Suffer from RSI, how to use EyeX to control mouse?

[Harold]

Hello all,

As an indie games developer, Ive started to suffer from painful RSI due to the inherent repetitive straining involved with mousing 24/7, 7 days a week. I purchased the EyeX to help offset this, but cant find any settings that allow me to properly replace my mouse with the eye tracker.

I can toy around with the features/settings in the Tobii software easily enough, but those ‘features’ themselves just feel like technical demonstrators. Theres no real utility there, or none that I can see. Perhaps this tech/software isn’t as mature as I’d hoped?

[JoyfulRogue]

http://iris.xcessity.at/

Check out this program, it’s the best hope you got. Tobii just makes the hardware hoping that people like Iris developer will develop the right software I guess.

Iris will allow you to move the cursor with your eyes and create on-screen buttons that allow you to click and press keyboard buttons as you like. Tons of functions and a very solid piece of software, help me out a lot with my carpal tunnel

[Stephen]

Replacing my mouse is the main reason I’m purchasing one–I’m just now beginning to recover from a several month bout with RSI. At the worst point I had trouble opening doors. Speaking from experience, without proper treatment, even if you rest your arm or stop using the mouse or cease activities that usually aggravate the injury, it seldom recovers. A lot of medical professionals aren’t used to seeing this sort of injury (which is one of the reasons Carpal Tunnel surgeries have such a low success/non-recurrence rate). The first therapist I saw actually tried to treat me for tennis elbow, and the next doctor sent me for X-rays for further examination until I saw an out of network therapist who specializes in computer-type use RSI, and I’m finally getting some relief.

This was a great resource for me: http://onlineachesolutions.com/about-suparna/
I hope this helps–I just know that I could have been without pain if I’d had proper treatment in the first place.

[Jenny [Tobii]]

Hi,

I’d just like to point out that the EyeX Dev Kit is just a Dev Kit and not a consumer product. It is meant to be used for developing games and applications for EyeX, using the EyeX SDK to access the EyeX Engine API. That said, the EyeX Installer Bundle includes not only the EyeX Engine runtime but also a product called EyeX Interaction developed by Tobii. EyeX Interaction is built on top of the EyeX Engine API and makes a number of apps and OS features in Windows eye-gaze enabled. EyeX Interaction can be seen as a live sample application of some of the things you can do through the EyeX Engine API. EyeX Interaction does not have a feature to replace a mouse with the eye tracker, but it has a couple of features that might be interesting for you to try out:

• Mouse Warp – Move the mouse a little bit to make the pointer jump and appear where you look.
• Mouse Clone – Hold down a key to temporarily get a second mouse pointer where you look.
• Touch Warp – Place, then pause your finger on the touchpad to make the pointer appear where you look.

Disclaimer: The EyeX Interaction software is still quite experimental when it comes to its scope and features. Features might be removed without notice.

[Stephen]

I believe we realize that it’s currently a beta tool, but it’s also the best option available (such as having the most forgiveness for head repositioning among current options) and very functional and coupled with outside developer programs. Aside from being really cool, Tobii seems certain to be a large player or one of the leaders in eye tracking, and so unless there are other options or Tobii products of which I am unaware, it’s probably a good choice. It’s also worth some risk to reduce mouse strain after having dealt with RSI. I was just thrilled to find a functional, publicly-available beta device.

Also, based on your work at other companies like Samsung and The Eye Tribe, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if eye tracking became standard in computers within five years–and actually surprised if it hasn’t in 10. Does Tobii have similar any predictions or hopes?

[Konstantin [Tobii]]

Hi,
I’d just like to point out that Tobii is working with eye tracking in quite some different fields.
The Tobii EyeX is as mentioned above a developer kit and aiming towards developers who in that case can develop their own software or integrate eye tracking into existing once.

However, another part in Tobii Group is called Tobii Dynavox and working with devices and software towards AAC.
Have a look here: http://www.tobiidynavox.com/devices/

/Konstantin

[Harold]

@Tobii mods – Surely it couldn’t of been that hard to add mouse replacing functionality? ‘Even as a ‘dev kit’ the example functions you’ve included are useless. And not only that, I’m expected to pay this random Iris guy another 99 euros just so this hardware is actually useful? Thank god I didn’t buy the steel series sentry, which I was also certain had mouse replacing functionality – but of course it doesn’t either.

I understood it was a dev kit. But that doesn’t mean It should have zero functionality what so ever. Not including bare-bones functionality outside of the gimmicks, seems lazy and a missed opportunity. Thousands, if not millions of people suffer from repetitive strain injury. Many of those people are also struggling to pay bills, rent, put food on the table. We are all very wary of scams and snake oil.

