After putting the eye tracker on my wishlist, I received just yesterday the Tobii eye tracker 5... And am having it returned a day later. Why? Because Tobii is predatory towards open software development.
So, what I've found out about this company called "Tobii": actually, there's two companies: Tobii Dynavox focuses on disability assistance devices. Tobii was split off or something, to focus on gaming and research oriented hardware.
But wait there's more: their consumer devices (which they sell online on amazon) is made for games with support for the device already implemented. They offer instead "pro" devices which work with the "free" pro sdk they provide for download.
The catch? So there's the Tobii eye tracker 5, which is what I have... Then for the pro software, the Tobii Pro Spark... Then for Dynavox, the PC Eye 5 (AND THEN, there's thh 5L, which is exactly the same as the 5 but for the development license, which I'll get to). Here's some pictures of each of the devices:
From Amazon, Eye Tracker 5:
From Tobii, the Pro Spark:
:quality(80))
From Tobii Dynavox, the PC Eye:
Hmmm, the Eye Tracker 5 and Pro Spark... LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME. And I believe THEY ARE THE SAME!!! The PC Eye looks similar, but online there are some actual differences listed, like outdoor use, which makes sense for accessibility focus to emphasize on, well, accessibility.
Alright, now onto the licensing agreement, because I want to make and distribute software for the hardware which I was gifted (but which was bought by the gifter, granting me device ownership). See https://www.tobii.com/products/integration/tobii-sdk-license.
If I were to contact them, I would request a "starter license", which restricts from even sending sensor data over a connection... Sharing that software? Forget it- for that you would need their commercial license, which as far as I can tell, listed on their website, costs 1500 euros/year... And it doesn't support the tracker 5- you'd have to request the 5L, which would likely be an additional charge to the initial license purchase (despite being the same hardware). And for whatever reason, the 1500 euro license prohibits commercial use, despite the use cases shown on the website being commercial use.
Oh but what if I wanted to do research instead of game/software development (or gather the full sensor data for the device I own)? Well then, that's where the pro software comes in, again requiring contacting them to get the Pro Spark, despite it being the same. exact. hardware. At least the spark comes with the carrying case...?
This is predatory and closed in, for no reason other than, it seems, "because they can." Because the next best thing consumer-available is either the TrackIR head tracker (which is cheaper but only for head tracking), or Pupil Labs hardware that costs minimum 5,000 euros.
Tobii has commercialized eye tracking for gamers, but with their licensing models and restrictions, they have restricted the games available for the impressive hardware, to high budget titles who can afford the license. For research purposes, it may be possible to gain the necessary license or hardware without additional cost compared to the consumer available option, but they do not say on their website what that cost will be. For open source development, forget it- unless someone manages to reverse engineer the hardware and develop open source drivers, that would be impractical to pay for any license (and even then, the hardware supports Windows facial recgonition, and such biometric systems come with their own level of proprietariness).
It is clear that the area of hardware devices for accessibility is an area still deep in research, with few consumer-available products. If the industry were to make accessibility more readily available, then burying permission to release software from buying the few consumer devices inside licenses is predatory and hurts the efforts.
It does not have to be this way. I have an original Leap Motion hand tracker, which features similar tracking hardware but intended for hands instead of eyes. Leap Motion has become Ultraleap (who now is joining music hardware company ROLI), who, big surprise, provides SDKs and drivers directly on their website and github to download. Ultraleap develops niche hardware like Tobii, which can be used for research, and does not bury development in licenses. (Regarding the merge, it's understandable that they combine with music hardware, as visual hand tracking might not have as many practical use cases compared to eye tracking, I just hope they continue supporting their past hardware as needed, unlike Myo/North who were bought by Google and their previously open SDK was taken down officially)
Luckily, software-wise outside of the Tobii SDK, there are many open source projects for eye tracking based on normal webcams, which from now on I will be looking into. Take a look at https://github.com/eyes-on-disabilities/awesome-eye-tracking. And there are different DIY and VR oriented solutions for eyetracking (which is less inclined to accessibility and more to virtual reality or haptics research). I would like to be able to compare and benchmark the eye tracking hardware vs. the open source solutions, however the starter license agreement prohibits doing that.
No comments:
Post a Comment