Comment by jayrhynas

7 months ago

CTRL-Labs themselves acquired the wristband tech from North/Thalmic, who pivoted into smart glasses for a few years before being acquired by Google.

> In an interesting twist, CTRL-Labs purchased a series of patents earlier this year around the Myo armband, a gesture and motion control device developed by North, formerly known as Thalmic Labs. The Myo armband measured electromyography, or EEG, to translate muscle activity into gesture-related software inputs, but North moved on from the product and now makes a stylish pair of AR glasses known as Focals. It now appears the technology North developed may in some way make its way into a Focals competitor by way of CTRL-Labs.

That's not true. Thalmic did develop an sEMG band, but the tech developed here was created by Ctrl-labs and continued development within Meta.

nope. the technology was invented by CTRL-labs, and at Meta after the acquisition.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09255-w

yes the Myo was a similar, earlier, and less capable technology also based on EMG sensing.

  • I had one of those Thalmic Myo armbands 12ish years ago. Used it a couple of times and then forgot about it. From memory, there were only a few gestures available to program, and anything I could think to sync them to was just as easily handled with keyboard shortcuts (show desktop, close window, change workspace, etc).

> measured electromyography, or EEG

Should be EMG, but is it normal EMG or sEMG?