ATU762 – Hero Door Opener with Pierre Paul and Bethanie Couri

I’m Pierre Paul.

And I’m Bethanie Couri.

And this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello, and welcome to Your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to Episode 762 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on January 2nd, 2026. Welcome listeners to our first show of the new year. We hope you all had a wonderful new year. And today we’re very excited to be joined by Pierre Paul and Bethanie Couri from We Hear You, to talk all about the Hero Door Opener. We also have a quick story on the differences between accessible consumer goods and dedicated assistive technology.

And as always, we are here to answer your question, take your comments as well as your suggestions for guests. Please shoot us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org, or call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. But for now, listeners, let’s go ahead and get on with the show.

Listeners, as you may know, one of the things we do here at the INDATA Project is offer full day trainings throughout the year. And I’m very excited to announce our first full day training of 2026 will be over JAWS. No, it is not a recount of the movie. We’re nothing with sharks today, but this is actually a free JAWS screen reader training. It’ll give participants valuable insight into how JAWS can enhance computer access and independence for individuals who are blind or have low vision at work, at home, in the community. This full day training will take place on January 15th, 2026 from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time and is 100% online. If you’ve ever wanted to know more about screen readers, about how individuals who are blind or low vision access computers and the internet and everything else is a great training for you. Also, if you happen to be looking for CEUs, you can get CEUs from attending this training also.

Presenters include members of our vision and sensory team from our clinical assistive technology program here at Easterseals Crossroads. Belva Smith, Jim Rinehart, Justin Amber, Lindsey Wells and Sarah Crawford, all from our team will have different presentations and walk you through how to do some great things with JAWS, from keystrokes to working in Google, Outlook, setting the program up, and accessing common windows and web elements, all of it will be touched on. There will also be plenty of time for questions and answers in order for you to maybe bring up some of the things that you’ve always wanted to know about this screen reader.

So again, I’m super excited to announce our very first INDATA full day training of 2026, JAWS, screen reader full day training. And again, not the giant shark. This is JAWS, Job Access With Speech, the screen reading program.

While this training is completely and totally free to attend, you do need to register and I will put a link down in the show notes where you can easily go find that registration, fill out the information and get all set up. So we hope to see you there on January 15th for our JAWS, Job Access With Speech, screen reader full day training. More information is available over at eastersealstech.com or check the show notes for the link to registration.

Listeners, our first story today comes to us from Primary Care Optometry News. It’s written by Roland Mattern, who will actually be on this show later this month. So maybe we’ll talk to them a little bit more about this concept, but it’s titled Consumer Technology has Limitations for Assistive Needs. What this story talks about, of course, is some of the consumer goods that are out there that are being used as assistive technology, as well as ones that just have accessibility features built in. But it’s talking about how purpose-built assistive technology may be better, more reliable, better safeguards, better user support, some of the features that might be able to really assist someone if they’re using this as their assistive technology.

So it argues that the main differences between using smartphones, AI powered devices, other things that can assist individuals with disabilities, the main difference between using these and then using things that are actually built as assistive technology themselves has some major differences. And it kind of breaks these down to safety, reliability, and creating inclusive, empowering environments for those requiring the AT or the accommodations. It says here in the story that true assistive tech undergoes rigorous research, testing, and certification to ensure it meets the needs of its intended users. It says that AT is often developed with healthcare professionals, users with disabilities and others, and then uses that feedback of every stage just to ensure it’s safe and effective and really able to provide an accommodation for challenges as well as being compliant with relevant standards.

And it contrasts this with kind of mainstream consumer tech, so your smartphone, the smart glasses, AI assistants. And now these, while they do have some very great accessible features, maybe some of that’s things built in like voice commands, text to speech, adjustable display settings, they’re not actually built from the ground up to be assistive technology. This can leave individuals frustrated, isolated, and vulnerable, as it says here in the story. Basically, it kind of says they’re not built as accessible devices. These are things put on the product’s core purpose, and they could have issues.

