Myo armband could give current controllers the elbow

The keyboard; the mouse; the touchscreen: each new generation of computing has been accompanied by its own new kind of input device. But as we enter the internet-of-things era, no standard has yet been established.

Several companies are trying to free us from the screen altogether, creating ways to control our digital lives by using little more than the "input devices" we were born with - the natural gestures of our hands and fingers.

Gesture-control technology has come a long way since Nintendo's Wii got gamers off the sofa and waving their arms around in the living room. Now Microsoft's Kinect can track precisely how our limbs move. The 3in Leap Motion controller, which plugs into a PC, can detect the tiniest changes in the position of a finger.

But using Kinect or Leap means keeping within the field of view of their cameras. A new device, Myo, which I first tried at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, takes a whole new approach to gesture control that does not require a camera.

When it works, Myo can make you feel like Luke Skywalker using the Force or Tom Cruise in Minority Report. But rather than lightsabres, Myo's maker, Canada-based Thalmic Labs, has decided the killer app is rather less Hollywood than that: helping to give slideshow presentations.

Slideshow start The Myo armband comprises eight rectangular 2in blocks, linked with stretchy rubber and worn snugly on the forearm in direct contact with the skin. Its electromyography (EMG) sensors read electrical activity in the muscles to detect gestures in the hand, while other sensors track the motion of the arm. The armband sends this information to a paired computer or smartphone via Bluetooth, with a barely perceptible delay.

Syncing the armband with a computer requires a special pairing gesture: start with your arm across your chest, gently flex your wrist away from your body, pause, then move the whole arm. The movement is purposely not natural to avoid accidental activation, and it took me a while to get right every time.

Other gestures are a mixture of the intuitive and the awkward. In place of the double-click of a mouse, you double-tap your finger and thumb together. In the slideshow presentation mode, this action replaces the basic clicker or space bar traditionally used to advance through PowerPoint or Keynote, and it works reliably well. I found it a little harder to go back a slide by cocking my wrist inwards and holding it there for a second.

One might ask why, other than sci-fi show-off value, one would wish to replace a clicker with hand gestures. The Myo does add a couple of features: making a fist and rotating it anticlockwise turns on a virtual laser- pointer that can be guided around the screen just by moving your arm; turning the fist clockwise zooms into whatever you are pointing at.

Overall, it is a neat trick, especially for those who like to move around the room as they give a presentation.

More broadly, I worry that pitching Myo as a super-clicker sells its tech short. The device can also be used to control PC applications such as video games, music and movie players, and even email, where opening and closing a fist or rotating a hand can control playback, volume or delete emails. These are fun, but not quite compelling enough to wear Myo all the time.

However, an enthusiastic developer community is coming up with new and ambitious uses all the time. The Myo can already be used to control internet-connected lightbulbs, a GoPro camera, toy robots or fly a drone.

It has huge potential in virtual reality, where there is a desperate need for a breakthrough input device that brings hand and arm movements into a virtual world. Demonstrations have already shown the Myo working with the Oculus Rift, Facebook's virtual reality headset.

Mass movementStephen Lake, Thalmic Labs' chief executive, says presentations will be a "gateway" reason for the mass market to buy Myo - not just the geeks who want to click their fingers to turn lights on or to disappear into virtual worlds.

I hope the marketing tactic works, because Myo's applications are still catching up with a technology that might one day become the standard for how we will operate the internet of things.

The tabular content relating to this article is not available to view. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused.

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation