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MouthPad – In-Mouth Bluetooth Mouse Uses Tongue Sensitive Trackpad (augmental.tech)
586 points by MasterYoda on April 24, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 170 comments



A lot of people - especially people with impairments whom it would help a lot if they know about it - are unaware of the fantastic pointer-accessibility stuff that's built into MacOS:

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/move-the-pointer-us...

You can control the pointer with head movements, and click with things like blinks and smiles. All built into the OS, no 3rd party software.


I've been looking for settings like this on my iPhone -- I'm probably in the minority here but I'd love to be able to do a couple of simple gesture-based commands on my phone. E.g. when I'm driving and my phone is mounted just slightly out of reach, and I no longer need my screen on and displaying Maps, it would be great if I could do some kind of hand wave to lock the screen. Sure I could mount my phone closer, or just lean over a bit and hit the button, or probably even ask Siri to do it... but dammit a [Jedi | Minority Report | Tony Stark ] hand-wave would be much cooler :) Pixel phones have some similar abilities: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/9517454


That was only available on the Pixel 4. They got rid of the chip in later phones, due to battery life issues and cost:

https://www.androidpolice.com/google-pixel-4-killed-motion-s...


If quick gestures aren’t working: Turn off your phone, then turn it back on.

Some tricks never die.


Heat pointer is great and I really hope Apple follows it up with building proper eye tracking hardware and software into Macs & iDevices. It's such a great opportunity to improve UX and reduce RSI for everyone by sharing the load among more input sources. I've tried the Tobii stuff but it's not great, no solution out there has quite nailed the calibration nor the UX yet, as it requires OS-level UX changes.

Every input source has a point after which it causes fatigue or pain - hands, head, eyes, tongue, feet, etc. The more the load is spread out, the better! This MouthPad looks fantastic as another input method to share the load.


A feature nobody knows about which I loved back when using Windows was the cursor defaulting to the confirmation button in dialogs. Nowadays where everything is web it's less useful I suppose, but makes clicking through those dialogs nicely faster also as someone who doesn't have a mouse-related impairment!


I feel like there's a lot of room for accidents here, though. If you aren't expecting a dialog to come up, but are using the mouse, you might accidentally click to accept something you didn't want to do.

And I'm glad web pages can't make use of this; that's just ripe for abuse. Though I suppose what might be acceptable would be a more limited protocol where a webpage is allowed to ask the web browser to move the pointer to a particular non-hidden UI element, and only in response to some sort of user interaction. Still, this sort of thing seems concerning.


Definitely. It has been a decade and my memory isn't perfect, but I think this was about as rare as focus sealers today, like where you get a pop up just as you were tapping somewhere else and thus either dismiss it or push a button that you didn't intend. The first example that comes to mind is Spotify pushing something like a year overview 0.2 seconds after the app opens when your finger was just coming down on the "my library" button and so you dismiss it and there's no way to open it again. Pretty sure this happens to me 2 out of 3 years.


> Nowadays where everything is web it's less useful I suppose

Implementation of cursor defaulting to the declination button in web is waiting for its hero. Also I need to iterate between the all possible Nos on a webpage by pressing Tab/Shift+Tab key on my keyboard since no one uses this key on a web-browser any more.


From the way the cursor moved on the screen and the visualization of input with those orange squares, it looks like it operates similar to the thinkpad trackpoint. (There’s a dose of serendipitous humor here - the trackpoint has an infamous anatomical nickname, and this device seems to be reminding some commenters of a related activity.)

I wonder if they’ve explored trackballs? Conventional trackballs are operated with a single finger, usually the thumb, and proponents of trackballs claim it’s the equal of (or even superior to) a mouse, while touchpads and trackpoints do seem slightly limited compared to full-fledged mice. Controlling a trackball with your tongue instead of your thumb seems like it might be just as effective - maybe even more effective! This might be an avenue to make this device even more capable.

(Did I just compare the cunnilingus touchpad to the clit mouse, and then suggest adding “licking balls”? Goddamnit, lol)


From the descriptions on the website they claim it controls like a touchpad, not a trackpoint. (touchpad means tongue distance == cursor distance whereas trackpoint means tongue distance/pressure == cursor speed)

That being said trackpoint-style movement sounds better to me since my tongue has such limited motion compared to a large trackpad surface. Unless it is about to be much more dexterous than my finger (which doesn't seem right to me, but impossible to say without trying) it would be annoying to make large movements and repeated large movements seems like it would be tiring quite quickly.


> I wonder if they’ve explored trackballs?

I'd be concerned with the mechanical interaction of saliva with any mechanism, size concerns (this seems like it could be operated with clenched jaws if needed, opened mouth for extended periods of time can cause pain), and having moving pieces that can break or be lost (hopefully not during operation, that could be hard to swallow).


What if that part would be in software - interpret the movement of the tongue as if it was rolling a ball vs sliding across a surface. The device could have a spherical-shaped sensor pad instead of a flat one.


Don't feel too bad, in the video on their website one of the users mentioned using it to control her dildo.


