Headset allows visually impaired football fan to watch games

Crystal Palace Football Club has become the first to offer visually impaired fans access to a headset that allows them to watch live games more easily and stay involved with their team.

GiveVision’s headset SightPlus uses magnification to enhance the remaining vision of people with sight loss.  

It uses a combination of zoom and digital image enhancements to improve the user’s vision for tasks such as reading, watching TV or watching live events.

Neale Ormston has been a Crystal Palace fan for most of his life, but supporting and spectating has been more difficult the last three years since he's become visually impaired.

"It got to the point where I was just going to stop, not do my season ticket anymore, and stay at home," he told Sky News.

Headset restored love of the game 

But, he said the headset had transformed his experience.

"It's given the enjoyment factor a complete buzz," he said.

"Being able to see the far side of the pitch. Fans cheering. It's fantastic. It's enabling people to come back and be part of something, instead of being stuck at home, and just listening. Partake. Enjoy. Sing. It's what it's about. It's the love of the game."

The headset requires some existing vision in order to work. Joanna Liddington from GiveVision said it works by stimulating some of the photoreceptor cells in the eye's retina.

"You can think about it a little bit like when people use hearing aids - it allows them to regain some of that hearing, and it's the same with the headset with sight," she said.

The hope at Crystal Palace is that the technology is rolled out at other clubs across the Premier League and beyond.

How does it work? 

GiveVision is a UK-based company that makes technology to help people with low vision, such as the SightPlus headset.

A study in 2019, funded by Moorfields Eye Hospital, tested how well SightPlus worked and who might find it useful. The headset was found to improve vision for distance and contrast. It was also shown to be effective for reading, but it did slow down reading speeds.

Around half the people who took part in the study said they would use it for things like TV, reading, and entertainment.