Steelseries Sentry Eye Tracker -- control games with your eyes
One of my favorite movies as a kid was Back to the Future 2. In it, Marty McFly, the protagonist, shows off his gaming skills to a bunch of kids using an old Wild Gunman arcade machine. The children scoff at his efforts, as you play the game with hands. The children explain that only baby-toys require you to use your hands! Sadly, in 2014 we are still mostly playing games with our hands, with the exception of some novelties with Kinect and others.
Today however, Steelseries announces a new product that will enable future PC games to interact with your eyes. Yes, you will eventually be able to control games using your peepers, but that functionality is a ways off. The immediate functionality is video game training and coaching. You see, the camera watches you playing the game and analyzes your eyes so it can train you later. Creepy? Kind of. Cool? Absolutely.
"The SteelSeries Sentry Eye Tracker brings players an entirely new way to train for competitive gaming, by allowing the player to analyze a wide range of statistics based on where and how long a user focused, or fixated, on the screen. Fixations per Minute (FPM) tracks how often a user moves his or her eye gaze and attention around the screen; low values indicate that the gamer is able to process a lot of information. For comparison, FPM in eye tracking is the same type of correlation as APM or the total numbers of actions per minute a player can perform", says Steelseries.
The company further explains, "beyond the features of analyzing and benchmarking, the Sentry Eye Tracker also has the capability to enhance gameplay by using eye movement as a new type of in-game control. SteelSeries and Tobii are working together to offer this functionality in the future. With the capacity to operate and control games with eye movement, the game enhancement opportunities are endless".
As you can see in the video below, the training and coaching seems to be aimed at hardcore competitive gamers. However, I am sure amateur gamers will see value in improving their performance too. After all, amateurs may spend countless hours every week playing games online against other players. If you are going to invest that much time in playing, you might as well not suck right?
Sadly, pricing has not been announced and availability is only promised as "later this year". If it does prove to be affordable, will you buy it? Tell me in the comments.
Photo credit: Steven Frame / Shutterstock