Facial recognition for my PC.

Last December when of my sons purchased and eye tracking device and software named Tobii eye. The first day my son Matt set it up and calibrated it for me. It works pretty good and I could run my computer without the voice soft ware. This meant I could run my computer while other people were here for the TV was on. Sadly this is not and up working over the next few days. It seems I needed to be in the exact same spot or could not find my eyes. We tried recalibrating it every day but it was so fickle about my positioning in relation to the computer it really was not a good solution. Matt spent two weeks watching instructional videos and working on it to get it to work. Right before Christmas I finally said this is just not going to work. I know he was very frustrated with trying to get it to work. Turns out it has problems in general working on small laptops which is what I have. It promised so much but delivered very little.
While I was working the vocational rehab people told me of a software that ran the mouse with facial recognition. I had been looking for and finally found it. It was called Camera Mouse. It was a free software developed by Boston University. My main goal was to be able to read books on my PC with the TV on. While my son Dan was home last weekend he downloaded this and spent two days creating macros in my voice software and using Camera Mouse also. He could not get camera mouse to remain in active without turning it off. The problem with turning it off was that I could not turned back on without my voice software. That was a dilemma that he could not overcome.
Thankfully he kept looking and accidentally came across a reviewOf camera mouse that mentioned the software called Smyle Mouse. He looked it up and found it had a 14 day trial. So he downloaded it. This software uses your mouth and follows it. It can be set up so that it does not mouse click unless I smile when the mouse is in position. This works great for what I want. With this mode set up I can do almost anything with my computer without the voice software being turned on. I still need the voice software to dictate things like this post and Facebook posts but this is so much better than before. This offer was a few hundred dollars so it is much more affordable than the first device. It is not perfect and I'm still something of the weak link in the chain partly because my eyesight as such a narrow band my progressive lenses. But I'm so happy now that I can run my PC like I want. I appreciate all the work Matt put into the one that didn't pan out and appreciate Dan's determination and ended up with this software. 2017 is now starting out on a good note.

MS update – January 2017

It has been a while since I posted on my blog. This become a lot of work to post due to my MS advancement. Last December I became essentially a full quadriplegic. I can no longer drive my wheelchair. I had a caregiver control added to the back of my chair. It is proved to be very difficult for my wife and sons to drive me and that is how I get around now. My wife gets me up and puts me in front of my PC. I can use the voice software to operate it as long as there is no background noise. It is very time-consuming and tedious but I can do some things.
In December one of my sons purchased a device that was supposed to allow me to operate my PC I'm following my eye movements.. After two weeks or so of Matt helping me with it I decided it did not work well enough to use or trust is. It promised so much but delivered so little. One issue was that I was using it on a laptop. It was also very difficult to recalibrate every day based on where I was in relation to my PC. Too often it could not even find my eyes. Even when it worked it was very inconsistent.
So 2016 was a year of many disappointments. I thought if I kept using my right hand, I would not lose it. Is turned out to be untrue and MS took it away in spite of everything I did to keep it. My trigeminal procedure last February lasted for eight months and then the pain came back. So now I'm back on the medication that affects the use of my appendages. I guess it doesn't matter now since MS made me a full quad. It took away the pain with a much smaller dose so I guess that's a good thing. Overall it seems kind of disappointing that this wasn't a permanent fix. I could go through it again but it was unbelievably expensive (insurance covered most) and a huge amount of hassles with prep work down in Iowa city.
So my December was especially difficult and I can't say a brought anyone any joy in the mood I was in. I've now popped out of that dark time and have a little better attitude. I emailed by pastor and told him how disappointed I was in the changes through 2016. He understood and is very sympathetic. I'm sure the church members are praying for me and maybe that's why my attitude has picked up a little.