Vibrator. :-)


It's impossible to discuss this thing with a straight face


I think moving a ball would require more effort that sliding your tongue over a static surface, but I suppose it would be a better workout!


I worked in accessible tech for the blind for a few years. It's awesome that these guys are doing something that could be genuinely useful to a swathe of society who really needs the help, and I do wish the space got more attention and money.

However, and I hope I'm wrong here, this is looking like another case of techies with a nifty looking device that will be "available soon" but, more importantly, already tried multiple times and either never caught on for practical reasons or doesn't present a real improvement over what's already out there (0 - for three such mouth trackpads).

I wish the investors and incubators that take these companies to market would do a much better job of coaching the founders on product/market research with target users so they can focus on truly novel solutions to genuine problem spaces that are ignored, but would make a real material improvement to quality if life.

As an example, in BlindTech it was the "smart cane", which is dumb for so many reasons and will never, ever catch on, but every 6 months or so... Here pops another start up with a seed of $0.1-1M to go to market! That money would be better spent just buying "dumb" canes at a volume discount and reselling them... Or, if you insist on developing a BlindTech solution, an app that could tell a user when they missed a button on their blouse or shirt (I never worked in the paraplegic space, so I'm not sure what other challenges the users face).

(0) https://www.disabled-world.com/assistivedevices/smart-mouthw...

https://spinalcordinjuryzone.com/info/17816/glassouse-worlds...

https://quad.life/


Product 1 never reached the market. Product 2 and 3 are very different.


Product 1 - failed (why?) Product 2 - identical use case Product 3 - identical use case

I want to be clear - it's awesome they are putting in the effort to work in accessibility. But why will Product #4 prove profitable when it is a rehash of an approach that has been tried for years without gaining much steam above and beyond what is already there.

What is the evidence that their tweak in technology will be a major market breakthrough? Is it that much easier to use? Is it that much more comfortable? If the answer is inconclusive, then best to leave this application and find an overlooked problem paraplegics face that really could benefit from a technology solution


Agree that learning from past efforts can be helpful, but I think you're shooting things down way too early here. I'm not seeing any specific critique you're making about mouth-based input being a bad pursuit, in fact the three efforts you linked hardly qualify as evidence against the opportunity:

GlassOuse - very different form factor, bulky and limited appeal to a narrow set of the most extreme users (quadriplegics). Probably too early to market too (2017).

Smart Mouthware - what looks like a crowdfunded two person team, seems more like a brief project than a company. Doesn't seem like a serious enough effort.

Quadjoy - completely different, plugged-in product tied to a chair, very expensive ($1400).

There's all sorts of reasons for having many separate groups pursue the same idea over a period of time until one 'gets it' and defines a category [1]. This includes market timing, tech timing, component costs, financing, eng & biz talent, how the market opportunity is understood and pursued, the myriad of specific product decisions that make subtle but important differences in UX, etc.

Just from a tech timing perspective, a serious company building something in this category today would have a product that is considerably smaller, cheaper, and longer lasting than one launched just a few years ago, due to component & supply chain improvements. A smaller, cheaper device means access to a broader market, including out-of-pocket purchases and selling to users who are in a wider spectrum of disability.

[1]: I wrote about this process of getting to category defining products here, in case its of interest: https://nickpunt.com/blog/category-defining-products/


Even copycat competition might help in that it can lower prices for consumers. I use a Penguin mouse and they cost a lot for what is just generic electronics in an unusual-shaped housing. But I can't find any other ambidextrous vertical mouse.


I agree, more competition is generally better but the unfortunate reality of accessible tech is margins are usually already very low, and real market not that big [0]. So if a price war starts the result is usually a company deciding to leave the space entirely.

[0] Yes, there is a huge population of people who will benefit from accessible tech, unfortunately very often they cannot afford the technology and the funding is often limited


> I use a Penguin mouse

I couldn't help but chuckle when I saw what it looked like. I'm curious, what are the advantages to using this over a regular mouse?


> I'm curious, what are the advantages to using this over a regular mouse?

The advantages are probably similar to those of any vertical mouse: There's much less stress on the wrist, which is important if you're suffering from e.g. RSI.

But since in this case the mouse is also ambidextrous, you can switch hands, too. (-> Useful for ambidextrous people and, also, even less stress on the individual wrist.)


For a cheaper setup, I have a right-handed vertical mouse (Amazon $20 special) to the right of my keyboard, and a second left-handed mouse on the left, and I switch between them throughout the day. It makes my desk look a little silly, but it works great!


I've adopted a similarly-inspired setup with a tradtional mouse on the right and a touchpad on the left. I initially added the touchpad to assist with vertical scrolling on Mac OS, but now I move between the two depending on the task and it keeps my wrists happier.


Same setup here. Hoping for even more input devices in more places to spread the load. For instance there's also some folks building ergo keyboard with trackpads near the thumbs to replicate the MacBook experience of a trackpad below spacebar for the occasional pinch zoom or scroll. And having various buttons/knobs for specialized tasks would also be great.


Good idea.


