Tobii Pro Glasses 3 | Hacker News Reader

Tobii Pro Glasses 3

tobiipro.com

94 pointspunnerud64 comments

For more affordable and open-source alternatives, you might be interested in Pupil Labs[0].

€5,900?

How much are the Tobii glasses if Pupil Labs' are almost 6 thousand Euro?!

These aren't consumer products. They're specialized business products aimed at market researchers. In that context, €5,900 doesn't seem expensive at all to me, and I'd expect the Tobii glasses to be more.

The tobii monitor mounted eye tracker that delivers almost all the value required for SWE is only a few hundred dollars.

Which proves my point exactly. The Tobii Eye Tracker V is a consumer-oriented product marketed to gamers. The market-research-oriented use cases that one would need for a "walking around pair of eye-tracking glasses" are totally different, and they're priced accordingly.

What does SWE mean in this context?

Except you can't use it for research purposes at all, nor anything other than gaming...

We're building one that's only 500 euros - kexxu.com

It uses a convolutional neural network to detect the pupil location, which is a lot cheaper in addition to running real time (for controlling IoT devices around the house). The website shows the 3d printed prototype, injection molded mass production coming in about two months, probl also on kickstarter. We'll open source our libraries in Python, JavaScript, C++, Arduino, Dart (Flutter) to connect to it with MQTT to all DIY projects that can benefit from eye control. In addition to gaze location, the scene camera can detect ARUCO markers and QR-codes. The battery lasts about 10hrs.

Email me at jschreuder@kexxu.com if you want early access.

way way more :) The earlier versions cost around at least double to triple the amount.

+ 1 using their devices since a long time and know the founders. It's stable and nice, yes the hardware of tobii is a bit better, yet the extensibility of tobii is terrible.

Pupil Labs have their code on github (you can also use it with none pupillabs cameras :). It's python and easy to change /extend. here's the repo: https://github.com/Pupil-Labs/Pupil

Check also the branches and who forked it ... there are a lot of experimental eyetracking and other algs implemented.

We already used them for a lot of research projects (implementing smooth pursuit interactions and similar).

Edit: added the github repo of the desktop software.

Darn it; amazing looking technology and then "contact sales". Oh well.

Maybe somebody will put together a group buy.

Tobii is pretty intense about this stuff, esp re licensing. Their gaming stuff can’t be used for research, for example. It’s a similar vibe to eInk.

Tobii can say whatever it wants. The license you accept only applies to their software, not to their hardware. You own that. You can use their gaming devices to do research all you want, as long as you use your own software with them.

How do you do that with a device with locked bootloader/firmware? Is alternative firmware even available? I don't think so...

Proof please?!

“The license you accept only applies to their software, not to their hardware.”

As far as I know, their EULA has three groups: gamers, commercial, research. You can buy a 3000€ research license that simply allows you to collect the eye tracking data on the basic 250€ devices…

Tobii can sue whoever they want, too. You sure you can afford better representation than theirs? If they're as assertive about their license terms as it sounds like they are, I'd think hard about it first, I suppose.

If you have to ask you can't afford it :)

Yeah, my reaction was half bemoaning the lack of information, and half bemoaning what that implied.

Does anyone know of a good example of eye-tracking being used for HCI where it surpasses keyboard/mouse? When searching for it most of the use seems to be in foveated rendering, research, marketing or accessibility.

Something like this? Fast, but still a way to go before it's faster. [Hands-Free Coding: How I develop software using dictation and eye-tracking] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24846887

"I'd say I probably work at about 50% of my normal speed*. Now, this doesn't mean that I produce 50% of the results; it just means I need to prioritize a little more ruthlessly."

If these glasses can be used to control a mouse pointer in an effective way, I'm interested!

Unfortunately it's not that accurate. At least not without adjusting UI scaling.

Games.

