But the fascinating part was, most of the times the navigation was correct!
Even when I had doubts about it. On a certain street, I spent quite a while walking forth and back, because SAM was showing me a direction pointing me to the wall. The only thing I saw there was a very tiny corridor with an upward-running staircase, so narrow I often didn't even touch it in my speed while passing by, and when I did, I simply considered it an entrance to a building, since this role fitted the place perfectly and the present acoustic of a closed space was also very strong.
However, since there was no other option, I eventually tried it out. It turned to be a super-tiny side-alley. Wide enough max for one person, with a steep staircase, but finally SAM was satisfied and when I climbed up, I found myself on a different street.
On a different route, I run into an opposite situation. Following the "12 clock" direction, I walked into something that felt like an underrground garage. It was likely not one, because I was on ground level, and the global context didn't evoke presence of a building. But I was walking between parked cars, following just some ground patterns, other vehicles were driving freely in the space, there was the smell of fuel and i sensed a roof above my head. I was very suspicious about this, normally you don't want to enter objects like these, because any enclosure requires you to find a specific spot to exit it, and it may very well not even exist.
But SAM was just like: "you're good, next point at 12 clock". Umm... are you sure?
I asked this like three times as I was maneuvering through the area. But ok, when forward then forward.
Eventually, I passed the area, and after certain time finished my route successfully, the app lead me right on to the Dragon bridge, where I was heading.

3/5

This is not to say SAM is perfect and should be blindly trusted. Not at all, using one's own sense is very important for security as well as the navigation itself. What I'm trying to tell is, that navigation in real-world environment is not just about nicely lined roads and sidewalks, but important maneuvers often lead through irregular, unpredictable side-paths of all forms and shapes. Sighted folks have a map view, where they can easily see where they need to get and have plenty of signs to figure out a way to get there.
Spoken information simply can't compete with that level of awareness, especially the machine-generated-one, and I feared this would be a problem. That's why I was so amazed by the SAM's performance, by the fact it was able to guide me not just through the "nice" streets, but also regions, where I was just moving in void using the ambience to determine were am I heading.
I successfully finished every route I started, and I didn't need to ask at all for directions. I did few times, when I wanted to speed things up a bit or verify I'm on the right track, especially when I was using the app for the first time. But it was technically not necessary, what's pretty amazing.

One thing I couldn't reliably determine yet is the time efficiency. My routes were in average about 700 meters long, which may not sound like much, but in a city that usually means plenty of maneuvering, which for us means a reason to be careful. But a lot also depends on the taken path. On my first route, I needed more than a hour to get to the destination. But I was using the app for the first time, and got a route through park, what's generally a place where it's easy to get off the way.
On another walk to a nearby destination from the same starting point, I got a path avoiding the park, and this-one went much quicker, I didn't measure it but my estimate is I made it in 15-30 minutes, what's a considerable improvement.

4/5

SAM actually has a function to avoid specified points, perhaps if I played with it a bit, i could figure out a longer, but easier and thus quicker route.
Indeed, the time is not that important, it's merely my curiosity.

Overal, I have to say SAM has been an amazing experience. Even from tourism point of view. Having a sighted assistant is indeed convenient, you can quickly get anywhere you want, for negligible price and effort. But in terms of architecture, I always felt I'm missing a lot of details when being guided by someone. Yes, I can still hear my surrounding, and perhaps observe something, but without the touch interaction and a need to put things in context, I can't build a true mental map.
During self-navigation, I'm forced to pay attention and figure things out, and can feel more of the city's phisical presence. It's a very interesting sensation, and I wonder, what level of awareness would be possible to achieve with better mastering of the technology.

And what about you? If you're blind, have you also had interesting adventures in unknown spaces with SAM, or a similar app? Ljubljana has been an amazing experience, but at least the parts where I was were still rather nice, so there is still plenty of room for new challenges.
I'm curious what hardcore environments you went through, and what were your experiences. I have plenty of thoughts about limitations and possible improvements of this app, unfortunately, I didn't find any dedicated community yet. If you know of any, I would like to know, as I see a lot of potential in projects like this.

5/5