Exactly that. It has a flip switch to swap the left/right buttons when you change hands, but I never use that as I'm used to thinking of right click as index finger and left click as middle finger on either hand.


I've never heard of a "smart cane", I'm curious why its a dumb idea?


I'll link to an open source project [0] because I don't want to throw mud at any particular company, and it is a cool project to develop for anyone motivated enough.

Having said that, it's a dumb product because the cane is very often beaten up, or misplaced so it's an expectation that it will need replacing every 12-18 months. The additional weight needed for the hardware throws off the natural balance of the cane making it more difficult to use and also interferes with the haptic feedback users depend on from a "dumb" cane. Also, the white cane is relatively cheap ($20-50 USD) - smart canes are usually $1000+, or if the "smarts" come as attachments to an analog cane, they would range $300-500 (my intelligence is 2-3 years old, so it might be higher now), so out of reach to most blind people. None are stand-alone and require synching with the phone, but many users who are tech savvy enough to use one of these already uses a navigation app, so one of the key benefits (GPS navigation) is redundant.

Overall the drawbacks (price, negative impact on usability, natural wear and tear) greatly outweigh the possible benefits.

Everyone in the industry is genuine, there is very little profiteering, and the goal across the board is to improve people's lives, but these products are always from young techies (student or technically advanced blind person) who made an awesome project that should be celebrated. But they should also be one-offs and open-sourced, with the money and effort spent on launching smart canes that will inevitably fail in the market better spent elsewhere.

[0] https://maker.pro/arduino/projects/arduino-smart-cane-for-th...


I'd like to see more comments from the target audience, at the moment the comment section is full of abled people who speculate on the needs and experiences of the target audience.


I'm a c-5 incomplete quadriplegic with hemispheric stroke-like paralysis that bothers my body all over. Some of it is just weakness, some of it is incomplete sensation, some of it is total paralysis. I have one weak-yet-functioning hand, and one hand that works only via the tone present in the hand as a rough pointing-poking tool. I use a manual wheelchair. At my injury level I am exceedingly fortunate to have decent trunk and upper body mobility.

I have found setups that work for me, and i'm comfortable now -- but I wish I had something like this years ago when I had to make accommodations.

My main worry in seeing this -- like all accessibility equipment -- is that it will be outrageously priced or locked up behind some kind of insurance coding so as to capture that segment of the market; most medical groups aim for VFW-equivalent equipment coverage on insurance, and I have no-where near that.

That said : I would love this as a device for TIG-torch actuation. That's one nut that I haven't yet been able to crack, and I was seriously considering the idea of tinkering up some kind of mouth-actuated wireless solution for welding. I can imagine this as a PC bridge to an interface that could help realize a fine control for the torch.


    > I would love this as a device for TIG-torch actuation
Thanks for the chuckle.

My mom works with people with disabilities and all of her clients that I've met are like this--determined and capable.

I imagine there's a lot of people who need help in getting these tech setups going with a bunch of trial and error and then after that they can independently operate. Are there any volunteer groups that help with that?


>I imagine there's a lot of people who need help in getting these tech setups going with a bunch of trial and error and then after that they can independently operate. Are there any volunteer groups that help with that?

I'm pretty out-of-touch with the accessibility/advocacy world, but should such a group exist I think that it'd be a blast to work for/with them. Giving someone back an ability is something that may be minor for some, but life-changing for others. I would imagine that it would be immensely gratifying work.

I know of groups like AbleGamers that have helped with gaming accessibility as well as providing equipment for people on a limited-basis. I think they were also one of the forces behind the XBox Adaptive Controller, which was a boon for some.


>My main worry in seeing this -- like all accessibility equipment -- is that it will be outrageously priced or locked up behind some kind of insurance coding so as to capture that segment of the market; most medical groups aim for VFW-equivalent equipment coverage on insurance, and I have no-where near that.

Our trains of though crossed paths here. I was thinking about how useful it might be to an able bodied person, if it would be fun or even beneficial to use. Like having a third hand in gaming would be nice sometimes. Then it immediately called to mind how outrageously expensive aid devices like this tend to be. For example an actually good hearing aid is like $2,000 for some reason. And a really nice robotic wheelchair can be like $40,000. So with disappointment I assume this thing, even if it makes it to scaled up commercial production is going to be out of my price range as someone who doesn't actually need it but wouldn't mind helping to fund the project.

Is the apparent price gouging because insurance might pay for it? Or because some people don't have a choice but to buy it?


I have had periods of time where I couldn't use my hands to use the computer due to bad rsi. I used an eye tracker for controlling the mouse and a voice recognition tool (talon) for typing. However, I couldn't use these for very long because I got a sore throat from speaking in a way the computer understands, and focusing places with my eyes all the time gave me headaches.

While a mouthpad seems slighly superior to an eye tracker, the real benefit lies in having more alternatives in my opinion. So you can use your tongue when your eyes are tired and your eyes when your tongue is tired.


+1 on the complementary potential of the MouthPad^.

