Myo Arm Band - Gesture Control for any Device
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,699 words · ~8 min read
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I love using different off-the-wall ways to interact with my computer I was very
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early adopter of the Oculus Rift and I am what seems to be one of the like 30
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people that actually bought an ocz Nia also known as the ocz neural impulse
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actuator so when I saw that the meal from thalmic Labs has arrived I got
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pretty excited this device will theoretically allow me to control tons
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of things on my computer and on my phone through the use of my ARM muscles and
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movements awesome but does it live up to the hype or will it largely forgotten
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like the Nia stay tuned to find out and if you like pterodactyls stay subscribed
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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
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with the small teal Bluetooth adapter and teal micro USB cable you have the
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Mayo itself it looks very sci-fi inspired overall and comes in either
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white or a black design the band is expandable between 7.5 and 13 in
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depending on your forearm circumference using the sizing clips and it weighs
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about 93 G overall on the inside it's packing an ARM cortex M4 processor a
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bunch of stainless steel EMG sensors and a 9 AIS IMU containing a 3axis gyroscope
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a 3axis accelerometer and a 3axis magnetometer for feedback back for the
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user it also has dual indicator LEDs and a haptic feedback vibration which has
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modes for short medium and extended sensation duration as I call it or just
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long for normal people the setup process for the device is pretty straightforward
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download the software off the myo website load up the getting started
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guide plug everything in run the firmware update which you'll probably
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have name your device and follow the instructions on how to put it on which
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is essentially just put it around the widest part of your forearm once you're
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done getting your myo properly situated you have to wait a few minutes for it to
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heat up literally the sensors will heat up from your body heat and once you've
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done all that you'll have to do the sync gesture and then you're good to go right
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off the bat Mayo is ready and able to work with a variety of apps including
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things from PowerPoint and Adobe Reader to Netflix and VLC but you can download
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hooks for other apps from the my market while the market already has some good
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additions like Windows Media Player and a multi-browser control hook there are
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some issues as well for some applications there are multiple hooks
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some of which clearly don't work and it
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would be nice if this was cleaned up in the future also some of the gaming hooks
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like Minecraft are a little silly in my opinion I was excited at first but make
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a fist to attack I'm really not excited
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to make a fist over and over and over again for hours while I dig a tunnel
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under my buddy's Castle to fill up with TNT which brings us to actually using
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the device the controls for each app are usually independent but there are some
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similarities between them wave left is usually just rewind or back waving right
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is usually fast forward or next spreading your fingers is usually a
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start or stop signal making a fist and using it for a dial light control like
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possibly volume or making a fist and doing something serious like attack in
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Minecraft now you might be asking yourself hold on a second what about all
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the things I do throughout the day with my hands like chopping vegetables or
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using a mouse or you know no problem
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usually the mile will be locked so Random and your day-to-day movements
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won't be sending inputs to your say computer phone or maybe tablet and
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unlocking the myo is as simple as tapping your index finger and thumb
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together this is where you may have already guessed it the trouble starts
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for much of my testing I used music players because the effects of the myos
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input would be easily apparent even if I wasn't sitting at my computer if I use
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speakers and the biggest issue with the Mayo in my opinion and the reason why I
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had to stop using it in the first place is the PO implemented unlock feature to
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put this into perspective I'll start off with using my Mayo on my desktop
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computer I was pouring myself some cereal about 10 ft away from my computer
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the act of opening the box and pouring the actual cereal first unlocked the
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device then changed the volume changed the song and then stopped playing the
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music all together then pouring the milk
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started the music again changed the song
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again changed the volume again uh not
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exactly smooth smooth and to get a little bit more intimate I had to go to
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the washroom about 20 25 ft away wiping
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changed the volume and pulling my pants up changed the song so next I figured
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let's try the myo out of my phone you can use it to play air guitar 2048 or to
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control a music player but once again there were some challenges like one time
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I went out for a run throughout my workout the mile was constantly
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unlocking and locking again which meant it was vibrating on and off the whole
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time luckily due to how I held my hands it didn't really detect any other inputs
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unless they were intentional so the overall experience wasn't too bad but it
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definitely drives my point home further about the lock function so in conclusion
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I'm not all that sold not for $200 at least I tried using this as an all day
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device but found it to be very annoying
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very quickly every time phalic Labs
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needs to do some serious work on gesture recognition especially for locking and
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unlocking I mean Armen vanan was able to use it pretty well for his concerts
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apparently but he had a dedicated programmer following him around and
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tuning it specifically for him this isn't exactly a luxury most of us have
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Hardware is hard Hardware startups have
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been trendy lately but it is just as difficult as as ever to pull off
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especially since the challenge of tightly integrated software and firmware
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along with your Hardware is something that has been notoriously bad on a lot
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of these crowdfunded projects so as per usual using the finished product had the
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effect of wetting my appetite as opposed to satisfying my desire for a solid
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ARM-mounted motion controller what I will say for it is that this is a very
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compelling first attempt and phalic Labs has definitely caught my attention
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enough for me to watch for future firmware and software updates and even
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maybe some Hardware iterations that will hopefully fix some things like overall
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improving the experience if there's anything that I'd like to say to the
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development team it would be that I think stopping unintentional inputs
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needs to be a priority and I wouldn't be surprised if they resorted to a hardware
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iteration that added a two-stage lock of some sort keeping the tap gesture for
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frequent use and adding voice control or a hardware button to ensure that inputs
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stop entirely when needed speaking of inputs and outputs we
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