Can commodity products detect which pixel you’re looking at on a screen?

For a number of years, I’ve wanted a system that eliminates mouse pointer devices. In my imaginary system, there are hotkeys bound to left & right mouse clicks, and what gets clicked is whatever you’re looking at.

When I’ve looked at this before, the tech field tends to suffer in granularity and/or physical limitations, like needing to limit gross head movements. Most products talk about what they can do, but avoid talking about their limitations. It can be hard to find out what devices are capable of - accuracy, working with corrective eyewear, speed, head movement, software (OS) support, etc. Many products are geared at research, leading me to believe the tech isn’t there yet.

Anyone have, or used a device that would be able to replace a mouse?

  • Tathas@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    My brother had a Tobii eye tracker for a couple years. I think it was the 3 model? It worked well enough. He gave it away cause he got a large ultrawide monitor that it couldn’t work right with.

    He used it in a couple games that supported it that we were playing at the time (Division 2, Vermintide) and also used it when screen sharing doing training activities as it would display a small halo to show where he was looking.

    • It even looks like there’s software thay lets it run on Linux. Was it accurate enough for, like, desktop use? Did he have to hold his head still?

      It wouldn’t take much to make it impractical: being fussy enough that you have to think about using it while you are would defeat the purpose. Any inaccuracy, or not being granular enough, or requiring you to hold your head still, not working with glasses, or lag… those would all kill it.

      • Tathas@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        No he didn’t really have to keep his head perfectly still and they’re supposed to work fine with glasses. Back when he had a very old 4-core machine, he’d get some lag when he turned on the halo effect, cause it did CPU post processing. But that stopped when he got a current machine.

        He never really complained about it being finicky or anything.