Comparative Performance Analysis of a Commercial Wearable EOG Glasses for an Asynchronous Virtual Keyboard

Abstract

Conventional electrooculography (EOG) signal acquisition systems, apart from requiring expensive equipment, necessitate electrode gel for conductivity and electrode wires, which may obstruct the field of view and restrict user movements, thus making the setup itself impractical for regular use. Recently however, a cheaper, wireless, gel-free, sleek and wearable alternative EOG recording device, inconspicuously incorporating dry electrodes mounted on an ordinary-looking pair of glasses, has been made commercially available. This work compares this device, known as the JINS MEME EOG glasses, against a gold-standard conventional gel-based EOG setup. Specifically, while gaze displacement estimation errors of 1.32±0.26° (and 1.67±0.26°) in the horizontal (and vertical) directions were obtained using the conventional setup, the corresponding errors obtained using the JINS MEME were 1.97±0.34° (and 1.85±0.30°). Saccades and blinks were also found to be reliably detected and labelled using these two EOG recording modalities, with average labelling accuracies exceeding 99%. The two modalities were also compared when used in real-time to interface with an asynchronous EOG-based virtual keyboard having a QWERTY layout. Specifically, average writing speeds across subjects of 11.9±4.4 and 9.9±3.6 characters per minute were obtained using the conventional EOG setup and the JINS MEME respectively, which have been shown to improve substantially with user experience with the system. These results have demonstrated that the JINS MEME offers a feasible wearable alternative to the conventional EOG setup, which is more practical for eye movement-based applications. Electrooculography, wearable technology, mobile computing, human-computer interaction, virtual keyboard.

Development of an Electrooculogram (EOG) and Surface Electromyogram (sEMG)-Based Human Computer Interface (HCI) Using a Bone Conduction Headphone Integrated Bio-Signal Acquisition System

“…3 Values smaller than 5% of the maximum value of p-MFDEOG obtained at a specific angle were considered outliers and also removed. 4 Through this, the maximum and minimum values among p-MFDEOGs were obtained, and this was repeated for all angles. In this study, the threshold values were found in the order from smallest to largest.…”

“…This method has the advantage of increasing the user's convenience by using a single channel dry electrode sensor, but can recognize only a double-blink action. Barbara et al [4] compared a commercial wearable EOG acquisition system called "JINS MEME EOG glasses" that can acquire EOG signals in the form of wearable glasses with a conventional standard EOG acquisition system. According to the performance evaluation through the virtual keyboard interface, their system was very simple compared to the conventional gel-based wired acquisition system, although the writing speed showed only a small difference of 2 characters/min.…”

Detecting Soldiers’ Fatigue Using Eye-Tracking Glasses: Practical Field Applications and Research Opportunities

“…These electrodes are gel-free and, therefore, represent an advantage compared to conventional EOG signal acquisition systems, which require gel for conductivity. 26 Tag et al. 23 used EOG glasses to identify fatigue in real-life daily activities over 14 days.…”

“…In contrast, when investigated in labor contexts, eye trackers have been found to achieve good reliability in eye-movement tracking. 19 , 26 , 29 Evidently, the performance gap between tracking eye movements in controlled or unnatural settings and tracking such movements in unconstrained operational environments is considerable. To implement these systems in real-life settings in order to monitor fatigue levels, several challenges must be considered.…”

Toward graphene textiles in wearable eye tracking systems for human–machine interaction

“…Similarly, basic deliberate eye movements such as saccades (i.e., fast eye movements), fixations (i.e., the duration between two saccades when the gaze is fixated at a point), and blinks have been used for hands-free operation in HCI and human-machine interfaces (HMIs) [11]. With the help of HCI and HMIs one can emulate a computer mouse [12], type using a virtual keyboard [13], drive a wheelchair or control a robotic arm [14], change TV channels [15], and even improve user experience on virtual reality gaming [16] or smartphone operation [17]. Along these lines, in the healthcare domain, as part of a hospital alarm system, EOGbased switches provided immobile patients with a safe and reliable way of signaling an alarm [18].…”