I once gave Marvin Minsky a headache by showing a video tape of bright blinking PostScript graphics! I apologized, and we had a nice conversation about how eye tracking interfaces tend to do the same thing.

https://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/Telepresence.html

>Telepresence, by Marvin Minsky, Omni Magazine, June 1980

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyU79dFbH0Q

>Zero Bandwidth Video: SCAN 1981. Zero Bandwidth Video: SCAN is an excerpt from demos of Architecture Machine Group project circa 1980 an interactive portrait of Raleigh Perkins with various input devices to manipulate the image. The viewer pushes a joystick to make her look in various directions, Nicholas Negroponte demonstrates linking the portrait to an eye tracking device. SCAN was exhibited at SIGGRAPH Art Show 1989.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352739339_The_Incom...

>The Incomplete Tyranny of Dynamic Stimuli: Gaze Similarity Predicts Response Similarity in Screen‐Captured Instructional Videos

>Although eye tracking has been used extensively to assess cognitions for static stimuli, recent research suggests that the link between gaze and cognition may be more tenuous for dynamic stimuli such as videos. Part of the difficulty in convincingly linking gaze with cognition is that in dynamic stimuli, gaze position is strongly influenced by exogenous cues such as object motion. However, tests of the gaze‐cognition link in dynamic stimuli have been done on only a limited range of stimuli often characterized by highly organized motion. Also, analyses of cognitive contrasts between participants have been mostly been limited to categorical contrasts among small numbers of participants that may have limited the power to observe more subtle influences. We, therefore, tested for cognitive influences on gaze for screen‐captured instructional videos, the contents of which participants were tested on. Between‐participant scanpath similarity predicted between‐participant similarity in responses on test questions, but with imperfect consistency across videos. We also observed that basic gaze parameters and measures of attention to centers of interest only inconsistently predicted learning, and that correlations between gaze and centers of interest defined by other‐participant gaze and cursor movement did not predict learning. It, therefore, appears that the search for eye movement indices of cognition during dynamic naturalistic stimuli may be fruitful, but we also agree that the tyranny of dynamic stimuli is real, and that links between eye movements and cognition are highly dependent on task and stimulus properties.

It is very uncomfortable looking at these from the front as the cameras and illuminators look like spikes aiming for the eyes.

Not really. You probably suffer from aichmophobia.

I don't suffer from that ailment and agree with OP. Looks like a bunch of needles all an incident away from going straight through my eyeball.

All I could imagine is ad companies looking at these and envisioning their Clockwork Orange dream of eyes with the lids held open.

Probably less useful than a google search, which shows explicit intent. If you followed me around all day long you’d have an overwhelming amount of noise.

They could have fixed this easily by running all the wires horizontally. Seems like a surprising oversight. First impressions matter.

Not quite as uncomfortable as the earlier Clockwork Orange glasses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSQApGLbgNg

If the gaze tracking resolution is reasonably decent, these really extend the utility of Tobii products for neuroscience/psych research (where i've used previous Tobii products before), but also really does open the door for things like gaze-driven HCI for people with very limited mobility. I've prototyped gaze-based T9 input and the like before, and it's probably doable.

HDMI out? Makes me curious what tech they have on the glasses vs in the dongle/box… maybe it’s convenient to use hdmi cable’s twisted pairs to just take the csi/mipi from the cameras straight out and then do processing externally?

"8 IR illuminators per eye"

Honest question: is there any reason to be concerned about such near and constant IR illumination directed at one's eyes?

No, it's an insignificant increase over what your eyes already receive.

Does that account for the fact that it's decoupled from visible light? Afaik the iris contracts in response to visible light, so here could get exposed to more IR proportionally. (OTOH either way in absolute terms the amount you get from sunlight is orders of magnitude more than you'd get from a few LEDs.)

I guess it would be like looking up at one of those security cameras that are ringed with IR LEDs

Generally with near-infrared emitters, the main issue is tissue heating up. Of course this depends on the tissue, the specific wavelength(s), and the angular distribution of the emitter.

OSRAM has an excellent datasheet about this, AN090 . If you're curious about how this kind of thing is safely engineered, have a look!

Also the reason for 8 emitters is to have lots of points to track, not to provide a huge amount of light.

Old tracking systems I tried were really uncomfortable due to that and couldn't be used long. Hope these are better (disclaimer it was 10 years ago).

