This. Just. HAPPENED.
So for those of you who don’t know, people with MS, ALS or MND lose motor skills and use of their voice and their extremities over time. One thing that is often not effected is the use of the eyeball, specifically its movement. For years, I have seen people have to use super expensive solutions to use a computer once they lose their motor skills, some setups can cost upwards of $15,000, all the way to $50,000. That is highway robbery, in the worst kind of way.
This guy on Reddit, Julius, wrote a FREE, open source program that can be used with many over the counter optical devices, called OptiKey (GitHub).
OptiKey is an assistive on-screen keyboard which runs on Windows. It is designed to be used with a low cost (around $100) eye-tracking device to bring keyboard control, mouse control and speech to people with motor and speech limitations, such as people living with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) / Motor Neuron Disease (MND).
It works out of the box once you have your eye-tracking device installed and allows selections to be made using dwell selection, as well as physical buttons and assistive devices. If you do not have an eye tracking device you can use OptiKey with a mouse.
OptiKey was written to challenge the outrageously expensive, unreliable and difficult to use AAC (alternative and augmentative communication) products on the market. It is, therefore, fully open-source and free. Forever.
This is an entirely new level of badassery and a big FUCK YOU to these companies that charge these absorbent amounts of monies to provide a solution to a problem that is so menacing, that you wouldn’t wish it upon your worst enemy.
As someone who knew people growing up who had very serious, debilitating diseases such as MS, I wish this had been around for them, because it could have seriously increased their quality of life. I for one, applaud OptiKey for their efforts and I will be following them closely, for this project deserves to be front lined and headlined everywhere.
