Greetings! We’ve been busy with developing the Glass app for the administrators of the public space. During the testing and developing of this app we noticed a few possible difficulties with navigating within the app. Some of these flaws have been solved by making the user interface more natural and simple, but some of the other flaws can’t be fixed that easily. One of these flaws is the input possibilities Glass offers. Some of these feel unnatural and take some time getting used to. They are also error-sensitive, a single tap quickly becomes a double tap. A lot of people don’t seem to notice that the whole side acts as a trackpad either. To circumvent these issues we feel that we need a new way of user input that is more natural.
DIY solution
Due to the cancellation of Glass, there aren’t a lot of readily available solutions. One interesting solution is the fabrication of our own remote. This tutorial describes how you can make a Bluetooth controller for Google Glass. The possibilities of this solution seem limitless, you could make every controller you imagine. After some research we noticed that this solution requires an older version of the software Glass currently uses. Installing the older version would significantly hinder the development of our current app. And then there’s the risk of breaking Glass.
We’ve also considered developing for another device. We looked into the Epson Moverio BT-200 Epson Glasses. This device has lower specs than Google Glass, but offers a lot of advantages concerning usability. The device comes with an external wired controller, which is basically a smartphone with a touchpad instead of a touchscreen. This makes controlling the device a lot easier. The fact that it runs android 4.x makes it easy for us to develop. But we’re hesitant using the device for a couple of reasons. We really doubt if the specs will be sufficient for our purposes. The camera has a terrible VGA resolution. There are also some other issues with using GPS and other sensors. We think that, in this case, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages.
Epson Moverio with wired controller. Image by Epson
MYO armband. Image by Thalmic Labs
Another possible solution might be using the MYO armband. This device is able to recognize a range of different movements and gestures based on muscle movement and a gyroscope. Another plus is that it can communicate with Glass quite easily, it doesn’t require a downgrade. Controlling Glass using this device may make navigating the app a more natural experience. This does mean that the app needs to be tweaked to make use of the functionality offered by the armband. You can see a possible application of the MYO in the video below. Stay tuned for our creation with MYO!