Notes

Amazon will have the Muscle-sensing Myo Geo Gesture Armband in Quarter One

Thalmic Labs announced that it will be reaching out to the masses via Amazon this quarter, one year after we first tested the Myo. Deepspaceii As with its pre-order on the website of the company the muscle-sensing, hand-held device will retail for $199. But even before that, Thalmic Labs has already sold 50,000 pre-orders (with about half of them delivered to customers so far) this is an excellent endorsement to the use cases that were shown 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 point of your forearm. It allows the device to detect hand gestures. These gestures include squeezing, spreading your hands, moving your hands left or right, rotating your forearm and even a quick pinch with another finger (which can be used to turn on or stop your Myo). A gyroscope, accelerometer, and magnetometer are all available to detect arm motion.



There is no power button on the Myo; it wakes up when you take it out of your pocket and then automatically goes back to sleep if left alone for a while. A single charge should last somewhere between 10 to 14 hours if you use it continuously, which is quite impressive.



Bluetooth LE is used to communicate with the Myo Connect application. The app relays motion information back to the device or program that you are controlling. Thalmic Labs demo room featured the Myo to control video playback as well as volume and race the sun, a thrilling game that focuses on flight-based obstacle avoidance and an Orbotix Ollie rolling robotic robot. Except for the connectivity issue with the Ollie and the difficult nature of the game, the majority of these scenarios were quite simple for us.



We have seen Myo demos that included PowerPoint, iTunes and Call Of Duty. Users can download app "connectors" from the Myo Market to try out the various use cases and also to control Spotify, Netflix, Sonos plus popular games like Minecraft and Saints Row IV.



Thalmic Labs had impressive displays just prior to CES. In November, the company introduced TedCas' Myo integration, which allows surgeons to manipulate medical images without touching a monitor or a pointer device. In the next month, Haute Technique shared its story of how it let Dutch DJ Armin van Buuren to use the armband to control the stage lighting during his performances. With many companies betting big on gesture control this year, it will be interesting to see if the people behind the cameras for gesture control can cook up something just as impressive.



Update: The product page is now live on Amazon.


Homepage: https://deepspaceii.com/