MouthPad: A Tongue-Controlled Touchpad

anilgulecha

This is a very novel UX and assistive tech, and I know more users globally (and in India for me) would find this useful.

newsclues

Haven’t these existed before for military purposes?

astrashe2

This seems really clever. I don't know anything about what it takes to serve the targeted needs, so I could be wrong. But it's the sort of thing that pops out as really cool and useful, tech that makes the world better.

gabriel666smith

This looks great for accessibility specifically. My fiancee is partially-sighted, so (while not directly related) I'm extremely supportive of developments in assistive tech. There's a lot of difference to people's lives that can be made. For me personally - maybe because I'm not a very nice person, or maybe it's an association that many people would make - clever as the pun in the product name is, it does make me think of saying "mousepad" with a lisp. This seems like a non-ideal association.

angry_octet

I can see exam candidates having mouth inspections in the future.

rad-b

So refreshing to see such and interesting innovation in the hardware space! Curious as to what’s the business play here, as at $1400 a piece these don’t seem like mass-market devices. And the high-end market is even more constrained with the size of the subpopulation it is aimed at. Regardless of the business model, fingers crossed that more great assistive tech like this one ships!

t-3

If it can be made comfortable and cheap enough, this could be useful as an interface for AR glasses. The tongue is very sensitive and dextrous, and I imagine that even swipe typing with this kind of touchpad is probably feasible.

arm32

As someone who uses head, eye and facial gesture tracking regularly while doing long medical treatments which tie up both my hands, I would really love something like this.

gulmothrowaway

Step aside Codex Micro!

victorbjorklund

Wonder if tongue would get tired from it or not an issue.

Tomte

Surgery robots have a tongue controller. It takes a while to train on that, but when you‘re trained your tongue muscle is the most precise way to control, say, subtle incisions deep inside the brain.

vivzkestrel

chocolate flavored touchpad please

therealdrag0

Love the name.

kimjune01

it's magic!

putergoon

Big tech will harvest your mewing data now

mellosouls

As much as I'd like to support this, $1400 places it squarely in the "disability tax" bracket that accompanies products targeting this market.

numpad0

Does it work? There seem to be screenshots and nuanced wordings that implies it's currently more often configured like a gyro mouse with a touch button...

georgemcbay

The lady mentioning that she uses it to connect with her vibrator certainly wasn't what I was expecting in a glossy product marketing video. Between that and the video call from Rocky's Australian e-girlfriend(?) the video felt like it was sliding into the surreal near the end. But, I mean, cool. I hope they have fun with it and it improves their lives.

ktallett

The price seems high for straight to end user sales avoiding the medical regulations needed for use in medical settings. I'm curious why that is and also why you wouldn't design with iso accreditation in mind and get approval. That opens up the market far more.