Add in the fact that almost no MD knows how to properly treat RSI and you have a very serious situation where the injury itself just gets horrifically worse as we spend more and more on useless doctor visits, online scams and garbage tech. As Stephen has said, this is the best thing we have at our disposal (apparently) to be able to use our computers once again without inflaming the injury, yet again. At 99 euros this could of been absolutely amazing. I could be singing its praises in both the Unity, and Unreal Engine forums – convincing people its not garbage tech or a scam – where thousands suffer from RSI (we even have RSI help threads running with tips and advice) but instead I’m here, in pain and angry because Im faced with another 99 euro paywall for whats essentially a driver?

Cheers for that.

@ Stephen Yea Ive heard you never really recover. Your muscle groups become so damaged, and the fascia hardens to such a degree that you become ultra sensitive to any repetitive or straining activity. Its absolutely hell for anyone with a career in computers. Tennis elbow is exactly what I got diagnosed with as well, after carpal tunnel. It actually effects both upper and lower arm muscle groups and the MD’s have no clue what there doing. I have a feeling millions of people are suffering with RSI which their MD are incorrectly diagnosing. What then dosnt help is being repeatedly scammed trying to find some way to beat the pain.

[Konstantin [Tobii]]

Dear Winston,

The only thing we were talking about in this thread is actually that this specific device, the Tobii EyeX, has a different purpose.

Of course we cannot develop every single device to fit all purposes, because then they wouldn’t be good. Sometimes a company has to take decisions, do I want a good device, for 1 or 2 two certain purposes, or a rather ok device for 5 or 6 different purposes.

A different example…
Car manufactures… they build small cars, large card and transporters. However, you cannot use each of those cars for the same purpose, of course a small car has a trunk too, so you can put stuff in, but not an entire livingroom, neither will you be able to pull a heavy trailer. But with a transporter you will be, although you can’t park it everywhere.

The Steelseries Sentry, has absolutely no need for a mouse emulator, as it’s intended for E-Sports and to control computer games, have a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VzMd8itaLA
The Tobii EyeX dev-kit is for companies or developers to do something with eye tracking, a new software, or maybe additional features.
The Tobii EyeX Dev-Kit comes with quite a lot of software, 2 different SDK’s, a low-level SDK and a high-level SDK, have a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJEA9Z3SaUo

I understand every single word of what you’re saying or what you’re requesting here. But you do actually request it from the wrong people.
Tobii Group is split up in 3 different parts, 1. Tobii Tech (consumer and integration – having this forum and the Tobii EyeX), 2. Tobii Pro (research), 3. Tobii Dynavox (global leader in AAC)

So please have a look at Tobii Dynavox website and you will find plenty of products which will suite your requirements better, also they will be able to help you with funding questions or similar (if required): http://www.tobiidynavox.com
Tobii Dynavox on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSFhjTdkb4rt4GiIPmDypQA

For your Tobii EyeX, your can request a refund here: http://developer.tobii.com/support/return-eyex-controller/

[Lewis]

One possible way to use this to replace the mouse that I am currently trying to get to work for myself is to use the mouse warp feature in conjunction with dwell clicking software. I have downloaded dwell clicker 2, and if I could only get the mouse warp to move the mouse where I look when I look at a different place (not when I move a separate mouse or click a key), then I think this product could potentially replace a mouse. I have also downloaded the tobii pceye go software, which they apparently offer for free, and believe that I might be able to get it to work with this eye tracker if I could simply get mouse warp to move the mouse where I look when I look. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that is an included feature, so I guess I’m going to be returning this eye tracker.

[Michael Gallagher]

Lewis – Did you ever figure out how to use dwell clicker 2 with the EyeX?

[Balazs Lajtha]

My wife got me a Tobii Eyex for Christmas, she thought that it would be a great present for a casual gamer like me. It turns out that only a handful of games support Tobii, and among those only a couple are well integrated. I bought AC Syndicate, still downloading.

But I’m also a sw developer, so wanted to check out how such a device could speed up my work. And oh boy! Combined with a touchpad the mouse warp function is just what I needed. I set the minimal warp distance to 2cm (on a 17″ laptop screen) and hadn’t have to use the touchpad for moving the pointer ever since. It’s super fast and comfortable. For clicking, I still use the buttons, and sometimes it’s necessary to correct the jump, but it’s awesome for editing text, clicking on buttons, switching between tabs and windows, etc.

Wonder how it will perform on two displays, but even if it won’t work on the secondary, it’ll still be a great tool.

[Grant [Tobii]]

Hi @lajthabalazs, That’s great news! Glad to hear you are happy with our product and Merry Christmas… the number of games supporting eye tracking is constantly growing so I hope you will have more to enjoy with the Tobii Tracker in the future!

[Author]

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