
Ask HN: Are there any mature non-mouse and non-keyboard input methods? - wakkaflokka
Are there any input methods that are non-mouse based and non-keyboard based for a PC that are mature enough to use for daily use?<p>Dictation? Gestures? Eye-tracking?
======
Belar
Very broad question, there are a lot, but they differ in purpose, efficiency
and "target" user. I don't think there is a more efficient text input device
that [some kind of] keyboard or as accurate and unrestricted pointing device
as mouse (touch is close, but requires proper UI) for an average user.

Touch made a great leap in performance, compare today's smartphone (taps,
double taps, "3D touch", slides, multi-touch) to an old Palm device (stylus
required, unregistered inputs etc.).

Speech recognition is pretty well developed, works great for note-taking,
control with short commands, but it depends on a language (some are working
better than others) and is prone to error, especially with non-native speakers
(accents) or unfriendly environment (noise, multiple people talking, changing
volume). Would it be comfortable to dictate a book or code? Probably not.

Kinect, ZKOO and Leap Motion are probably the most popular gesture tracking
device, but amount of required energy makes these very inefficient for daily
tasks - it's ok to get a bit tired when playing a game, but couple hours of
"minority report action" would be very uncomfortable.

In addition to that there are devices like "magic wand" or Eyegaze/Tobi
(eye/attention tracking), they are mature for a certain group.

We have vast amount of advanced input methods, they just shine in different
areas.

------
spoonie
Check out Dasher, it's like a text inference engine where you zoom through a
2D space to select the letters, words, phrases you want. It's agnostic to
input type, you can use it with a regular mouse, or eye-tracking, or a
touchpad, etc.

[http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/)