As you mention, the MouthPad^ would serve as an awesome tool in tandem with gaze-based cursor control. I’d like to point out that there are also other interface combinations that could work well, too. For example, we have tested using our device in tandem with voice-assistant systems and found preliminary success as our device does not prevent speech. In the end, everyone has different needs and preferences, and each interface has their quirks, so we aim to create a better option by leveraging the power of the tongue (comprised of 8 different muscles, and intrinsically dexterous).


I immediately sent this to my tetraplegic brother in-law. He cannot move his fingers so he uses a special device to precisely point on a touchscreen using his fist. It makes sense to me: other than the fingers, the tongue is probably the most precise output device on the body.


I have joint+nerve issues and struggle using a computer -- but a mouse in particular -- for extended periods. Something like this would be game-changing for me; it would be awesome to have another input with "resolution"/accuracy anywhere close to what the mouse can do. Eye tracking isn't quite it for me, trackballs are very uncomfortable (thumbs are one of the biggest joint issues for me), ergonomic mice that meet my needs are hard to find with left-handed design, keyboard as mouse input works terribly, ... so a device like this would be wonderful.


It's interesting but I wouldn't use it, partly because I got some hand functions still as a quadriplegic, I'm typing this on a keyboard with only my thumbs and I can type quite fast. I also have my mouse clicks switched as I cannot move my index finger, so I click with my middle finger. Other quadriplegics have it worse so things like this would be dope for them. At the end of the day, we will adapt to anything regardless.


> abled people who speculate on the needs

A device like this makes a lot of sense for wearable computing. I wouldn't assume the target market are people with disabilities.


The trailer video exclusively features people with quadriplegia.


Which is somewhat unfortunate. Having the device go mainstream is one way to reduce the cost per unit, or even subsidize the cost for people who really need it. Many accessibility technologies end up being an improvement for everyone.

I would certainly be interested in the device purely from a keeping-both-hands-on-the-keyboard perspective.


This is a fair point.

Although our promotional video features people with quadriplegia, the MouthPad^ is designed for everyone and anyone interested in using their tongue and mouth to control their personal devices. We believe strongly in universal design, and how designing for extremes can create an improved experience for all users, and this has led us to work closely with the disability community. A classic example of the benefits of universal design can be seen in curb cuts, which were initially built into our sidewalks to help accommodate the needs of people living with mobility issues, but ended up providing value to many other groups, such as mothers with strollers, workers with carts, travelers with luggage, runners, skateboarders, etc.


I've always dreamed of controlling my computer with my tongue. This looks fantastic


I'm able bodied, but years back suffered tremendous pain, that led to me having to lie down on my back and use the computer with a keyboard. And TBH even that was a pain. I got quite far under OSX tiger, and browse the web. Use a terminal etc. But at the time it led me into thinking about alternative interfaces. And the one thing that did catch my eye was 'dasher' for text entry. Which could be controlled with a simple pointer. And it did make me wonder how far you could go with a pointer based interface. I wasn't that fast while trying it out. But could construct sentences with a bit of effort.

https://www.inference.org.uk/dasher/

I've been thinking about it some more recently, as AI could assist with word completion, and augmenting it with some AI helpers could really improve things. And if the idea was extended.

Not wanting to sound like an able-ist snob, but interfacing with traditional computers with a keyboard is hard. And the interface is clumsy. Even touch devices and keyboards. My Mum could never use a computer, but she has worked out how to use a tablet and find videos on Youtube. I keep meaning to introduce her to voice input. As this would really benefit her.

Despite the huge tech leaps with smartphones and tablets and what not, I do feel there has been a huge regression in basic communication between people only exacerbated by the pandemic. There's knowledge available easily at people's fingertips and that's great, along with new channels of communication. But text based comms have retarded many people.


Since when we talk, our tongues tap patterns on the roof of the mouth and the back of the teeth, I wonder if AI processing could infer what words you are shaping from these sensors. Maybe it’s possible to input text by mouthing words silently, but without opening your mouth. Kind of like how it’s possible to eavesdrop from just the sound of keyboard clicks:

https://github.com/ggerganov/kbd-audio


Tongue contact might be sufficient (in linguistics, two of the axes of "pronunciation space" are "dental" (whether the tongue makes contact with the teeth) and "palatal" (whether the tongue makes contact with the palate).

There are a number of other dimensions however that are equally important in the creation of word-sounds (e.g., whether the lips are pursed, whether the vocal folds are vibrating, whether the teeth make contact with the lips, where the tongue is located in the space of the mouth [for vowels], etc) and would make determination just from the dental/palatal axes pretty difficult I think. But maybe with enough context, you could get something predictive that is more than good enough, even if it's not into deterministic territory


I think you're talking about subvocal recognition [1]. People are indeed using ML for it, but it looks like it's more complicated than it appears. Still, I think it's only a matter of time before it's available to the average consumer, which I can't wait for because I've wanted something like this for a long time. I do my best thinking when I'm hiking, and I'd love to be able to dictate my thoughts on the move without looking like I'm talking to myself out loud (even though I am, I guess) in public.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition


Several years ago, I was on a long solo drive and thinking about how I would like to be able to communicate with my computer in a subvocal manner. I stuck my pinky finger in my ear canal and "listened" to the deformations of the canal as I spoke, and thought "with a deformation scanner and good machine learning, this could totally work". Later, I registered the domain silentbuds.com to trial the idea but never pursued it. Just did some Googling and see that there are a few new research papers on this approach.


