I like the idea of voluntary prosthetics. But IME, your brain needs time to get used to these kinds of things and build them into its proprioception.
For example, if you wear a vest containing haptic motors which constantly buzz towards North, your brain will start to build an understanding of directionality into your worldview, like how some migratory birds navigate. And when you take the vest off after wearing it for awhile, you'll feel oddly disoriented for some time. Try it out: motors and microcontrollers are cheap.
This project looks sleek, but that strap between the thumb and index finger looks tight in the screenshot. Is it comfortable enough to wear for 18 hours a day?
And if the thumb is controlled from your feet, what happens when the battery dies or the radio is disrupted? Brains do not like unresponsive limbs.
Great concept, though - can't wait to see how it develops.
Huh. I've chatted to Dani several times (we go to the same bar and share a circle of friends). She is hella smart. Sadly she's yet to have had the third thumb with her whenever we've met, but I know a bunch of our mutual friends who've tried it and seemed to get on with it very quickly indeed. Did not expect to find it on the front page of hacker news though!
Hey there! Would you mind talking to her on my behalf?
I am actually missing a thumb entirely on my right hand and had at one point reached out to both her and the researchers she worked with on it. She never responded and the researchers said she held the rights to it so I would have to talk to her.
I would be EXTREMELY interested in speaking with her about either testing or even purchasing one if I find it is something that could help me!
I have an email in my profile she can reach me by.
Have you checked out Ian Davis? He has been building[1] mechanical prosthetic hand-fingers(4) for a while now, He's currently in the process of upgrading his old design.
He's a gentleman and I think he's responsive to communication regarding replicating his designs.
Hand tracking in VR is mature enough for such research. You can transplant a finger from one hand onto another by copying over the skeleton poses. Physical colliders synchronized to skeleton position allow you to interact with objects of different shapes. There is no haptic feedback, which is also true for this artificial thumb.
As for real life: while it would be amazing to have a second thumb semi-permanently, I would prefer it to be pure mechanical contraption without any running software.
Mechanical contraption is exactly how I would describe Ian Davis's projects. You should check out his mechanical hand if you haven't already:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9i8qqYHvqA
> The Third Thumb is a 3D printed thumb extension for your hand, controlled by your feet. The project investigates the relationship between the body and prosthetic technology in new ways.
Looks like you control it with your big toe via a pressure sensor inside a shoe? Sounds cool!
I am surprised they didn't use electromyography bands which are a perfect fit for this particular application (like those by Ctrl Labs and Thalmic labs). Perhaps their budget didn't allow for making custom amplifier chips.
I disagree: I find that she makes an excellent point about the choice she made in the video linked above. She is a designer, exploring ideas about body augmentation. She is not (and nor is anyone else) at the stage of perfecting a design so that it become the most performant. "Premature optimization..." and all that.
it's not often i find myself wishing for content to be presented in video form - usually the exact opposite. but in this case, i really want to see a video of this in operation.
For example, if you wear a vest containing haptic motors which constantly buzz towards North, your brain will start to build an understanding of directionality into your worldview, like how some migratory birds navigate. And when you take the vest off after wearing it for awhile, you'll feel oddly disoriented for some time. Try it out: motors and microcontrollers are cheap.
This project looks sleek, but that strap between the thumb and index finger looks tight in the screenshot. Is it comfortable enough to wear for 18 hours a day?
And if the thumb is controlled from your feet, what happens when the battery dies or the radio is disrupted? Brains do not like unresponsive limbs.
Great concept, though - can't wait to see how it develops.