“The most common eye disease associated with near-infrared radiation is cataracts. Prolonged exposure to IR radiation causes a gradual but irreversible opacity of the lens. Other forms of damage to the eye from IR exposure include scotoma, which is a loss of vision due to the damage to the retina. Even low-level IR absorption can cause symptoms such as redness of the eye, swelling, or hemorrhaging.”

https://ehs.lbl.gov/resource/documents/radiation-protection/...

It may even improve eye-sight in the short-term:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2298723-red-light-thera...

I'm not sure about the energy and wavelength difference compared to the glasses. But even if it has a positive effect from short-term exposure, it may also have bad effect from too much exposure.

I just wish they’d improve their eye bar to the point where it can be used as a viable alternative to a mouse.

For those of us with RSI’s like mouse-shoulder it would be a godsend.

Those cameras inside lenses look unbelievably small. I didn’t know “we have the technology” like that, feels spy movie territory.

Can't wait for these to be embedded in "smart" TVs for gaze tracking during ads.

TVs are massive, so they don't have to be this small and you can already buy TVs with built in cameras, since it can be used for video conferencing. Also, this type of tech can already be used to measure ad awareness in stores [0]. It's also starting to be implemented in cars, to check whether you're paying attention to the road while using 'autonomous' systems.

So... This is not really a type of tech that will enable your fears, it already exists, there just doesn't seem a business model for applying it in TVs yet.

0: https://www.unravelresearch.com/en/blog/eye-tracking-in-adve...

Those tendrils are cameras?! What the hell?

In each lens, 2 are cameras (inner bottom), other 8 are IR illuminators.

Ah okay, that makes more sense, thank you.

Those are most likely modules using wafer level optics: https://ams.com/cmos-micro-camera-module

NanEyeC is 1mm by 1mm, with 320 x 320 resolution. Unbelievable. And slightly worrying: it totally breaks my expectation of what can contain a camera.

The USB Tobii Eye tracker is pretty sweet. It seems gimmicky at first, but a number of games have great support for it.

Out of curiosity, what is the gaming use case for eyetracking? I'm in research, and we use Tobii eyetracking during experiments, but I never thought about its use in games.

In flight simulators or driving games, it gives more range of motion by tracking head position and gaze. The really good implementations allow you to do more head tracking, or more eye tracking, depending on your preference. FS2020 needed some tweaking in this department, when I turned my head to look behind me IRL, the game camera would spin like mad. The responsiveness is pretty shocking to say the least.

In shooters, there's an added "snap to aim" feature that is borderline cheating, it snaps your aim to where you may be looking. I've only seen it in non-competitive and first person games though. For competitive shooters, the tracking can be very useful to know you weren't looking in the right place at the right time, if you care about that stuff. There is an overlay you can enable which shows where your gaze is calculated in real time.

In third person games, gaze can be used to reveal information in the HUD (hide HUD elements unless I look at them) and to aim throwable objects. More gimmicky in these cases, but simply having more field of view without having to move your mouse/arm is useful IMO.

Oh, wow, cool. Thanks.

Nobody needs to know how much time I spend looking at photos of sandwiches

Has anyone tried to use these for a home flight simulator application? It seems like these or the pupil-labs equivalent could deeply improve immersion vs. TrackIR.

Anyone have an idea of how much these are, and the software?

I want the opposite: Google Glasses without any sensors but with iPhone adapter, so I can read the subtitles of real time chinese conversations.

Anyone know the status of Google Glass for consumers? Last I heard they nixed the consumer version because of poor market reception (lots of people started calling users "glassholes" and banning them from bathrooms and stuff because they never knew when they were recording), but surely at some point they'll be cheaper and more available?

This is a product for HCI/ UX researchers, not consumers

I wonder what happens when more mainstream VR headsets get eye tracking?

More immersive social VR. Personally really looking forward to this because "the eyes are a mirror to the soul" is very apparent when you see well made avatars with eye tracking.

The possibility of dynamic foveated rendering, which is probably how Valve could realistically use an APU in their rumored Deckard.

And of course intrusive ads and data collection.

Morbidly curious to see how long it takes before platforms start using ML algorithms to create personalized ads that are tailored to make you look at them for as long as possible, one would hope such a thing would kill a platform.

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