You thought Leap Motion like motion sensing was extreme? Well you were wrong. The 4tiitoo’s NUIA eyeCharm kit is an extension of Microsoft Kinect accessory that is going to be an affordable eye tracking sensor. The eyeCharm is currently seeking funding at Kickstarter. The eyeCharm kit plugs into any Kinect no matter its for the Xbox or Windows and turns it into an eye tracking beast. It is plug and play and can be made functional in just ten minutes according to its developers.
How this works is not so complicated. The device sends out a beam of infrared light directly on the user’s face and detects the position of the eyes. After that it tracks the eye movements and converts them into instructions which it applies on the app it is running. By default Kinect in its current form is not powerful enough to detect eye motion and eyeCharm kit adds a real functionality to it.
There are multiple uses of eye tracking technology that we know of right now and there are many that haven’t been developed as it is a fairly new phenomena and hasn’t become mainstream yet. Some uses of eyeCharm or eye tracking as a whole concept include scrolling websites, playing games like fruit ninja, flipping photos through galleries and even moving the cursor.
eyeCharm kit is not the first eye tracking solution for masses we have heard of lately. Tobii is a company that has developed a kit as well but that one is a little expensive and it’s dev kit sells for $1000. By comparison eyeCharm kit costs a fraction and could be a success among masses.
The 4tiitoo’s NUIA eyeCharm kit is currently seeking funding at Kickstarter. Users can grab an eyeCharm kit for $60 or $50 if they act quickly for the limited early birds slot. They will have to buy a Kinect separately which is available for $100 – that makes the total cost around $160. As of now eyeCharm kit has gathered a quarter of its $100,000 goal with 24 days remaining in the project.