
Steadying the Mouse for People with Parkinson's Disease and Multiple Sclerosis - charlieirish
https://www.steadymouse.com/
======
gottebp
Aww shucks! Founder here. Can't say I expected this to hit the front page
today. SteadyMouse[1] has been a labor of love the past several years. It
actually started as a bit of a hobby project after my grandfather was
diagnosed with Parkinson's disease circa 2003-2004. That original hobby
version from 2005 is free, if one is willing to sacrifice a bit, and read
through the troubleshooting and workarounds [2].

SteadyMouse 2 is the new commercial version, and has taken so much time and
effort that I've lost track. Totally worth it though, and hearing from folks
[3] has made this the most fulfilling work of my life. Porting to MacOS is
indeed in progress, however has been made quite difficult by the deprecation
of certain API functions (the same ones that killed SmoothMouse [4])

I should clarify for the other poster as well, SteadyMouse 2 costs $43 just
one time and includes minor bugfixes going forward. The $127 price is for all
the future versions too (SteadyMouse 3, 4, etc.). That price is largely
necessary because customer support is quite a bit more difficult when serving
the community that typically needs SteadyMouse. The 70 day easy refund period
allows the users to become confident it's worth it.

In between keeping an eye on the server load, I'm happy to answer any
questions and am honored at the attention today.

[1] [https://www.steadymouse.com/about/](https://www.steadymouse.com/about/)

[2]
[https://www.steadymouse.com/downloads/](https://www.steadymouse.com/downloads/)

[3]
[https://www.steadymouse.com/reviews/](https://www.steadymouse.com/reviews/)

[4] [http://dae.me/blog/2243/macos-kernel-programming-bounty-
to-r...](http://dae.me/blog/2243/macos-kernel-programming-bounty-to-revive-
smoothmouse/)

~~~
devwastaken
Thats a really cool project that looks a lot like the computer equivalent of
that anti-shake spoon.

That said, my inital reaction to the homepage of your website wasn't super
appealing to what your product actually does. I understand it perfectly, but I
know my grandma probably wouldn't. I think this would be solved via the
'kickstart-esque' like advertising, where there is a promo video right
upfront, where your product and what it does is right center screen when you
go to your website, rather than a giant banner and your logo. Call it generic,
but I'm thinking of one of those medical commercials that show the problem
with shaky hands, and then shows the difference with steadymouse.

The manual I think would be realllly hard for my folks to understand, due to
all the up-front tech talk. Rather, they'd like to know how to install it, and
how to run it so that it 'just works'. For example, the entire piece you have
there about versioning and user information is very confusing. Essentially, it
looks like your product is only usful to very computer learned individuals who
have unsteady hands. Even if I setup the software for someone, how are they
going to figure out what it does or use it themselves?

other than that, I think your actual product is great and I'll certainly
remember it.

~~~
gottebp
Thanks for the apt feedback. The journey to make the site and product more
immediately intuitive and understandable for the elderly is ongoing. I hope to
eventually incorporate much of the guidance here [1].

The software itself does have lots of tips and guidance built in with the
user-manual being just a backstop to that. Indeed though, getting SteadyMouse
installed the first time is the hardest part. From there it's usually smooth
sailing for folks. I will work towards simplifying in the future.

BTW, you may have explained why a lot of my customers are children and
grandchildren finding SteadyMouse for an ailing grandparent. I did not mean to
filter-out the less tech savvy!

[1] [http://eldertech.org/apps-for-seniors-10-technical-
tips/](http://eldertech.org/apps-for-seniors-10-technical-tips/)

------
saysjonathan
In a previous life I worked with the Department of Education for a certain
state. Their head graphic designer, Fred if I remember correctly, was about
70-something and had Parkinson's. He was able to churn out amazing work using
the mouse and Wacom tablet. His wife, who also worked at the DoE, would touch
up his work and clean up anything caused by the tremors. Quite an amazing
team.

He was also a jazz piano player in private. He created a setup where he used
his electric organ as a midi controller in GarageBand. He would record himself
playing and, once through, would clean up the extra notes using the note view.

I'm very happy to see technology moving forward to help those whose conditions
otherwise prevent or obscure the great things they're capable of!

------
andy_ppp
This looks brilliant.

I imagine certain computer industry news forums using 9px Verdana and tiny
clickable areas are not that great for people with a variety of
disabilities...

~~~
tomatsu
> _9px Verdana_

It's 9pt, but I do agree that it's way too small. I got the zoom level at 150%
even without having any disabilities.

~~~
gottebp
Admittedly, I have work to do there. Changing to a Responsive design is high
on the TODO list.

~~~
phonon
I think the OP was referring to news.ycombinator.com , not your site :-)

------
giardini
About 40 years ago a University of Houston and University of Texas Medical
School Professor of Psychology, Dr. Daniel E. Sheer, developed a similar
system. The result: an Apple II game system for use by patients with brain
damage or dysfunction to retrain the fine control of their hands. Several
systems were installed in Houston area hospitals as a result of the work.

The system was adjustable to the user's tremors and had a number of parameters
to adjust the "smoothness" and responsiveness of the cursor. It worked with
both joystick and mouse, as I recall.

~~~
lifepillar
It sounds like something really innovative for those times. Do you know more
about that system? Is there a disk image anywhere?

~~~
giardini
Yeah, mostly back then we sat around and beat rocks together to make
arrowheads, with the occasional pause to build nuclear-capable ICBM systems,
travel to the moon and back, and put frickin' death lasers on dolphins.

"really innovative"...sheesh!

And, oh yeah, we started the "War on Cancer" and the "War on Drugs".

------
thyem
I would be very interested in this software, more specifically for the purpose
of gaming. I have a small, noticable shake continously, with some extreme
twitches when I need to click a mouse button. Has some one tested it and
noticed an increase in latency?

I also see that the creator of the software is here, do you know if it has
been tested by gamers with parkinsons or other afflictions that creates
twitches/shakes/tremors?

Would love to try it out, but even at the price point and the 70 day return
policy I can't justify it :(

~~~
gottebp
Interesting you mention that. A lot of recent focus has gone into support for
gamers. There was some effort to augment high end mice by taking a high DPI
high sample rate and turning it into a smoother signal, while still being
responsive. See here [1] for more details. I intend to keep improving
SteadyMouse in this direction as time goes on. Gaming can be very freeing for
folks.

[1] [https://www.steadymouse.com/gaming/](https://www.steadymouse.com/gaming/)

------
watertorock
What a great idea. You'd think MSFT and AAPL would implement this as an
accessibility option.

------
Old_Thrashbarg
Awesome product. The prominent "Made in the USA" marketing on the About page
seemed strange. Does the target audience tend to be xenophobic and like to
know that it wasn't developed in some foreign country?

~~~
totallynotcool
What is xenophobic about it being made in the US?

~~~
richev
Flip the logic in the middle there, and you'll be asking the right question.

------
pkaye
While I don't expected people to work for free and this is a niche product,
the $127 seeems excessive at more than the cost of an whole operating system.
Seems like something Microsoft should include in the first place.

~~~
jey
Why is "cost of an operating system" the relevant benchmark?

~~~
R_haterade
Agreed. This completely ignores the massive economies of scale OS's realize.

~~~
eli
And the ecosystem they promote. The more windows boxes, the more MS Office
licenses.

------
rkcf
This reminds me of Liftware products[1]. They make self stabilizing utensils
for a similar market. Pretty cool stuff.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNwfXeLlqsU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNwfXeLlqsU)

~~~
j_s
And their physical product starts at $195 as a point of reference, however
apples-to-oranges the comparison may be.