One thing that it says here that really rings true, it says this means that they may have the potential to be deprioritized in updates. So I know for the longest time whenever I first started doing this, I worked with a lot of individuals who were blind or low vision. So a lot of folks that used iPhones, iPads, tablet style devices, and used voiceover. And there was kind of an idea that whenever a new operating system came out from Apple, you always waited till at least .1, or if you could .2, because whenever it first came out, there was usually something in there that made voiceover mess up. It maybe wasn’t something big. It could just be a very small part or something that you access. Maybe it was just in Safari, or maybe it was just in the Notes app or just in text messaging or something like that, but there’s always something that it seemed like it would click and voiceover would not work or not work in the same way in those kind of parts. But by the time they got to .1, .2, those bugs were usually fixed.

Now, I don’t see it as much anymore or at least hear about it as much anymore, but then again, I don’t provide as much direct service as I used to anymore. So maybe I’m just not really hearing it from folks. But yeah, even though there are these great accessibility features, these amazing tools, these amazing things that are built into our consumer electronics, they’re not always front of mind for those developers as they come out with the newest update, the newest operating system and things like that. So there could easily be something that someone really relies on and when an update comes out, suddenly it doesn’t work. Whereas if something is a piece of adaptive software or an adaptive device, well, that is its main purpose. So if it does get updated, that’s probably going to work better. Rarely would it actually break it and not kind of have that working.

Some of the things that kind of come to mind is the Meta Ray-Ban glasses, they’re an amazing tool for individuals who are blind or low vision to access the world around them through their artificial intelligence. But that’s not why they were originally produced. So an update, a change in usability or something else could happen that can make them a lot less usable for that purpose, and the developers may not think about that as they’re kind of moving along.

Another thing that really comes down here and talks about is built-in safeguards of assistive technology. So talks about the rigorous vetting process that AT must go through as opposed to just consumer electronics and consumer technology. This is especially true in medical grade AT, such as mobility equipment, communication devices, hearing aids that have to go through FDA approval in order to be able to be approved.

And this also talks about the consistency part, that these features of an AT device are essential. They are what that device does. Therefore, they’re always going to be there. They’re not going to be accidentally turned off by the user or by any kind of update or something like that.

Then the other thing it talks about is dedicated human expertise. So there’s a lot of folks out there, myself included, who are just trained on these devices and are able to assist individuals to learn how to use them. My team’s an amazing example of this. And a lot of companies actually have some sort of training available as well, whether they’re putting that out on YouTube, whether it’s something where maybe you’re paired with a specialist when you purchase or get a device. There are specialists and people out there for this.

If you really want to see kind of the comparison, if you’re using a piece of assistive technology, call the company and ask them some questions about it. They’re probably going to dig in. And for a lot of products, whoever’s answering your call at that help desk more than likely uses that device. Not in a training purpose as an AT specialist, an OT, a PT, a speech language pathologist would, but as an individual who relies on that device or that software. So they’re going to have a pretty good understanding of it and really be able to assist you.

By contrast, go into the Apple Store and ask them about voiceover. And I used to do this just for fun, just because an Apple Store is not far here from the office and we would go pick up equipment for folks or maybe to get something repaired or looked at, and it’s just kind of fun because some folks that work there don’t even know it’s there. There’s sometimes a person or two in there that will actually understand it, but I feel like usually there’s one person that understands voiceover in the accessibility settings and maybe they just travel store to store. So it’s definitely not a deep part of the training. So as far as the support, the human expertise, that’s usually a lot better when you look at the assistive technology over the consumer electronics with some technology built in that can assist.

So there’s definitely pluses and minuses to both if we really look at it. Most assistive technology does have a higher price point, but if you’re really relying on that thing every single day, maybe it’s worth it. Whereas the consumer kind of goods, one thing I will say that consumer goods with the accessibility features built in, one thing that it really does help with is the awareness. People who don’t work in this field, people who don’t maybe encounter assistive technology or technology to assist individuals with disabilities, it opens their eyes up a little bit and allows them to see a different way technology can be used, which is always a good thing.

So anyway, put a link to this over in the show notes. And like I said, we’ll actually have Roland on the show here later in the month, so maybe we’ll sit him down and talk to him a little bit more about it.