Dasher is really fun!

Remember playing a lot with it back when it was released. Left a lasting impression and broadend my view on input mechanisms.


I realise this is intended for accessibility (for which is looks amazing), but I can also see this gaining widespread abled [0] use for things like gaming, and making mobile computing easier.

I can see myself pulling out the iPad on the train, and popping in the mouthpad to make navigation through Mails, Procreate, etc. easier.

[0] I tried "non-disabled" here, but that just seemed too clumsy. Am I missing an obvious term?


Abled is the correct term, yeah. Sometimes we call them pre-disabled if we're being cheeky or trying to make a point.


You mean tongue in cheek.


I meant what I said you cheeky bugger.


Yes, while we all tend to jump to permanent disabilities as the justification for accessibility, one can have situationally or otherwise temporarily reduced ability. Examples that jump to mind:

* broken fingers

* wearing gloves at a cold station

* a parent holding a bottle while feeding a newborn baby

* a chef working with busy/messy hands

* a computer with a dodgy mouse and no trackpad


I bet the CIA could make nice use of this too - imagine spies sending messages completely undetected even when standing a foot away from someone.


"able-bodied" is a common one, but doesn't quite fit here. I think "widespread" on its own is good enough to get across that you mean expanding to outside the market of disabled people


Your sentence makes perfect sense if you just omit "abled", but it seems like a perfectly cromulent word.


Lick right in Tinder!


One use case that popped in my head was stealthy use, like card counting or cheating on tests. Especially if it had some kind of haptic feedback.


"abled" is the term your looking for, yes.


Better interfaces will always be valuable. I see no reason to believe keyboard and mouse are the pinnacle.


It seems pretty nifty.

I played around with Tobii eye-tracking hardware half a decade ago and was pretty amazed by its precision. I understand now it also has Glasses (vs. the model I tried, a tracker you put below your monitor usually). Marrying eye-tracking glasses with this mouthpad might be a winning combination: eye-tracking being the mouse to navigate in xy-space, and mouthpad for clicks.

Kudos to this group for putting out a finished product though, can't wait to see it used and iterated more out in the field.


The tongue muscle can be trained. This is also useful for at least one other activity.


I switched to using a glue stick for mailing letters.


That's also a neat way of avoiding the "poisoned reply envelope" trick in case someone's trying to murder you


Or if someone doesn't want to marry you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ0UngGRsck


I can't help but think that there's easier ways to call off a wedding


I wonder if this has fine enough resolution to allow the wearer to input text by writing letters with their tongue.


If it can be used as a pointer, it can be used as textual input. People use existing tools like eye-tracking for text input.


So expect one as a stocking stuffer from the significant other?

—edit—

Mavis Beacon Teaches… umm, got nothing.

Ok, I’m done.


Tobii's tech is used in Sony's PSVR2 for eye tracking and it works wonderfully with foveated rendering or to point at menu elements with your eyes


I just tried this in my mind, eyes (point) + tounge (click, double-click) would definitely be a great interface combo.


Hello everyone, I am Corten, one of the co-founders of Augmental. I must say that it’s pretty amazing to see the MouthPad^ make some waves in this forum - thank you for your support and interest! As you can imagine, things have been busy on our end, but I’ll answer as many questions as I can.

Our main goal in designing the MouthPad^ is to provide universal digital accessibility for all, and to explore alternative input modalities for wearable hands-free interaction. The MouthPad^ is designed for anyone interested in using their tongue and mouth to control their personal devices, including computers, tablets and smartphones. In particular, we have worked closely with the disability community as this alternative input modality provides immediate value. We strongly believe that, in working with this community, we can build a better interface for everyone. As such, we envision a future in which anyone could have a MouthPad^!


My first impression was What the actual F**, but after watching the video I'm so blown away and impressed by how this can make people's life better. it's really exciting.


This sounds amazing for accessibility - for anyone more familiar than I am, is this true? Or are there major drawbacks?


What a great idea, I suffered from really debilitating rsi for a few years which affected my ability to use a keyboard and mouse. Knowing theres options out there really kept me hopeful.


I want to repeat this in USB2 version and use it for reading books. What kind of moving sensor might be a good choice? I want something like a stylophone with tongue-controlled five buttons (traditional joystick approach) plus tooth-controlled ctrl as a regular button. Buttons might be sensed like licking AG4 battery (the least 1.5V battery I ever seen) - but I do not understand an electronic design which is going to sense the tongue.

5 hours of active use with no ability to change the battery is a shit, let's be honest. It will be 4 hours after 100 full recharges, you know this process. Also Bluetooth HID devices will never be acceptable for shooters while non-Bluetooth tongue controller may be a pivot point in cyber-sport industry because of less lag between the brain and the HID.


