Tobii Nexus — Webcam eye tracking for your device or application

Following many months of investment, hard work, and dedication, I am thrilled to be able to launch Tobii Nexus — our integration platform for webcam eye tracking. We have been offering integration platforms for years, but until now, they have been hardware-based, either in the form of a plug-and-play USB-peripheral, as a system-on-chip, or specialized components. 

Tobii Nexus marks a milestone in our evolution as our first software-only integration platform for eye tracking data. I know that some of our customers have been looking forward to this day almost as much as I have because it means that they too can deliver solutions as software, which tends to simplify go-to-market strategies, reduce footprint, and lower the entry barrier for device designers and application developers. 

In this post, I want to share my ideas about how I imagine you could use Tobii Nexus. I will also address a question people keep asking me: why have we developed a software product that delivers similar kinds of insights about human behavior as our hardware solutions? The simple answer is our customers have been asking for it. But if you read on, you'll see that the answer is more nuanced and depends on your particular use case. But first, let me tell you about why Tobii Nexus is relevant now. 

A new sense for your device 

Perhaps not so surprisingly for a person who has worked at Tobii for over a decade, I get enthusiastic about sensors and their powerfulness. The sensor's ability to capture information about the world we live in has enabled us to program machines and applications to respond to their environments, to adapt according to a real-time influx of data in much the same way that people intuitively interact with each other and the objects in their surroundings. By mashing sensor data with context, you can generate high-level insights that a device or application can use to interpret and respond to how users move, what they say, and what they want to do. Because Tobii Nexus can help you generate those kinds of insights for everyone, when you combine that with device proliferation, I’d say that Tobii Nexus possesses a widespread potential to disrupt. 

What you can do with Tobii Nexus 

Tobii Nexus’ potential lies primarily within the education and healthcare sectors, where digital transformation has been ongoing for some time, accelerated by the pandemic and the continued need for remote collaboration capabilities. By delivering objective, unbiased data measured systematically, developers can build applications with Tobii Nexus that provide reliable daily insights about, for example, a person's behavior, mental health, attention, and wellbeing that can be compared over time. I see Tobii Nexus as a catalyst for digitizing tasks that typically rely on manual observation, things like screening and assessment. 

Specifically, I am thinking of things like reading assessment, eye testing, and therapies for conditions such as nearsightedness (myopia), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD, and lazy eye (amblyopia). Several of our customers have developed advanced solutions for reading assessment with our hardware integration platforms. With Tobii Nexus, existing companies with healthcare solutions using VR headsets or
Tobii Eye Tracker 5L, would be able to expand their offering to reach additional audiences. In addition to assessing a child's ability to read (designed for primary schools), they might be able to leverage their existing know-how to develop in-home assessment solutions, for example, with features like focus level and attention wandering. Such features could be included on all kinds of devices, enabling a holistic view of reading capability not only for schoolchildren but for everyone.

Another of our customers has used one of our integration platforms to create a bespoke device that helps children with lazy eye train their vision by watching movies and TV shows. The current gold standard for lazy eye (amblyopia) is patching, which kids hate, and compliance is low. Suppose our customer could use Tobii Nexus instead of a physical product. In that case, they too might be able to switch to software-only solutions running on standard devices like PCs, laptops, and tablets that their users already own.  

How to choose a Tobii integration platform 

So, going back to what I mentioned earlier, why would we create a product that replaces one we already have? Innovation is critical to remaining relevant in the tech industry, and tech products evolve as the landscape changes. But let me start answering the question by saying that Tobii Nexus isn't a software copy of Tobii Eye Tracker 5L. 

There are some primary differences between Tobii Nexus and our hardware-based solutions. One area relates to tracking range and display size. This is where Tobii Nexus is more robust and performant. Other differences refer to sensor data refresh rates, latency, and accuracy of gaze. These are qualities that quite naturally are better with dedicated hardware. Tobii Nexus is optimized for the entire population using any standard integrated webcam. So, if you are developing a large-scale screening app, or another app to be used in an everyday setting, then Tobii Nexus is probably ideal.  

If however you are developing a clinical device where the user sits facing the screen where high refresh rates and top of the line accuracy is important, then one of our hardware solutions is most likely your best bet. 

Learn more about Tobii Nexus, where you can also get in touch with me and some of my fellow Tobiians. We would love to talk the ins and outs of eye tracking with you!