Listeners today on Assistive Technology Update, we need a hero, not some cape sporting leotard wearing superhuman, but a hero to assist us with opening doors and access to places we want to go. Today we’re lucky enough to be joined by Pierre and Bethanie, and they’re here to tell us all about the Hero Door Opener and how it’s literally opening doors to access for individuals. Pierre, Bethanie, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having us. It’s exciting.

Yeah. I am excited to get into talking about the Hero Door Opener, the technology and everything, but before we do that, could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourselves?

Yeah. So my name is Pierre Paul, I am 27 years old. I was born in Brazil, grew up between Guyana and Ohio, so a lot of traveling in my childhood. And at a young age, I decided that I wanted to master English and use English to advocate, be an advocate in all different spaces. And I always had a mind and a heart for inventing, but I used to tell myself that inventing things wasn’t a real profession anymore. Everything had already been invented. And luckily I learned that that was not the case. So music innovation and public speaking are really true to who I am as a person.

Nice. Awesome. Bethanie, what about you?

Yeah. So I grew up actually just a little bit north of here in Decatur, Illinois. I’m one of 10 children, and we all grew up working in my parents’ family owned business. And so that’s where I really grew to cultivate a love for business, a love for people, a love for management. We met at Bradley University, which is where the company was started. I finished my marketing degree, got my MBA from there as well. And then I went on to get my doctorate from the University of Illinois because MBA wasn’t enough, wanted to do a little bit more. And I just graduated with that in May, so I’m finally no longer a student.

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, we’re so glad you guys found each other. We’re so glad that this all kind of worked out, but we’re here to talk about the Hero. So I guess let’s just start at the beginning, where’d the idea come from?

Yeah. So doors suck.

Oh, sure.

As simple as that. They always seem to slam when you don’t need them to, and sometimes they’re difficult to open. But while on our college campus, we realized that some of the doors didn’t actually work. The buttons weren’t functioning, and this is a real problem that a lot of people see. And then we started looking into the price of doors and then we realized how egregious it was to make a door automatic. And the small businesses, specifically in Peoria, Illinois were like, “You guys are creating really cool technology, but we can’t even get an automatic door. So we can’t use your app. We can’t use your fob to open doors.”

So from there, we started creating. And I remember there was a day where I just was like, “I got to figure it out.” So I ordered a gate opener, a duct tape and-

Some kind of motor.

… some kind of motor off of Amazon for $37 and I duct taped it to my apartment door and I remember FaceTiming one of our company lawyers and saying this. And he’s like, “What am I looking at?” I’m like, “You’re looking at the future.” And that’s how we built the Hero, which is a device that can make virtually any door automatic without breaking the bank. You need like a screwdriver and just simple household tools to make doors automatic.

Excellent. Excellent. So I guess, I know it’s always kind of hard on a podcast, but describe the Hero to me.

Yeah. The Hero is about six pounds. It is a rectangular prism. And if you honestly look at a lot of the doors that some of you might be able to see, or if you’re kind of feeling different spaces if you’re low vision or blind, it resembles a closer, but it’s automatic, right? You want to describe some of the measurements?

Yeah, happy to. Off the top of my head, I want to say it’s about 10 inches across by 6 inches high and it comes out about 3 to 4 inches from the door. So it’s very similar to a door closer shape, same arm as normal door closers. And then we have a plug that you can plug into either side and it runs the length of the wall. So you can plug it into your nearest outlet instead of having to hardwire it into the building.

Nice. And I know that helps out a lot too, because it’s self-install. I don’t have to have an electrician, I don’t have to have anybody come in and do all that work for me. So that makes a huge difference. And then how do I control it? How do I open and close the door?

Yeah. So one thing that we realized is that there were limiting options for opening a door. So we were like, “Let’s not just stop at a conventional wall button. Let’s not just stop at a conventional wave sensor. Let’s add in a little fob that acts as a universal remote that you can walk around and press doors that have our receivers or have the Hero to make them open automatically.” And then from there we’re like, “You know what?, we’re working with a member of our team, Sabrina, who has quadriplasia, and she goes, “If this was an app, that would be game changing if I could just use my voice.” So then we built out an app as well, so you can use voice activation to open the door. So we got a couple of different mediums that allow you to open the Hero.

