Notes

Muscle-sensing Myo Gesture Armband will be on Amazon this Quarter

Thalmic Labs announced that it will be reaching out to the masses via Amazon this quarter, just one year after we first tried the Myo. Similar to its pre-order available on the website of the company the muscle-sensing, armband for controlling gestures will retail for $199. However, before that, Thalmic Labs has already sold more than 50,000 pre-orders (with around half delivered to customers so far) and that's a nice nod of approval to some of the use case examples showed by Thalmic Labs and its several partners.



Gallery: Thalmic Labs' Myo armband at CES 2015. 5 Photos



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The Myo is a set of eight muscle-sensing module that can be affixed to the broadest part of your forearm. It allows the device to detect hand gestures. These include squeezing your fist, spreading your hands, waving your hand to the left or right, turning your fist, or as simple as a pinch with your thumb and another finger (which can be set to either activate or stop the Myo). An accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer are available to detect arm motion.
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The Myo has no power button. It wakes up immediately when you take it out of your hand and automatically sleeps when left alone. A single charge can last between 10 and 14 hours if you use it regularly, which is impressive.



The communication protocol relies on Bluetooth LE, and there's an Myo Connect application that feeds the motion input back to the device or program you're using to control. Thalmic Labs demo room featured the Myo to control video playback, volume, and race the sun, a fun flight-based obstacle avoidance, game and an Orbotix Ollie rolling robot. Except for the connectivity issue with the Ollie and the arduous nature of the game, most of these scenarios were straightforward for us.



We've previously seen Myo demonstrations that involved PowerPoint, iTunes, Call Of Duty, Parrot AR.Drone and a variety of smart glasses. Users will be able download app "connectors" from the Myo Market to try out the various use cases and also for controlling Spotify, Netflix, Sonos plus popular games like Minecraft and Saints Row IV.



Thalmic Labs also had some impressive showcases just before CES. In November, the company unveiled TedCas' Myo integration, which allows surgeons to manipulate medical images without touching a monitor or pointed device. Haute Technique shared the story of how it was able to allow Armin van Buuren the Dutch DJ who uses the armband as a controller for the stage lighting during his shows. It'll be interesting to see what the people behind the gesture cameras have to come up with, given that companies are investing heavily in gesture control.



Update The product page on Amazon is now live.


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