead of brushing it away, you realize you need to go left or right,” Daniel Tănasă from Bucharest told us.

But not everything was instant wonder, and that matters too.

Not everyone felt the vibrations in the same way from the beginning. Not everyone trusted it immediately. That's precisely what made the experience real.

We saw that there is an adaptation period. That haptic language requires patience. That trust is built gradually, not granted in the first minute. That street noise competes with attention. And that a useful product is not defined only by its promise, but by how well it fits into someone’s actual life.

We also saw how different people’s needs are.

Younger testers tend to grasp the technology quickly and immediately think ahead: integrated GPS, more advanced AI features, more fluidity. At the same time, they care deeply about design and about how the product makes them feel in public space.

Adults are often more pragmatic. They look for real functionality: on the street, while shopping, outdoors, in urban chaos. They value concrete things: guidance toward doors and stairs, avoidance of low obstacles, and support in crowded spaces.

And seniors gave us some of the most moving moments of all. People we might have wrongly assumed would struggle most with technology sometimes adapted with remarkable ease. What they needed was not less ambition from technology, but the right tool and the space to try it.

One point came up almost everywhere: how important crosswalk guidance is. A seemingly small thing, but for many it marks the difference between courage and avoidance.

And almost everywhere, we heard the same underlying wish: take me to…

Perhaps that is one of the clearest lessons from this first half of the roadshow: people are not looking for technology for technology’s sake. They are looking for something that can help them get where they need to go, to work, to the store, to a walk, to friends, to life.

To everyone who has already tested with us across Romania: thank you. We listened carefully, and we have taken seriously everything you shared with us, the enthusiasm, the doubts, the emotions, the observations, the criticism, and the hope. This roadshow is not only about showing a product. It is also about understanding, more deeply, what a truly useful assistive device should be.

And to those who still have doubts, our message is simple: you do not need to come already convinced. You only need to come curious enough to try.

The roadshow continues. And beyond Romania, we will also be at SightCity in Frankfurt am Main, 27–29 May, at Booth 1O07. We would be glad to meet you there.