Excellent, excellent. That’s absolutely awesome. And there’s tons of different kinds of doors out there. I mean, I just think of all the kind of different kinds. Are there certain ones that are best suited to use with a Hero? Or can I kind of use it, I don’t want to say completely universally because then someone’s going to call in with a weird door that just it wouldn’t work-

Wait a minute now.

But are there certain doors I guess that’s best suited for the Hero?

Yeah. So we focus on traditional swing doors, right? Whether that be a swing door to a back patio, to a front door, to a bedroom, bathroom, et cetera. The doors that we stay away from right now are revolving doors, just because I have a vendetta against revolving doors. I understand that they serve a purpose for saving large businesses money on energy loss. But aside from revolving doors, we’ll tackle any door that you have for us.

Excellent, excellent. So interior, because I know sometimes that’s a big, big, kind of challenge for folks. Yeah, I can get in the front door maybe, but yeah, then interior doors, a lot of times the accessibility is just, we’ll just remove them, which kind of removes privacy and everything else.

Exactly. And so I love that you say that because interior doors are our bread and butter.

Oh, nice.

That is who we are focused on. We can do exterior doors, but sometimes the stag and stack pressure or the trim of the door becomes a problem, but interior doors are ideal for us. So that’s what we prefer, but we’re definitely not going to turn an opportunity down to learn with the community and build with them.

Yeah, I would echo that. I think the internal doors really are the best, the easiest. Bathroom doors we love. Happy to do front doors, back doors. We just might need to tweak a few small things, but aside from that, super easy and we love it.

Awesome. And you mentioned tweak a few things and kind of learning. What are maybe some changes that the Heroes went through from your initial, maybe the first one you put on something to where you are now? What are some things maybe you didn’t know walking in or just some changes that have happened during that time?

Yeah, no, that’s a great question. So interestingly enough, we’ve gone through probably about four versions of the Hero and we have one that we call Cubert, because it was just a large cube, and it’s still one of my favorites. But you know what? What we’ve learned really is it has to do with the force that it takes to open a door, the length of the arm. And we were fortunate that we had mentors or just companies that kind of gave us some free advice, one being Hager, who was like, “Hey, you guys are going to need to figure out tackling stag and stack pressure.” And I was like, “I’ve never heard of these phrases before.” And so then we start doing research, it’s like, okay, we understand how pressure moves from inside and outside and when one door opens and then if there’s a vestibule. And so early on, we figured out how we need to be tackling that. And then latching systems. Oh my goodness. Every door is a little bit different. And so we had to learn about latching systems.

But I think the main learning moments that we got were from the community. We’re out there, we’re doing an install for someone who is blind or low vision. We’re doing an install for someone who has spinal stenosis, different needs, both need a door to be open, but in different ways. And I think taking in that feedback is what helps us make our fob better, make our app more robust, make the Hero open faster or slower while still abiding by the ADA standards, et cetera.

Yeah, most definitely. And just full disclosure folks, we did actually, the reason I’m lucky enough to have a Hero here today is that we had one installed on our lab and everything. So I have got to see it. I have got to see everything that’s not always kind of the case, but I know you put some features in there to be able to assist someone who’s blind or low vision. What’s on there and then how did those come to be part of the Hero?

Yeah, absolutely. Do you want to start and I’ll pick it up after?

Yeah. I can talk about the features. I’m not quite sure, I don’t remember how it came about. So you’re going to have fill in that piece for me.

Absolutely. I got it.

So we recently added a few features just to make it a little bit more accessible for everybody. One being that you can easily turn on a beeping noise. So if you’re blind or low vision, you can hear when the door receives the signal and is beginning to open. So it makes that even a little bit easier for you.

Yeah. And then in the future, we’re going to be adding some haptic feedback so that when you get close to a door that has the Hero or some of our technology, the app will then buzz. So you know that you’re within that space so you can keep yourself safe. From there, we’re making sure that all of the voice activated features on the app, you’re hearing it. If you’re utilizing that voice to text feature on your phone, making sure all of those labels are adequate and correct, which is something that a lot of people miss.

