ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease or MND) patients represent a subgroup of people with fully functional cognitive abilities who gradually lose their speech and the use of their upper limbs, and cannot communicate with their environment due to physical limitations. They need alternative ways to communicate but the devices currently on the market easily cost $5000 and aren’t always the most practical at the same time.
A new Indiegogo campaign has launched to change that with a new and cheaper eye control and give those patients their voice back. The name is very suitable as it’s simply called EyeControl. The campaign has just started and it already raised over a third of the $30000 funding goal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=12&v=GwB8Iw2kmE4
The campaign has high goals and it is something that could improve the lives of the 70% of ALS patients who can’t afford one of the expensive gadgets. The price has been cut by 95% in comparison and takes away the big screen by allowing them to use simply a smartphone, speaker system, or headset.
An infra-red camera is connected to simple glass frames and communicates with a credit-card sized computer which identifies and translates the blinks and movements of the userøs eyes into commands which will output in sound, to earphones and to a speaker.
It can also transmit these to a smartphone via Bluetooth to run an application which enables the patient to communicate using text to speech mechanism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK7c0eCqv8A
Let us hope that the Indiegogo campaign will be a big success and thereby allow more people to live a better life.