We have actually created a few USB/wired versions of our device, specifically with gaming latency concerns in mind! We made a version for our friend and Augmental champion, Rocky NoHands (https://twitter.com/RockyNoHands), to complement his QuadStick gaming setup. In our test sessions together, there were no battery power issues as the wired prototype uses the USB for both communication and power. With that prototype, we had the added benefit of being able to debug simultaneously over Bluetooth without interfering with any USB data transmission. You can watch Rocky play Apex using this wired version as a Left Analog Input (movement commands) in a few clips in our promotional video. Hopefully one day in the future we will be able to offer a wired version of the MouthPad^ to our customers! Also, as we optimize our firmware to support improved power-saving techniques, we hope to see our current battery lifetimes increase from ~5.5 hours.


> Also, as we optimize our firmware to support improved power-saving techniques, we hope to see our current battery lifetimes increase from ~5.5 hours.

Do you have a plans to use thermal energy or something based on movement? I would like to blow a whistle or to do something with sculls to rotate some generator.


I cant say that Im not interested in clever ways to draw power from the mouth, of which there are many cool options, but the reality is such that we wont really be able to address many of these features until we receive funding to support our growth so that we can dedicate an R&D team to tackle some of these tasks. Until then, our team count remains in the single digits.


There's also a tongue display unit, which consists of a matrix you place on the tongue and it outputs DC voltages on the tongue.

"The tongue display unit (TDU) for electrotactile spatiotemporal pattern presentation" - https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/82729288.pdf

Also see - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/15/seeing-with-yo...


This seems like it could go well with AR glasses. Could even be extended to scan the mouth and recognize subvocalizations so you could talk to it without emitting sound or opening your mouth. I.e. a general purpose input device.


There is something being worked on at NeurotechSC utlising OpenBCI's tech with regards to this, "Synthetic Telepathy with Subvocal Recognition":

https://openbci.com/community/synthetic-telepathy-with-subvo...

mouthpad + subvocalisation....keyboards and mice are DONEZO.

very cool shit.


That would be a game changer, if feasible. I used to wonder why no one tried building a transceiver that picked up speech vibrations from skull perhaps through the ear cavity.


Those exist. Main application is military/police radio, because you can use them even with a gas mask on.

Disadvantages are that you need to fully speak (whispering and sub-vocalizing doesn't work), and your voice sounds kind of funny.

Keywords is "bone conduction microphone" or "ear bone microphone".


What’s the state of the art in subvocalization. I would love to have that as a voice input option.


I've been wanting a wearable computer with a display integrated into glasses for years. A few years ago I got to try one that was on par with a Fitbit Versa, which would be perfect for me. (I never got one, and now it's not being made.)

Something like this would be perfect for a wearable computer. I personally want to try one, but I suspect the cost, and custom molding, are too high to "just try it out." I had a 3D scan of my mouth a few months ago for a bite guard, and it cost more than $700.

One thing that I want to point out is that the battery module next to the molars looks very uncomfortable.


> One thing that I want to point out is that the battery module next to the molars looks very uncomfortable.

Slip a finger back there and you'll find out it's not uncomfortable at all. It's really not.


I love this. Not just for restoring pointing capabilities to people without the use of their hands or dexterity, but for how unintrusive it is.

How awesome would it would be to use this to control a head-mounted display like Google Glass? Imagine if I could be out in public and operate a computer without it ever being obvious that I'm doing anything—without it ever getting in the way, without it ever distracting others.

Maybe we finally have a matching input method to go with those contact-lens HUDs.

And oh man, imagine the covert opportunities this would open up. Phone not allowed? That's OK, I have a computer in my head. My limbs can be full or even tied up and I'd still be able to compute. In a threatening situation where I can't move? That's fine, I can call for help or start a recording with just the use of my tongue, without putting myself in any additional danger.

Plus, tongue control lacks a lot of the issues that BCIs normally bring up, like the difficulty of inhibiting random electrical signals in my brain. With my tongue, there is no doubt that any movement I make was entirely intended. I can be faster and more efficient because I can perform actions with more certainty and less ambiguity.

I've joined the waitlist. Digits crossed that this doesn't end up costing tens of thousands of dollars, although there's no price listed so it probably will.


I love this. This is an awesome idea for accessibility and, presumably for ergonomics. I don't have any accessibility requirements that would warrant this, but it seems like it would be really convenient and ergonomic to be able to keep your hands on the keyboard all the time. I have three questions.

1. How do you clean this? As someone who uses a mouth guard at night, they can get pretty grody if you're not meticulous with them. Can you use denture cleaner or similar on the product?

2. Are you consulting with dentists on this? It seems like you're putting an invisalign analog in your mouth and that could be potentially harmful to one's bite. Presumably if you're using this as an accessibility device the pros outweigh the cons there, but I am curious.

3. How is tongue fatigue with this? Have you found people's tongues get tired after using it for a while or has that been a non-issue?

Again, love this idea and wish you all the success.