And then this came about because of our work with Perkins. So Perkins School for the Blind in Boston, they’ve been a huge partner of ours. We’ve been honored to be at their location multiple times and pitch for them. And as we’re moving to work with their campus, they really put the fire under us to say, “Hey, this is great, but it still has a way to go. We need you to double down and make it more accessible like this and like this.” And that’s what we love.

Oh, heck yeah.

Challenge us to be better.

Well, and like you said, it’s things you don’t know because you think, well, a door opener, and not to make it sound easier, but trust me, I see everything that goes into it, but it needs to open, it needs to close and it needs to have a few access points. But you don’t always consider, oh, somebody has blind or low vision. Yeah. How are they going to know that they’re kind of close to it? How are they going to know the door’s opening? How are they going to know that it’s closing and that what I pressed actually functions? And that’s kind of the best way is to take that input and everything.

Well, I was going to ask everybody, tell me a story or two about someone’s experience that maybe just sticks with you, maybe made changes or I don’t know, one that just sticks out and you really remember.

Absolutely. B, tell your favorite story.

Okay, because I was going to say you might steal mine, so I want to go first. I think my favorite story was one of our first, if not our first residential install that we did with a little boy named Zippy out in Texas. He was three at the time and he utilizes a power wheelchair and he would always want to play in the backyard, but his mom told us that there was no way for him to come back inside. So he would wait outside and just kind of kick at the back door until someone could come let him back in. And so she ordered it from our website just looking to give him a way to come in and out freely whenever he wanted.

And so we went out there, we got the honor of meeting him and installing it for him and getting to kind of walk him through everything. And so I think for me, just seeing his face light up at what he could do on his own, he’d never opened a door by himself. So this was the first time ever that he was able to utilize his own technology on his own chair and do everything on his own time. And so since then, his mom has reached out to let us know that he loves letting the dog out. He loves opening the door so she can bring in groceries, help her with groceries.

So I think my favorite was just being able to see that moment for a three year old child and the hope and the excitement in his eyes, letting him know he can do whatever he wants. So that was my favorite.

No, I could not agree more. I think Zippy and Cindy and the Moute family, they are a prime example of trying to find the next thing that makes the world easier and more comfortable and then publicizing it so other people can benefit from the technology.

I love that story. I’ll go a different route. Early on when we were creating, I remember we installed in Peoria, Illinois. We love Peoria. We love Bradley and it was just for a young woman who was immunocompromised. And she was like, “If I don’t have to touch a door handle, it is just better for me.” And so kept the fob on her keys, used it as a remote control, press the button, open the door. And it was just a game changer and it was an aspect of like, oh, those who are immunocompromised, absolutely doorknobs are some of the dirtiest things. You don’t want to touch them.

So just on a different vein, showcasing how everyone really does benefit from assistive technology.

No, no, they really do. And I know when we got here today, we were even talking about that and some different things, because yeah, all this stuff that’s amazing and can really help out individuals with disabilities, it ends up that we all just use it and it makes life easier for pretty much everybody. So yeah, awesome.

Well, if our listeners want to find out more kind of about the Hero, about everything else, what’s a great way for them to do that?

Yeah. You can find us on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Instagram under WeOpenDoors. So that is our handle, WeOpenDoors. And then our website is wehearyouopensdoors.com. We couldn’t get weopensdoors.com. Some other genius has that one. So we are wehearyouopensdoors.com, you can find us online there. We’re super receptive. Pierre Paul on LinkedIn. But reach out, tell us your stories, let us know small businesses that you want to support and you want to have automated doors so they can have more business coming in. And I think that’s the best way to reach us.

Awesome. We’ll put links to all that stuff down in the show notes so that folks can easily get to it. Well, Bethanie, Pierre, thank you so much for coming on today for telling us all about it. We can’t wait to play with it more, to try to break it, see what else we can do. No, I’m just kidding. But no, and just get feedback and be able to let folks know just those other options that are out there for them. So really, really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Sounds great. Thank you.

Thank you for having us.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on an assistive technology update? If so, call our listener line at (317) 721-7124, send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or shoot us a note on Twitter @indataproject.

Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or InTrac. You can find out more about InTrac at relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nicole Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show was produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA project, Easterseals Crossroads are supporting partners or this host.

This was your assistive technology update. I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.