Finally! An update!

Hello everyone. If you're reading this, it means... I've finally written it.  ;-)  I've been quite busy and kept putting off the blog updates. Until it meant that there was too much to write, just sounded exhausting. But here's a shout out to a friend that recently wrote to me and got me to thinking about the blog again. So I'm going to try and write up shorter passages and not try to bite off everything. So I'll back up and start with some changes I made to my chair and work forward. So some of you may already be familiar. But here goes. 

So I was having issues early on with my eyegaze device. I was using my headmouse-pi predominantly until I qualified for, and received my Tobii Dynavox I-13 device. I will often refer to it as "my Tobii" or just "Tobii". In writing, I'll refer to it by its internal model name (TDG13) used in the code that it runs. So I may use any of these synonymously. It is an all-in-one ruggedized 13" tablet running Windows 10 Pro. It only supports Windows (yuck). It contains a large battery, integrated eyegaze camera, infrared blasters (IR), a big speaker, and a small LCD partner window on the back. It mounts easily to my chair but with constant use, especially the programming or reverse engineering software I would use, the battery wouldn't last. So I was often tethered to a wall for power. Anyway, at first, I struggled with the Eyegaze calibration. It seemed that I was ALWAYS having to calibrate! So I had my eyegaze accuracy AND the power issue to deal with. And Windows. It's really only got enough horsepower to run the Eyegaze software and act as a decent speech generation device (SGD). Much beyond that it gets sluggish. For my techie friends, it's a i5-7300U with 8G ram running win64. With a stringent pass through the running services, turning off unnecessary lights, I can run ghidra, ida, and other tools. With only a 256GB HDD and a 20GB restore partition, it's a little claustrophobic. Granted, it's a SSD at least! But WSL, VMs, and docker are not in the cards. A DEV machine it is not! I had a hard time explaining to the level one support people what WSL is, why I wanted to run it with Debian, and why the heck does their EyeX engine chew up so much CPU on 4 cores and 8 logical processors!? I think I managed a little red note in their support management software and was quickly met with, "it's not designed for that, can I help you hookup your email, or get on Facebook?" When the answer to my question of whether they knew who I could email or friend request that could answer my previous questions, was "No", I politely declined. And "no, I guess there's nothing else I needed help with at this time". I clearly needed to make some new connections. 

At the same time that I was fighting the TDG13, I was experimenting with another Tobii Dynavox product. It is the PCEye5, and is a USB eyegaze camera bar that can be attached to an existing laptop, tablet or desktop, supporting up to a 27" screen. It is designed for Windows only (yuck again), so I did what any self-respecting hacker would do. I hooked it up to my Mac in a Windows 10 VM. I had to skip the first part, where you take it apart first, to look for microprocessors, flash and potential serial access. I didn't have my hands. To my surprise, the accuracy was night and day better! I won't recount my subsequent exchange with support about this. Let's just say that it's not supported on a Macintosh. I realized my error immediately in trying to dutifully explain my setup. I even tried to ease their minds that it's an older Intel based mac, not the Arm based silicon trying to run the drivers through the x86 emulation. .... Crickets. Sorry to my non techies out there. Feel free to laugh anyway. I had to. I took them up on the Facebook instruction. I would periodically say "ok, got it... Yep, see that..." while I perused their driver in Ida. Fantastic! I'm joined to the Tobii Dynavox Facebook group! How wonderful. I was already crafting a message and post to the main support person in the group. I didn't mention this during the support chat. However, the support lead and I are quite friendly now. 

As an aside story. I'll mention something that tickled Jane. I started actually becoming active helping other users posting support questions in the group. When Alec, the head tech support rep, started direct messaging me, he thought I worked for them. He said my "answers were so spot on, I thought you worked for us!" He used to work for Microsoft as a developer. I gave him my condolences and started sharing what I was reverse engineering from the Tobii software and why I was able to give people (even the long time "techie" power users) advice, despite being a new user myself. He became, and is still, a great and fruitful connection. As well as friend. I made my last support call. Along with Alec, I'm talking directly with developers and product managers. I'll come back to this later. 

Getting back to the PCEye5... I wanted to replace my TDG13, with as powerful a surface pro as possible, using the PCEye5. I considered NUC form factor on back of monitors, but mounting to the chair becomes less straightforward. Besides, by this point I was already entrenched with Team Gleason, and they offered to outright buy me what I wanted. So fast forward for a moment, and I had a surface pro 8, mountable to my chair. Of course, what was lacking is battery life, speaker, and environmental control through IR. Solve one thing and create more issues. Oh well. I had a plan. But like those of you that may have worked with me... What was in my head was difficult to express to others efficiently. But trod on, I did.

I'll leave it here for now and pick back up with my association with Team Gleason (if I haven't mentioned that yet). And then the crazy circumstances that got my devices fully powered, portable, and loud. Peace friends. Stay tuned.