It's weird that the FAQ doesn't include how much it costs, including the 3D dental scan. You'd think that'd be a pretty obvious, frequently-asked question.

Anyway, aside from the obvious use-case of people with motor impairment in their hands, I could see this being useful to help with the "keep hands on keyboard" mindset that causes a lot of people to eschew the use of a mouse or trackpad. You can get the best of both worlds here, keeping your hands on the keyboard at all times, but still able to move the pointer around, even while simultaneously typing.

My initial reaction was that it would be hard to learn to use a device like this, but then I started moving my tongue around on the roof of my mouth, and realized there's a lot more dexterity and fine control there than I realized. Maybe even as much as a finger. After watching their "trailer", they mention they liken the tongue to the "eleventh finger", which actually seems like a pretty apt description to me.


I wonder what the tongue equivalent of RSI will be?

Jokes aside, it's really great to see innovations like this in human-machine interfaces.


There might actually be positive elements from strengthening tongue muscles - better elocution/pronunciation, less snoring.


> I wonder what the tongue equivalent of RSI will be?

Throat cancer


What would be the mechanism of that?


caused by stress?


I 100% would love to try this but seeing the FAQ and the "prioritizing close to San Francisco" does kinda suck. I know it's still a stupid early prototype but I wish I could register a "please let me override your location demands" because I'd be willing to travel/go through /some/ hoops.


If you are considering signing up to our waitlist, I encourage you to enter information like this in the optional text box at the end of the sign-up form to let us know. We are mainly interested in prioritizing Beta customers who are in close proximity so that we can provide amazing, personalized support during the onboarding process and in the ensuing early days of usage, but we are not absolutists by any means. If there are any other interested Beta customers who would be willing to travel to us, we would be happy to know that and will take it into consideration as we move forward in processing all the incoming waitlist requests. Thanks!


This would also work great as a non-verbal, non-hands communication device. Currently research is being done in Subvocal Recognition [1] but it's very imprecise and can essentially only get to yes/no answers.

Imagine using this along with something like PalmOS Graffiti [2] + predictive text to send silent messages to people.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti_(Palm_OS)


Really interesting! Some of my students made a mouse similar to this back in 2018. https://imgur.com/a/3irXJnD


Can someone with late stage ALS still control their tongue? I understand other muscle groups in their are non-functioning by then. However, is the tongue still controllable. If so, this is a clear game changer.


My father was disabled (MS) and at the clinic he was (for demented or otherwise thought impaired people at the end of their life), there was this elderly guy who had a wheel chair and controlled it with a poke (red!) which he controlled with his chin. It was fabulous to see. And a reminder of how addictive smoking/drugs is, cause he'd often go down to the smoking area with his wheelchair, pack of Caballero sitting on the small desk his wheelchair had. I'm not sure how he fired these up though.


I must say I thought this was some "become a 100X engineer, write code faster by using your tongue!!!" venture capital thing, until I saw the video.

Great work, but without having the context of the video it is weird.


I had an In-Mouth device idea that might have a potentially bigger market and easier to make if you need a pivot idea: https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/12kunua/explori...


as an accessory to make PCs more accessible this might be a revolutionizing device for people with disabilities - what a time to be alive!


Great idea. With every technology advancement that could become mainstream like this one, we seem to get closer and closer to the brain.


If this one is pretty inexpensive and can be bought without a doctor prescription, this would be a great improvement.

Out of curiosity, I had looked into getting a tongue-controlled device some years ago (to complement an eye tracking interface I had made for playing a specific game without keyboard/controller as a challenge), but had run into these two blockers.


Unfortunately lots of ergonomic or accessible tools are very expensive. I guess one part is that they're niche. But I think it's mainly that it's often companies buying them (often because they need to make the workplace accessible by law), and then the makers can charge what they want.


Wonderful idea if it works out. I imagine that the scanning and molding of the device can benefit from existing Invisalign tech.


Such a simple, feasible, and useful idea. I'm surprised this hasn't been a thing for a decade already.



1997! Why hasn't this become mainstream?


It requires custom hardware to fit each user's mouth properly, and as a medical device, a doctor's note is required. Or at least way back when. The FDA may have moved on that, enabling this device this time around.


Define 'mainstream' ? The market for this thing is pretty limited.

And tongue controlled controllers aren't a novelty, they are used sometimes, but again - they are mostly one-time devices.


I’ve never heard of tongue control devices before today. What are you referring to?


Likely this one, from 1998.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0960-1317/8/2/028...

Unfortunately, Steven Hawking's muscular dystrophy affected his tongue as well so he was unable to use it, but it was in that context that I heard about it.


Just search for 'tongue controlled/activated'. Eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQitEbzulvY


> Initial 3D intraoral dental scan

> Custom-designed MouthPad^ device

This seems expensive. I hope the future brings a more general version.


Dental offices all over the country have scanners that use regular cameras + photogrammetry to create 3d models of your teeth. They've become pretty widespread with the rise of Invisalign, Smile Direct, and others. These scans can be pretty inexpensive, like a few hundred dollars or less.


