Muscle-sensing Myo Gesture Armband will be on Amazon in the Coming Quarter.


About a year after getting our first taste of the Myo, Thalmic Labs has announced that it will be reaching out to the masses by using Amazon this quarter. Similar to its pre-order available on the website of the company the muscle-sensing, hand-held device will retail for $199. Thalmic Labs already sold over the 50,000 pre-orders with nearly half of them being shipped to buyers. This is a great confirmation of the applications Thalmic Labs and its partners have demonstrated.



Gallery: Thalmic Labs'' Myo armband at CES 2015. 5 Photos



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The Myo is a set of eight muscle-sensing module that you can attach to the broadest point of your forearm. This allows the device to detect hand movements. These gestures include squeezing, spreading your hands, moving your hands left or right, rotating your forearm, or the quick pinch of another finger (which can be used to turn on or stop your Myo). A gyroscope, accelerometer, and magnetometer are all able to measure arm movement.



There''s no power button on the Myo; it wakes up the moment you pick it up, and it will automatically go back to sleep if left alone for a long time. If used for a long time for a long period of time, a single charge will last between 10 and 14 hours. This is quite impressive.



Bluetooth LE is used to communicate with the Myo Connect app. The app transmits motion data back to the device or program that you are controlling. Thalmic Labs demo room featured the Myo to control video playback, volume, and race the sun, a fun game of flight-based obstacle avoidance and an Orbotix Ollie rolling robotic robot. Except for the connectivity issue with the Ollie and the arduous nature of the game, most of these scenarios were quite simple for us.
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We have seen Myo demos that include PowerPoint, iTunes and Call Of Duty. Users will be able download apps "connectors" from the Myo Market to try out some of these use cases and to control Spotify, Netflix, Sonos plus popular games like Minecraft and Saints Row IV.



Thalmic Labs also had some impressive showcases just before CES. In November, the company launched TedCas'' Myo integration, which allows surgeons to manipulate medical images without touching a screen or a pointing device. Haute Technique shared the story of how it was able to allow Armin van Buuren the Dutch DJ, to use the armband as a control device for the stage lights at his shows. With major companies betting on gesture control this year, it''ll be interesting to see if the people behind the gesture cameras can come up with something as impressive.



Update: The product page on Amazon is now live.