SMI RED-M

Well, well, look here. A constellation of eye tracking manufacturers are joining in on the affordable market, perhaps defined some time ago by Mirametrix who launched at @ $5k. Tobii have their PC Eye, perfectly fine but at a cool $7k and is showcasing the new IS2 chipset but apparently can't do CEBIT12 demos. The new player is Sensomotoric Instruments, known for their high quality hardware and finely tuned algorithms. Their new contribution is the RED-M (M is for mini?). Even if the price hasn't been announced I would assume it's less than it's high speed fire-wire sibling, perhaps similar to the PCEye pricing?

The M-version is a small device made out of plastics that connects via USB 2.0 (assuming two plugs, one for power), it measures 240x25x33mm - that's pretty small and it's only 130 grams. This is a big difference from their prior models which have been very solid and made out of high quality materials and professional components. The accuracy is specified to 0.5deg, 50-75cm distance where the box is 320x210mm @ 60cm with a sample rate of 60/120Hz, in essence it's the low end version of the RED series where the top model is the super fast RED500 . Although it has yet to be demonstrated in operational state some material has appeared online. Below is the animated setup guide, you can find more information on their website. Looking good!

• Technical specs (pdf)
• Flyer (pdf)

RealGaze Glasses

Just came across the RealGaze glasses which is being developed by Devon Greco et al. He's father was diagnosed with ALS some years ago and given that Devon has been tinkering with electronics since early on he set out to build an eye tracker. For a prototype the result looks good, I guess the form factor feels familiar. There isn't too much meat available at the moment other than big ambitions to manufacturer an affordable device. Most of us would love to see that happen!