Also creating custom devices for orthodontics is pretty common already


That depends if the 3D intraoral scan can be done by running an app and then putting your (open) mouth over the rear camera with the LED on, and moving it around until it beeps. Or if you have to go into a doctor's office to get it.

The custom design is simply a matter of business process on top of a standardized scan.


Could be, but I would imagine if they were able to certify this as a medical device that it could be covered in part or in whole by insurance in some (non-US I would imagine) countries.


This does not need to be expensive. I expect the price to drop down with economy of scale


This is very cool. IIRC, in William Gibson's The Peripheral, characters in the future timeline would control their "phones" with their tongues just like this. I believe they had implants on the roof of their mouths instead of a prosthetic, but basically the same concept.


Do you think it may have some… adult applications?

(cue Mitchell & Webb's sketch about armored scorpion of death)


Watch the video?


Teledildonics is big business these days!


Wow. That is quite innovative. The advertised version is the equivalent of trackpad. I am wondering if the back of the teeth, upper jaw and lower jaw forming two rows, could somehow be mapped to keys to enable typing and the equivalent of swiftkey.


I think this is quite cool! Even for abled people, I can use a bluetooth trackpad and doing other things with both hands. And I think it's a good way to interact with TV.

However, for me it seems that I can't eat things when wearing it, or it can be hard to clean.


"it's a mouthpad" "you mean mousepad??" "no, MOUTHpad"


I heard the firmware is written in Lisp.


It also hangs on your teeth


My guess is this w8list and the custom devices are a huge cashcow for them. I bet they could just mass produce them in a soft form that may not be perfectly fit every mouth but fit well enough to be used.

What do these things coast? I bet its a fortune.


Wonder if using this for a few years would change your accent lol.


Great idea! Does anyone know what the current state of brainwave navigation is? I saw a flurry of investment in new startups over the last 5 years but it's all gone a bit quiet


I am half way through "The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology" by Nita A. Farahany [1] and it is not a matter of if; but of when. I can only guess that the same advances in transformers etc that are buzzfeeding the LLM space right now will also accelerate BMI systems. Introducing new input and output sensory pathways between the brain and the world is yet another potentially transformational species defining tech for society to watch for on the radar screen as if there was not enough going on in that department.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60784561


It turns out that the promised innovations never came, not without having to put in way more work training the brain than buyers of a toy wanted to put in.

You can buy a Neurosky off eBay to play with for < $200 if you're really interested in trying to do said training.


Are there any versions of something like this for basic media controls?: play/pause, next/previous, etc. I've always wanted one for biking.


I guess you can't talk while it is in.


Due to the fact that we incorporate each user’s custom 3D dental scan into the design process, the MouthPad^ is actually quite thin and doesnt prevent speech when worn. With our earliest test users, we have already explored using the MouthPad^ as a complementary tool to voice-control systems.

One example is asking a voice assistant to open “today’s news”, and then using the MouthPad^ to navigate through the options and select the desired link, which is captured briefly in our promotional video (a scene where Krystina is controlling her smart phone). Another example that can be found in our video is when Rocky NoHands uses his MouthPad^ to call his girlfriend, during which he is able to speak with ease. Of course, results may vary, but we have found all our test users are able to speak just fine so far.


The form factor seems similar to a retainer so it might not be much of an impediment to talking as long as you can turn it off and on.


Wonderful accessibility aside, that's a brilliant name. It's just fun to say.


Unless you're wearing it i guess.


This could do wonders for people that can't use their limbs to control devices.


knew a few guys working on an eye tracking mouse (clicking was still manual)

pretty cool


What would be best for (double-)clicking? Tongue? Or by biting?


Would love to see the base of products like this open sourced.


Wow!!!! Amazing!! So usefull, not only as assistivetech!!


Can't wait to see what Kyle Machulis does with this!


I wonder if Hans Niemann is familiar with this tech.


Nice idea! Is it using nRF52832 or smth similar?


Yep, although we started with the 32, we are now using nRF52840.


It's nice to see their marketing is sex-positive at a time when it seems like the mainstream Internet is becoming more and more prudish.


Are the batteries easily digested?


cunnilingus simulator 0_0


[flagged]


"Every year, around the world, between 250,000 and 500,000 people suffer a spinal cord injury."

There's a clue that starts at 0:00 in the video.


Well, you haven't watched the video, right?


Because they cannot use a regular mouse/trackpad? Be it for not having functioning hands or using them for something else.


just think a little outside yourself and you'll get there.


[flagged]


Powered by carbon sequestering unicorn farts too!


I built a little voice front-end for my aging father to interact with GPT. He has solved a few issues that would be easy with google, but he won't use google on his own. He likes that he can talk to an 'AI'.

So it literally is already unblocking some computing avenues, for some people. This will grow a lot in the near future, as real professionals do serious versions of my toy.


You might find some fun in this headline you kind of predicted:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-04-24/a-high-sc...


Be nice.


[flagged]


Because people who have lost fine motor control over their hands and fingers cannot exercise fine motor control with their hands and fingers.


Watch the video. It's not clear before you watch it..


Wow!




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