I love using different off-the-wall ways to interact with my computer I was very
early adopter of the Oculus Rift and I am what seems to be one of the like 30
people that actually bought an ocz Nia also known as the ocz neural impulse
actuator so when I saw that the meal from thalmic Labs has arrived I got
pretty excited this device will theoretically allow me to control tons
of things on my computer and on my phone through the use of my ARM muscles and
movements awesome but does it live up to the hype or will it largely forgotten
like the Nia stay tuned to find out and if you like pterodactyls stay subscribed
to L Tech
tips save on select Intel Core i7 processors and 730 series ssds with
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learn more to start off we'll take a closer look at the physical unit along
with the small teal Bluetooth adapter and teal micro USB cable you have the
Mayo itself it looks very sci-fi inspired overall and comes in either
white or a black design the band is expandable between 7.5 and 13 in
depending on your forearm circumference using the sizing clips and it weighs
about 93 G overall on the inside it's packing an ARM cortex M4 processor a
bunch of stainless steel EMG sensors and a 9 AIS IMU containing a 3axis gyroscope
a 3axis accelerometer and a 3axis magnetometer for feedback back for the
user it also has dual indicator LEDs and a haptic feedback vibration which has
modes for short medium and extended sensation duration as I call it or just
long for normal people the setup process for the device is pretty straightforward
download the software off the myo website load up the getting started
guide plug everything in run the firmware update which you'll probably
have name your device and follow the instructions on how to put it on which
is essentially just put it around the widest part of your forearm once you're
done getting your myo properly situated you have to wait a few minutes for it to
heat up literally the sensors will heat up from your body heat and once you've
done all that you'll have to do the sync gesture and then you're good to go right
off the bat Mayo is ready and able to work with a variety of apps including
things from PowerPoint and Adobe Reader to Netflix and VLC but you can download
hooks for other apps from the my market while the market already has some good
additions like Windows Media Player and a multi-browser control hook there are
some issues as well for some applications there are multiple hooks
some of which clearly don't work and it
would be nice if this was cleaned up in the future also some of the gaming hooks
like Minecraft are a little silly in my opinion I was excited at first but make
a fist to attack I'm really not excited
to make a fist over and over and over again for hours while I dig a tunnel
under my buddy's Castle to fill up with TNT which brings us to actually using
the device the controls for each app are usually independent but there are some
similarities between them wave left is usually just rewind or back waving right
is usually fast forward or next spreading your fingers is usually a
start or stop signal making a fist and using it for a dial light control like
possibly volume or making a fist and doing something serious like attack in
Minecraft now you might be asking yourself hold on a second what about all
the things I do throughout the day with my hands like chopping vegetables or
using a mouse or you know no problem
usually the mile will be locked so Random and your day-to-day movements
won't be sending inputs to your say computer phone or maybe tablet and
unlocking the myo is as simple as tapping your index finger and thumb
together this is where you may have already guessed it the trouble starts
for much of my testing I used music players because the effects of the myos
input would be easily apparent even if I wasn't sitting at my computer if I use
speakers and the biggest issue with the Mayo in my opinion and the reason why I
had to stop using it in the first place is the PO implemented unlock feature to
put this into perspective I'll start off with using my Mayo on my desktop
computer I was pouring myself some cereal about 10 ft away from my computer
the act of opening the box and pouring the actual cereal first unlocked the
device then changed the volume changed the song and then stopped playing the
music all together then pouring the milk
started the music again changed the song
again changed the volume again uh not
exactly smooth smooth and to get a little bit more intimate I had to go to
the washroom about 20 25 ft away wiping
changed the volume and pulling my pants up changed the song so next I figured
let's try the myo out of my phone you can use it to play air guitar 2048 or to
control a music player but once again there were some challenges like one time
I went out for a run throughout my workout the mile was constantly
unlocking and locking again which meant it was vibrating on and off the whole
time luckily due to how I held my hands it didn't really detect any other inputs
unless they were intentional so the overall experience wasn't too bad but it
definitely drives my point home further about the lock function so in conclusion
I'm not all that sold not for $200 at least I tried using this as an all day
device but found it to be very annoying
very quickly every time phalic Labs
needs to do some serious work on gesture recognition especially for locking and
unlocking I mean Armen vanan was able to use it pretty well for his concerts
apparently but he had a dedicated programmer following him around and
tuning it specifically for him this isn't exactly a luxury most of us have
Hardware is hard Hardware startups have
been trendy lately but it is just as difficult as as ever to pull off
especially since the challenge of tightly integrated software and firmware
along with your Hardware is something that has been notoriously bad on a lot
of these crowdfunded projects so as per usual using the finished product had the
effect of wetting my appetite as opposed to satisfying my desire for a solid
ARM-mounted motion controller what I will say for it is that this is a very
compelling first attempt and phalic Labs has definitely caught my attention
enough for me to watch for future firmware and software updates and even
maybe some Hardware iterations that will hopefully fix some things like overall
improving the experience if there's anything that I'd like to say to the
development team it would be that I think stopping unintentional inputs
needs to be a priority and I wouldn't be surprised if they resorted to a hardware
iteration that added a two-stage lock of some sort keeping the tap gesture for
frequent use and adding voice control or a hardware button to ensure that inputs
stop entirely when needed speaking of inputs and outputs we
use xplit every week for the WAN Show
which I have to actually host in a couple of hours and so does he and with
his voice like it is today that is not going to be that easy so xsplit is a new
sponsor for us and honestly they're one
that we welcomed with open arms cuz
aside from our show xplit Powers countless live streams and recordings
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interested head over to exit.com Linus
to check out what they have to offer and claim your free xplit license their free
license gives you everything you need to start streaming and recording in HD so
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