Thalmic Labs ending sale of Myo armbands | Hacker News Reader

Thalmic Labs ending sale of Myo armbands

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39 pointshkjayakumar17 comments

I was in the same YC batch as Thalmic, and 2 years before that I did a PhD in neuroscience at a lab where one of the projects involved recording from forearm muscles using implanted electrodes. Even when you have the electrodes inside the arm you see a ton of signal from other muscles and it’s quite hard to unscramble useful information in a single trial. After demo day I was kinda surprised they raised so much money, anyone who had done forearm EMG work would have told you that you just can’t get good enough signals at the surface to do what they’re proposing. But I’ve since learned that a lot of VCs just don’t do scientific diligence, they invest based on people and markets. And in spite of my skepticism I too was hoping that Thalmic had figured out some killer special case of blind source separation and the Myo would work beautifully.

Yep; I bought a Myo arm band and it's completely useless; I spend a few hours trying to change its location over my arm guessing there was something wrong about how I was using it and unable to do even trigger the most basic demo gestures.

I figured there was a new product launch coming soon, they recently rented a large storefront in my neighborhood in Brooklyn and have been building it out like a flagship retail store. Curious choice of location if you ask me, I think their broker oversold this part of Brooklyn as the new Soho, which it is certainly not in terms of foot traffic and tourists.

Anyhow, I was not terribly impressed by the initial product and fairly shocked with how much money they raised after it. Interested to see what’s next.

I've worked a lot with EMG and EEG, and always wondered how they got past the huge problems with variation, lack of sensitivity and reliability. From this and what I've read from users it looks like they didn't actually get past them.

I do wonder what the impediment to continuing sales is. Was the armband a loss leader of some sort? Were the sales not high enough? Were there widespread product failures?

It always seemed like a rather neat concept, but I generally noticed that even out of all the people I know who love playing with cutting edge prosumer tech like this, none of them had a Myo armband. I do wonder if perhaps they found no real market for the technology and are intent on actually pivoting to something else...

I own one of these (I went to a lot of hackathons in college, and Myo armbands were one of the prizes that were given out like candy).

Unfortunately, it's just not good enough. Whether it's their choice of EMG sensor or that EMG technology just isn't there yet, the Myo's gesture detection is both incredibly limited (five or six simple finger-and-hand gestures, when I used it last) and not very accurate. It's a neat little device and I had a lot of playing using it for the first 30 minutes, but it's firmly in the "curious toy" category.

Hmm, so the product doesn't have much potential in its current state. I suppose it would be difficult to improve far beyond that using the same technology - perhaps they'll try and move to some sort of AR based solution?

The concept seems really neat and it'd be a shame if it all ended up not working out.

Seems like vision based detection would be both easier and better.

It was much simpler - the device simply didn't work.

Certainly nowhere near what has been advertised. We have two at work and after testing them when they arrived they remained in the box ever since. It is a solution looking for a problem that doesn't even work properly most of the time.

I wish this article said more about why they're stopping sales and their experiences supporting the device with customers.

Its easy to assume sales were flat/declining - but with recent news about their north glasses; maybe its redirecting resources ??

Were the bands ever more than a fun parlor trick? Are there any current serious examples of their value? (Genuinely asking, I've looked on the surface and can't separate the real stuff from the marketing stuff)

Good question - Although my snap judgement is similar - I'm loath to judge too harshly having not used / touched the device.

Ugh. I still have mine. I ordered two. One is still unopened. My forearm got too sore trying make a fist, or spread it for the gestures. If it was more sensitive, it was too easy to inadvertently trigger an action.

If anyone wants to buy them off of me, lemme know.

Well, we need some duds to get the big wins. This is just a sign of a more than healthy industry (taking risks and sometimes failing). No need to feel bad.

So no more Myo armbands from now on? I presume they're working on their smartglasses now

There wasn't a big enough market for their futuristic arm band without clear use cases (or reliable functioning), and I'm not confident it would be any different for their smart glasses coming out next.

What's bothersome is the large amount of VC funding [1] that went into these guys. After they blow it, investors will be wary which will further retard progress in the field of HCI technologies.

[1] https://www.canadianbusiness.com/innovation/thalmic-labs-int...

Well, they are still peanuts compared to Magic Leap, stuff like Leap Motion and other high profile busts ...

And yes, I am worried about this too - VC cash gets burned and nothing of consequence will be delivered, all the while projects with real applications but less quick talking/hype and buzzword spewing CEOs are struggling to find funding.

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