The SpeakUp generated a lot of attention, but we received criticism from people saying how speech recognition is all well and good, but what if I wake up with a sore throat? Well, you people must have had read our thoughts, because in fact we are working on a click board that will be able to read yours - it’s called ThinkUp.
It’s still in early stages, but the tele-click-nesis firmware, as we call it, is based on EEG technology (electroencephalography). A mikroBUS compatible headset records the electrical activity from your scalp, with electrodes placed behind your earlobes and on your forehead. After that, it works much like the SpeakUp: the onboard MCU processes the signals from your brain waves and compares them to a database of pre-recorded “thoughts” that you configured beforehand.
You can use the ThinkUp click as a BCI (brain computer interface), or to control things around the house with your thoughts. Turn lights on and off, move curtains, control air conditioning, and impress friends with your Jedi-like powers.
The board is thinker dependent in principle, but we haven’t yet figured out a way to avoid the white bear effect. For instance, if your neighbor calls you on the phone right after you took a shower, and starts repeatedly yelling at you to pull back the curtains, pull back the curtains pull back the curtains, you’ll have a hard time suppressing the thought in your head and the curtains will open, and there’s you standing by the window wearing just your towel, with the whole neighborhood to see you.
Because of these design challenges, it’s unfortunate that we have a pretty late shipping date. The ThinkUp starts shipping NEVER.
It is April Fool’s Day after all :) But while on the topic of thought suppression, if this post caused you to think about all our other existing click boards, you can get them at 10% OFF as part of this special April Fool’s Day offer. It’s valid from Monday 7:00 PM CET on March 31st until Wednesday 9:00 AM CET April 2nd.
Yours sincerely,
MikroElektronika