Forget Ice Bucket Challenge, Eye Control Helps ALS Patients Converting Eye Movements into Speech

Eye Control Glasses
Eye Control Glasses

Eye-Control-Glasses

ALS ice bucket challenge was pretty cool. Almost every feed on the social media was filled with celebrities and the general public taking on the ALS bucket challenge and then passing the challenge on. But the sad fact is more than half of the population didn’t know what the heck is going on and why is everyone wasting loads of water!
ALS is a motor neuron disease that with time, causes muscle wasting that results in the paralysis of the body. Often, it’s only the eyes that are functional and are a medium to communicate.

Eye Control is an Israeli start-up that is dedicated for the cause and has developed a screen free and cost effective glasses that would make communication easier for the ALS patients. The eye-wear has an infra-red camera and a small integrated computer attached to its frame. The device identifies the specific movements of the eyes and translates them into the predefined commands. The requests by the patient can be heard by the family members through a speaker connected to the device.  The messages can also be transmitted to the smartphones via Bluetooth.

The patients can also create their own specific commands through an alphabetic virtual board, in addition to choose from the 15 pre-existing sentences such as “I need to go to the bathroom”, or a simple  ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

This self-funded startup has been working a lot lately to make life easier for the ALS patients. Generally, the patients use a full sized computer at home to communicate with their family. This restricts them the freedom to move out of the house and communicate with friends while.

The company has been working on this project for over a year now. To bring it into production and develop advanced features for the mobile app, the startup has launched an Indiegogo Campaign to raise funds to help ALS patients. You can also donate for the cause to the Indiegogo Community.

The Eye Control is a great device that could solve out the communication problems the ALS patients always had and at affordable costs.

What do you think of the Eye Control glasses helping ALS Patients? Tell us in comments below.

Source: Eye Control

Also Read: Cheap and Low-Tech Device Help Paralysis Patients to “Speak”

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