Notes

Amazon will Offer the Muscle-sensing Myo Geo Gesture Armband by the first Quarter of the Year.

About a year after receiving our first taste of Myo, Thalmic Labs has announced that it will be reaching out to the masses by using Amazon this quarter. The Myo's gesture-control armband that is available for pre-order via the site of the company, will cost $199. But before that, Thalmic Labs has already sold the pre-orders of 50,000 (with about half of them shipped to buyers as of now) this is an excellent endorsement to the use case examples showed off by Thalmic Labs and its several partners.
Rokanthemes


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. This allows the device to detect hand gestures. These gestures include squeezing, spreading your hands, waving your hands left and right, turning your forearm, and even one quick pinch with a second finger (which can be used to activate or pause your Myo). A gyroscope, accelerometer, and magnetometer are all available to detect arm motion.



The Myo has no power button. It starts to wake up the moment you pick it up and automatically goes to sleep if it is left alone. If you use it continuously the battery should last between 10 to 14 hours. This is quite impressive.



The communication link is based 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 the playback of videos volume, playback, and race the sun, a fun game of flight-based obstacle avoidance, and an Orbotix Ollie rolling robotic robot. With the exception of connectivity issues with the Ollie and the difficult nature of the game's game, most of these scenarios were easy for us.



We've seen Myo demonstrations that involved PowerPoint, iTunes, Call Of Duty, Parrot AR.Drone and several smart glassess. Users can download apps "connectors" from the Myo Market to try out the various use cases, as well as to control Spotify, Netflix, Sonos plus popular games like Minecraft and Saints Row IV.



Thalmic Labs had impressive displays just prior to CES. The company's Myo integration was announced in November by TedCas. This allows surgeons to manipulate images from medical devices without having to touch screens. Haute Technique shared the story of how it allowed Armin van Buuren who is a Dutch DJ who uses the armband as a control device for the stage lights at his concerts. With major companies betting on gesture control this year, it'll be interesting to see if the folks behind gesture cameras can come up with something as impressive.



Update: The product page on Amazon is now active.


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